2014’s air death toll highest in a decade, experts say

KUALA LUMPUR — This year is set to be the worst in almost 10 years for airline passenger fatalities, experts say, as a third passenger plane in a week crashed yesterday (July 24), killing all 116 on board.

Yesterday’s Air Algerie jetliner crash brings the death toll to 680, a figure which air-safety consultants at Ascend Worldwide told Bloomberg could make this year “the most lethal year since 2005”, which saw 916 lives lost.

Ascend said the number is higher than the 12-month totals for the past three years.

“Fatal accidents are now so rare that one or two more can completely change the numbers,” Ascend’s head of safety Paul Hayes was quoted as saying.

Mr Hayes also noted six fatalities this year involving aircraft seating more than 14 people, compared with 162 deaths in 10 incidents last year.

Last week, Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew members on board, in an attack the United States said was most likely by a ground-to-air missile strike.

This was followed by the TransAsia Airways crash in Makong in the Penghu island chain, in which only 10 of the 58 people on board survived.

The incidents add to the March 8 disappearance of Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370.

The flight, carrying 239 people from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, has not been found despite the most extensive search operation in aviation history. THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER