ICAO’s 2022 Safety Report is out!

We just released our 2022 Safety Report and it presents a detailed analysis of global civil aviation safety performance for 2021 operations.  Report results reveal a 9.8% decrease in the global accident rate for last year vs. 2020, dropping from 2.14 to 1.93 per million departures.  Meanwhile, 2021 fatalities fell by 66% against the number in 2020, though the number of accidents where fatalities occurred remained consistent at four.

“These outcomes are very positive and encouraging, and reconfirm that air transport is the safest mode of transport even during the current global circumstances,” commented ICAO Secretary General Juan Carlos Salazar. “Scheduled commercial flight departures in 2021 increased by almost 11%, but even despite these millions of more flights amidst restart and recovery resource shortages and the many other operational challenges facing airline and airport operators today, air transport’s collective and longstanding commitment to the safety, security and health of passengers and crew remains unwavering.”

“The positive safety performance being seen system-wide is recognized in the 2022 Safety Report as being due in part to the pandemic response and recovery recommendations set out by the ICAO Council’s Aviation Recovery Task Force (CART),” added ICAO Council President Salvatore Sciacchitano, “and to the Safety Stream commitments adopted by States at the ICAO High-level Conference on COVID-19 (HLCC) held last October.”

The 2022 Safety Report also stresses that in response to existing and emerging trends, we are working in closer partnership today with the whole international aviation community to achieve future safety improvements.  Key emphasis is being placed on improving safety performance and reducing operational safety risk through improved standardization, implementation, and monitoring. The aircraft accidents used in ICAO’s Safety Report analyses are reviewed and validated by the ICAO Occurrence Validation Study Group (OVSG), and cover all aircraft used in scheduled commercial operations with a certified maximum take-off weight (MTOW) of over 5,700 kg. This includes virtually all passenger, cargo and business jets in use today.

Key aviation accident risk categories, as defined in the ICAO 2020-2022 Global Aviation Safety Plan (GASP), currently include: controlled flight into terrain (CFIT); loss of control in-flight (LOC-I); mid-air collision (MAC);  runway excursions (RE) and runway incursions (RI). The CFIT and LOC-I categories notably accounted for all fatal accidents in 2021, which demonstrates the improvements achieved in runway safety worldwide, supported by States and industry adopting ICAO standards and guidance, as well as taking advantage of related ICAO implementation support programmes, projects, products and services.

The 2022 edition of the ICAO Safety Report provides updates for the ICAO 2020-2022 Global Aviation Safety Plan (GASP) indicators linked to its ‘Goal 1’, which focuses on achieving a continuous global reduction of operational safety risks and related targets.

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