In 2012, a total of 407 people lost their lives in aircraft accidents worldwide. That is considerably fewer than the annual average of 820 deaths over the past 10 years, according to preliminary data of the NLR-Air Transport Safety Institute (NLR-ATSI).
2012 was a good year regarding aviation safety, with 101 accidents involving commercial aircraft reported worldwide, of which 13 had fatal consequences for the people onboard. Over the past ten years, 130 accidents per year occurred on average, of which 27 resulted in fatalities. These figures pertain to commercial aircraft weighing more than 5.7 tons. As in previous years, the number of fatal accidents in Africa (5) was relatively high in relation to the very modest traffic volumes. No fatal accident with a commercial aircraft operation was reported in Europe. Runway excursions were the most frequent reported accident type in 2012 (26%). This share has increased over the last few years.
In 2012, the largest aviation disaster occurred in Nigeria where a MD83 of DANA Air crashed during an emergency landing at Lagos airport, killing 163 people (including 10 people on the ground). Another major accident occurred at the airport of Islamabad, in Pakistan, where a B737-200 of Bhoja Air crashed during landing killing 127 people.
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