Technical faults to blame for most fatal airliner crashes in 2003

TECHNICAL failures were the main cause of fatal airliner accidents last year for the first time, it was revealed yesterday.

Until now the main cause of fatal crashes has been what is known as controlled flight into terrain (CFIT).

These are accidents in which the plane crashes without the crew being aware how close to the ground they are.

But technical or maintenance faults accounted for 11 of the 27 fatal accidents in 2003, compared with 10 fatal accidents caused by CFIT, according to figures from Flight International magazine.

Flight's operations and safety editor David Learmount said: "This is unique since the advent of second-generation jet aircraft in the mid-1970s, when the reliability of aircraft, their engines and systems improved massively."

The 27 fatal airliner crashes last year led to 702 deaths. Both figures were the lowest ever and down from 1,041 deaths in 40 accidents in 2002.

Africa, consistently the worst region in the world for airline safety, suffered a particularly bad year in 2003, producing the three worst fatal accidents involving large jets.

Crashes involving an Air Algerie Boeing 737, a Sudan Airways Boeing 737 and a Union des Transports Africains de Guinee (UTAG) Boeing 727, killed 368 people.

The worst accidents in 2003 were:

Jan 8 THY Turkish Airlines, Turkey, 75 dead.

Jan 8 Air Midwest, USA, 21 dead.

Jan 9 TANS, Peru, 44 dead.

Mar 6 Air Algerie, Algeria, 103 dead.

May 26 UM Air, Turkey, 74 dead.

July 8 Sudan Airways, Port Sudan, 116 dead.

Dec 25 UTAG, Benin, 148 dead.