Africa accounts for only 4 per cent of the world’s air traffic but nearly a third of the world’s air disasters take place on the continent, a senior aviation official says.
So dismal is the situation that African aviation authorities meeting here on Thursday decided to form regional organisations to investigate all air crashes and tighten safety standards.
Officials say Africa’s disproportionate share of aircraft disasters is often attributed to bad equipment, poor maintenance and failure to adhere to safety standards. Poor infrastructure and emergency response services in many African countries can lead to more deaths.
Aviation expert Mwangi wa Kamau said his African Civil Aviation Agency, based in Windhoek, Namibia, has struggled to bring African states into compliance with international safety standards. He said he witnessed poor safety practices in his work as chief aviation accident investigator in his native Kenya and in Namibia.
Since 1945, Congo has had more fatal crashes than any other African country, with more than 20 in the past 13 years, says the Aviation Safety Network.
Most of the planes flying there are aging Soviet-era aircraft.
One of the more recent Congo crashes was in April last year, when a DC-9 skidded off the runway during takeoff and crashed into a neighbourhood in an eastern town, killing at least 44 people. The condition of the runway is suspected of contributing to the crash. Lava flow from a volcano eruption several years before oozed onto the runway and solidified, cutting its length by more than half to about 600m.
The causes of some other recent crashes remain a mystery.
– Yemenia Flight 626 plunged into the ocean off East Africa on June 30, killing 152 people. Only a teenage girl survived. Investigators have not determined the cause of the crash, partly because the black boxes recovered from the Indian Ocean were damaged.
– On May 5, 2007, a Kenya Airways plane nose-dived into a swamp in Cameroon, killing all 114 aboard after less than a minute in flight. The wreckage was not found until more than 40 hours after the crash. There is still no official ruling on the cause of the crash.
According to the International Air Transport Association, Africa has the highest incidence of the most typical type of crash – runway crashes during takeoff or landing – with nearly 4 cases per million flights.
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
By: Arabella-Cox - 7th January 2010 at 19:25
Africa hosted the year’s first commercial aviation accident and you can see the pictures here
B727 spares available!!!
By: Selsport69 - 4th January 2010 at 17:50
Ok I have good feedback on this subject having spent the past 9 months flying around Nigeria & Ghana on business. SAA no problems at all apart from their service is poor. Nigeria actually surprised me. I have flown Arik both domestically and internationally. All times the aircraft were clean and the A345 are all new as ar emuch of their aircraft. Also flown on Citylink Ghana, Overland Airways Nigeria & Areo Contractors. All very good flights. Only dodgy thing in Nigeria is the airport security. Half the scanners dont work. Security checking your suitcases want a gift (money) and its no problem to walk from secure side to unsecure side only costs you N100 which is less than a pound.
By: Ren Frew - 2nd January 2010 at 15:26
There was a wee old Jimmy who used to drink in my old local in Glasgow years ago. He used to be an aircraft engineer, working mainly in Africa. He used to tell me some amazing stories about his experiences out there, but I’ll always remember the time he told me about climbing inside the hold of a 727 to search for an electrical fault, to find “organic matter growing” amongst the wiring ! 😮
By: Grey Area - 2nd January 2010 at 14:49
Moderator Message
We only need one thread on airline safety in Africa, chaps.
Cheers
GA
By: Arabella-Cox - 2nd January 2010 at 13:19
Anyone building/restoring a cockpit would find plenty lying around the airfields in Africa. 🙂
By: Newforest - 2nd January 2010 at 13:09
Must hurt when you read this! Aircraft is ex TWA not Fedex.
By: Arabella-Cox - 2nd January 2010 at 12:35
First Commercial Accident of 2010 in Africa
Fly Africa forum reporting B727 accident at Kinshasa this morning, eyewitness.
CAA, on the EU banned list is the operator. They had an accident on 19 NOV 2009, see here
By: Arabella-Cox - 1st January 2010 at 09:15
Quote from email distributed by Aviation Safety (see new thread): Five out of 30 accident airplanes were operated by airlines on the E.U. “black list” (as opposed to nine out of 26 in 2007 and three out of 32 in 2008).
In 2009 Africa was again the most unsafe region: 30% of all fatal airliner accidents happened in Africa, while the continent only accounts for approximately 3 percent of all world aircraft departures.
A review of all thirty fatal airliner accidents, including some statistics can be found at http://aviation-safety.net/2009/
By: Arabella-Cox - 24th December 2009 at 21:10
Corruption(rife in Africa): another reason for danger in the skies:
By: Arabella-Cox - 14th December 2009 at 19:07
It is even more dangerous to drive on the roads in Africa :
Ten killed in crash
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=181&art_id=nw20091214194813334C949001
Not surprising when guys are caught doing 232 km/h (about 145 mph)
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=15&art_id=nw20091214185324908C571121
By: F35 Lightning - 11th December 2009 at 17:52
Russia is not near to being the the second most dangerous place to fly in the world, the Russian aviation authorities have certainly improved their act in the last few years. I would fly in Russia, and have done so in the past.
Second most dangerous country to fly in? Try Indonesia…
This exactly. Russia are doing a hell of a lot to improve there airspace
By: Arabella-Cox - 10th December 2009 at 20:36
I had the honor of flying (in the copilot seat) a Yak-42 once from Pointe Noire to Brazzaville and return. The Russian crew were great. The plane is built like a brick s***house and flies like one too. That crew was good but other Eastern Bloc crews I knew were like sailors.:D
By: ADvonge09 - 25th November 2009 at 01:06
Africa worlds most dangerous place to fly
Most impressive. Lob, I envy your ability to go to these places and take pictures…you have no idea. Im assuming you work for DFWI?
By: Arabella-Cox - 20th November 2009 at 21:19
I flew in Africa for 19 years, and one year in Europe, and have been a passenger more than enough times as well. The reasons for poor airline safety in Africa are numerous. A few examples will illustrate:
Firstly, a lot of pilots receive their ab-initio training from low hour, low experience flight instructors who are building up their hours. I often had to re-educate students who had been fed gibberish by low time instructors(and sometimes even experienced guys).
Another reason: Because of fierce competition, companies pressurize aircrew to exceed legal limitations(weight and balance, duty hours, busting minimums etc), whilst not directly telling them to do so, it is certainly implied. Because of equally fierce competition for jobs (and the pursuit of hours, prospects of flying bigger aircraft and so on), pilots often give in to these demands.
Then there are totally incompetent ground staff. I am aware of check in staff at airports accepting bribes for not declaring baggage exceedences, therefore the final weight and balance is inaccurate. I remember several occasions rotating and nothing happened until the trim was run well back.
One time whilst taking off in Brazzaville, about 20 knots below V1, a military vehicle crossed the runway in front of us. I yanked the plane(B727) off the ground at that speed. Our ground guy told me that the main wheels had missed the truck by about 3 feet. We filed a report with the authorities. No one was held accountable. Never heard another thing.
I’ll write up some more stories down the road….
By: Arabella-Cox - 18th November 2009 at 06:38
Isn’t Garuda banned from EU airspace at the moment, except for a few modern B777’s they have?
I know for a fact that back in my native New Zealand, young people off on the ‘Big OE’, as we call youthful overseas trips, cheerfully talk about getting great deals on Garuda tickets to Indonesia on the way to Europe.
Brave people indeed.
By: zoot horn rollo - 17th November 2009 at 16:59
Russia is not near to being the the second most dangerous place to fly in the world, the Russian aviation authorities have certainly improved their act in the last few years. I would fly in Russia, and have done so in the past.
Second most dangerous country to fly in? Try Indonesia…
I would most certainly agree that Indonesia seems to have had major problems in recent years
By: Schorsch - 17th November 2009 at 16:23
Russia is not near to being the the second most dangerous place to fly in the world, the Russian aviation authorities have certainly improved their act in the last few years. I would fly in Russia, and have done so in the past.
Second most dangerous country to fly in? Try Indonesia…
Question if they take hull loss rate (which takes hull losses per take-off, but doesn’t factor in the passengers on board), or the number of death bodies per travelled distance. While the layman would consider the latter more meaningful, for flight safety the first is of higher importance, as the flight safety is best expressed as how many aircraft (irregardless of their size) are lost per 1 million take-off & land cycles (again considering the low impact flight time has on accident probability).
The comparison of Russia versus Africa is a bit odd as IMC is more likely in Russia.
By: D1566 - 17th November 2009 at 16:06
I was really impressed to see the company we use for internal flights and helicopters featured on the EU ‘banned’ list …. 😡
By: Levsha - 17th November 2009 at 15:44
This is no surprise. I would imagine Russia would come a close second.
Russia is not near to being the the second most dangerous place to fly in the world, the Russian aviation authorities have certainly improved their act in the last few years. I would fly in Russia, and have done so in the past.
Second most dangerous country to fly in? Try Indonesia…
By: Arabella-Cox - 17th November 2009 at 06:38
As usual too much blame is put on the specific aircraft type.
Fact is that even a Tu-154 can be operated perfectly safe, the operators are to blame.Africa and Russia have one thing in common: lack of safety culture.
By the way: traveling in Africa is dangerous no matter which mode you chose. Such articles often imply that it is extremely dangerous to use an aircraft in Africa, while making a trip with the railway or by car is even more dangerous. Africa is – for Western standards – generally a dangerous place.
This is a very important point. As aircraft, the TU-154 or IL-86 are among the types I’d most like to fly on right now, but only if I could be assured they had been looked after properly.
I agree with your comments about Africa. I went to South Africa some time ago and witnessed some truly terrifying things on the roads.
It’s not a country I will ever be going back to. I hated the place.
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November 15, 2009 at 2:52 am