From this morning's TORONTO STAR:

Air Canada is world's safest: Study

British expert ranks 477 air carriers in risk assessment

By Harold Levy
Toronto Star Staff Reporter

Air Canada is the safest airline in the world, an independent study has concluded. British Air safety specialist John Trevett will report at a conference this week in Brussels that Air Canada had a better safety record over a 12-year period than more than 500 airlines throughout the world.

Trevett says in an introduction to the study that he has not only looked at the airline's accident record, as is the usual practice for similar studies, but also considered factors such as management structure, fleet composition and safety regulations.

He concludes that based on its record, an Air Canada passenger has only a one in 1.3 million chance of being involved in any kind of accident. By contrast, those on Air Georgia (in the former Soviet Union) have a one in
333 chance. Air Canada scored 8.99 on ratings ranging from one to 10.

The study was commissioned by an unidentified bank concerned about the travel safety of thousands of its employees around the world.

``These results should be reassuring to Canadians,'' Trevett said in an interview yesterday. ``It looks pretty good because of its size. It's well managed and well regulated, and it enjoys very good relations with other airlines.''

Trevett said Air Canada also received the high score because it has ``a reasonably modern fleet, it operates in a safe air traffic environment, flies into safe airports with long runways and low altitudes and showed a quality of piloting and plane maintenance.''

The study should bring some comfort to Robert Milton, Air Canada's beleaguered chief executive officer. In August, Milton was forced to apologize to the public for problems caused customers by Air Canada's $92 million
merger with rival Canadian Airlines.

An Air Canada spokesperson said Milton was abroad and could not be reached for comment.

British airlines scored well in the study, with British Airways coming 9th and British Midland 16th. However, Nigeria Airways, a partner of British Airways, is one of the worst, coming 432nd out of 477.

In 1995, 11 people died when a Nigeria Airways Boeing 737 crashed on landing. It was the airline's fifth fatal accident.

The study stresses that despite the poor records of some carriers, over-all accident rates are falling. Last year, 674 people were killed in passenger air crashes, well below the average of 1,326.

Trevett, 59, a flight test engineer, says that Air Canada can take comfort from his results, ``but they shouldn't be complacent.''

``It's something you don't relax on,'' he stressed.

With files from the London Sunday Times

-I liked the bit about Air Georgia. It is interesting that one of Air Canada's connectors is called Air Georgian.

Whilst I find the assesment reassuring, whoever wrote it must have a very short memory. Air Canada has had several high-profile incidents over the last few years, many -- if not all -- of which were found to be preventable. I had always thought Canadian, which has a far better safety record than AC, would score high on such a test. Also interesting to see BA so low on the list.

Fly Boy,

Reread the story, flyboy--(and please resist the temptation to take cheap shots at AC.)

Theoretically, the study examines factors beyond mere accident records (but see my additional posting below).


[This message has been edited by AC*SE (edited 09-11-2000).]

Does anyone know where to find the complete list online??

http://62.232.96.173/flightsafe/airlines.html

It should be noted, the methodology of this looks pretty flawed to me.

A lot of the multipliers seem to be notional. Why is Canadian airspace twice as safe as Nigerian airspace? Why not 10 times, or 1.8473 times?

The only significant factors are accident record (and 'accident' is not defined), fleet age, and fleet mix (reflecting superior type safety for some aircraft over others).

All of the other factors are pretty much identical for US/Canadian/Western European carriers, which makes the whole list look a little less credible.

Does anyone remember the movie "Rainman" with Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise? The autistic character played by Hoffman refused to travel from Cincinnati to LA by air unless it was on Qantas - no way on Delta (8.23 in today's study). At the time, and maybe even today, Qantas had a perfect safety record. I looked at the list from the latest study. Qantas is 8.94 and Air Canada is 8.99. But I also recall AC had a serious fire in a DC-9 over Cincinnati near that time. So I think the Rainman guy is perhaps a more reliable authority. Of course, he went by car since Qantas was not serving the market. But it probably boosted Qantas's ticket sales anyway.

According to the database www.airdisaster.com , AC aircraft have been involved in the following incidents since 1970:

07.05.1970 Air Canada McDonnell Douglas DC-8-63 109:109
St. Therese, Quebec, Canada (CF-TIW)

06.26.1978 Air Canada McDonnell Douglas DC-9-3 22:107
Toronto, Ontario, Canada (CF-TLV)

06.02.1982 Air Canada McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 0:0
Montreal, Canada (CF-TLY)

06.02.1983 Air Canada McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 23:46
Covington, Kentucky, USA (C-FTLU)

07.23.1983 Air Canada Boeing 767-233 0:69
Gimli, Canada (C-GAUN)

12.16.1997 Air Canada Bombardier Canadair CRJ100 0:42
Fredericton, Canada (C-FSKI)

Since the study went back just 12-years, only the Fredericton accident would have been considered. Qantas has two recorded crashes, with the second included in the survey:

08.24.1960 Qantas Airways Lockheed L-1049G 0:50
Plaisance, Mauritius (VH-EAC)

09.23.1999 Qantas Airways Boeing 747-438 0:407
Bangkok, Thailand (VH-OJH)

Remember that Qantas was a much smaller airline than AC until two years ago when it absorbed TransAustralianAirlines, so it operated about 1/10th the number of flights ACwould have over the years. And while I am sure typhoons are difficult to fly around, QF doesn't have to cope with snow and ice for half the flying year on 80% of its routes as AC must.



[This message has been edited by Shareholder (edited 09-11-2000).]

Thanks for the research - I think some of those listed might have been extreme emergency landings. The AC incident at Gimli became legendary - the 767 Gimli glider - became the subject of its own book and movie. I think that was a flight from Ottawa to Edmonton where the fuel load was listed as kg but was in pounds, or something like that, and the fuel gauge was inoperative. So the thing ran out of fuel over Winnipeg and the pilots brought it down on an abandoned runway that was being used for drag races, with no fuel and thus no fire hazard, and no serious injuries. The pilots were disciplined by AC then someone woke up and decided they were heroes. The accident over Covington Ky was the fire over Cincinnati I mentioned in the post about Rainman. Actually, a related and important safety issue was raised in the Swissair MD-11 crash in Nova Scotia, where the procedures mandated by the airline and the pilot's delays in taking action after seeing smoke led to the disaster - according to news articles Delta Airlines pilots at the first sign of smoke bring a plane down on the closest runway without regard to load. Does AC have a position on smoke in a plane given what happened in the Covington KY incident in 1983?

AC and other airlines allways reveiw the safety policies regardless if an incident has or has not happened. I'm sure that the Pilot will not hesitate to put a plane down with a full load if the situation warrants it. An aircraft is pretty easy to replace. Although I'm sure LLoyds of London beg to differ.

AC's policies are very stringent and there have been incidents where we (meaning ground handlers) have found a problem and the Aircraft has been taken out of service. AC's policy is for the Lead to make a visual walk around prior to departure.

Just to let you know each flight is met by a maintenance engineer and checked over.

Safety without compromise is our motto.

Regards YYZAC

We can argue on the merits of this study and debate the validity of the parameters chosen to benchmark each participant. I still feel very confortable flying AC and am quite content in putting my safety in the hands of competent flight crews and dedicated ground crews. I systematically refuse to fly certain airlines because I don't trust them.