Flyers have seen a tragic spate of air accidents in the past year.
The latest was the deaths of 162 passengers aboard an Air Asia Flight QZ8501 which vanished over the Java Sea on a short haul flight from Surabaya, Indonesia to Singapore.
Underwater drones have at last found the wreckage on the seabed after looking for signs of the stricken Airbus A320-200 for more than two weeks.
Air accident investigators have also recovered the vital black box flight recorder which should unlock some of the mystery as to what made the plane crash out of the sky.
Meanwhile, a massive air and sea search is still underway trying to locate Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
The jet disappeared off air traffic control and military radar while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 crew and passengers on board – and no real evidence of what happened has surfaced from beneath the waves.
Jet shot down
Even more terrifying was the shooting down of another Malaysian Airlines plane, flight MH17.
Militia reportedly supported by Russian troops or ‘advisers’ fired a missile at the aircraft, which exploded in the sky and scattered debris over a large area of The Ukraine. Nearly 300 passengers and crew died.
The year was the worst for fatal air crashes for a decade, with 21 accidents and 968 deaths.
If you are an expat or overseas worker worried about air safety, airratings.com has drawn up a list of the 10 safest airlines.
Australia’s Qantas is the only airline with a 100% record of never having an aircraft involved in a fatal incident in 94 years of flying and deservedly takes the top spot in the rankings.
Top 10 safest airlines
The rankings for the world’s safest airlines based on official audits are:
- QANTAS (Australia)
- Air New Zealand (New Zealand)
- British Airways (United Kingdom)
- Cathay Pacific Airways (Hong Kong)
- Emirates (United Arab Emirates)
- Etihad Airways (United Arab Emirates)
- EVA Air (Taiwan)
- Finnair (Finland)
- Lufthansa (Germany)
- Singapore Airlines (Singapore)
Of course, most airlines have impeccable maintenance and customer service routines aimed at ensuring passengers arrive at their destinations safely.
Many air accidents come down to two main faults – pilot error or equipment failure.
Both are down often down to chance and sometimes other factors, like bad weather play a part.
Don’t forget millions of passengers are in the air every day as thousands of flights taken them around the globe, and only a small percentage ever comes to harm – in fact statistics suggest people are 30 times more at risk on the roads than taking a flight.
