Turbulence, runway excursions and ground damage were the most common accident types among airliners in 2022, according to the US-based Flight Safety Foundation (FSF).
In 2022, jet and turboprop aircraft certified to carry at least 14 passengers were involved in 115 accidents worldwide, the FSF reported, ahead of the US government's March 15 aviation "safety summit", which is to take place in the wake of several recent near-collisions involving aircraft taxiing at airports in the country.
In 2022, of the accidents recorded worldwide by the FSF, 16 were fatal and resulted in 233 deaths among passengers, crew and people on the ground.
The FSF reported 22 turbulence-related accidents, the most common type, in 2022, with 104 such accidents reported since 2017. There were 16 runway excursion accidents and 14 related to ground damage. The fourth and fifth most common accident types were loss of control and controlled flight into terrain, the FSF reported.
“The number of turbulence-related accidents is likely just a small fraction of the turbulence events that operators experience during any given year,” said FSF president and chief executive Hassan Shahidi.
“As we note in the report’s call to action, passengers need to recognise the importance of adhering to crew instructions to fasten their seat belts, and the industry needs to continue to improve its ability to detect turbulence and to share information about areas of turbulence," he said.
The FSF report was published as the US government's Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) geared up to host an event aimed at ensuring the country's airspace is "the safest in the world", according to transport secretary Pete Buttigieg.
The US government has proposed regulatory reforms affecting airlines, and has been putting pressure on carriers to reduce costs around seating children next to parents on flights, with Joe Biden, the president, criticising airlines in his recent State of the Union speech.
Airlines have in turn said government proposals go beyond the issue of seating children and would amount to a European Union-style regime that would reduce competitiveness.
Buttigieg was criticised for allegedly being slow to act in the wake of Southwest Airlines' "meltdown" in late 2022 that resulted in 16,700 flight cancellations and the loss by the carrier of hundreds of millions of dollars.