This year, there is a new chapter specifically looking at unmanned aircraft system (UAS) / drone safety performance.
In 2023, traffic reached 95 % of 2019, pre-COVID levels. A total of 2.3 billion passengers were welcomed by Europe’s airports in 2023. Passenger traffic across the European airport network increased by 19 % compared with the previous year.
At a global level, over recent years, there have been around 10 fatal accidents annually (between 2020-2022); in 2023 this dropped to two fatal accidents. From these two accidents, there were 77 fatalities, marking a decrease compared to 2022. It is the second-lowest fatality count in the decade, close to the record-lowest number set in 2017 (66 fatalities).
In 2023, there were 7.3 million safe flights in Europe with no fatal accidents, involving a European operator both for complex and non-complex aeroplanes. While this is clearly positive news, this result was only achieved by the entire industry focusing on safety as a priority. There is no room for complacency in aviation safety.
Commercial air transport (CAT) aeroplanes
EASA says the geopolitical landscape continues to impact aviation safety significantly, leading to reduced airspace availability and particularly the manipulation of global navigation satellite system (GNSS) signals through jamming and spoofing. The Tokyo Haneda Airport runway collision that occurred in January confirmed the importance of further actions to improve runway safety.
In 2023, there were 7.3 million safe flights in Europe with no fatal accidents involving a European operator both for complex and non-complex aeroplanes. Further, there were 94 accident and serious-incident occurrences in 2023, coded with the ‘system component failure’ occurrence category for complex CAT aeroplanes.
For specialised operations (SPO), 2023 was the year of the lowest number of accidents since 2013 — 11 in total. The majority of SPO accidents and serious incidents fell into the loss of control in flight (LOC-I) occurrence category.
Aerodromes (ADR) and ground handling (GH)
For the Aerodromes (ADR) and ground handling (GH) operations, the yearly rate of accidents and serious incidents has decreased for the second year in a row in 2023, down to 1.7 accidents and serious incidents per million aerodrome movements. 2023 saw 17 non-fatal accidents and serious incidents in the domain, which is the lowest number over the last ten years.
While there has not been a fatal accident in the ADR and GH operations in the last ten years, the year 2023 saw only 1 serious injury, for the fourth time in the last ten years. For the ADR and GH operations, during the period 2019-2023, there were more than 108 occurrences coded ‘ground collision’. This is by far the most frequently used incident category attributed to accident or serious incidents in the domain.
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Tags: safe flights in Europe, European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA)
