Air Carriers Post Worst Safety Record in Years

Major U.S. airlines in 1987 had the highest number of accidents in 13 years and the most deaths in five years while commuter carriers had their worst safety record of this decade, the National Transportation Safety Board reported Tuesday.

The board said the large airlines had 31 accidents last year, including four involving fatalities, accounting for 231 deaths. The commuter airlines, which fly smaller planes, had 35 accidents and 58 deaths in 1987, the largest number for that segment of the industry since 1979, when 66 people died.

The 31 accidents among the U.S. airlines flying large jet aircraft was the highest figure since 1974, when the airlines had 42 accidents. The 231 fatalities were topped during the past decade only by 1979, when 351 people died, and 1982, when 233 were killed, the board reported.

Called Misleading

Airline industry officials suggested, however, that the accident and fatality figures are misleading. They say the rate of accidents involving fatalities--0.043 per 100,000 departures--was lower in 1987 than in most years although significantly higher than the rate in 1986, when there was only one fatality involving major carriers.

“There were only six other years since the beginning of safety regulations in 1926 that had a lower (fatal accident) rate,” said William F. Bolger, president of the Air Transport Assn., which represents the major air carriers.

Bolger said the airlines carried more than 450 million passengers on nearly 7 million flights during 1987, and that 17 of the 31 accidents involved some sort of injury. The safety board counts an accident whenever there is a significant injury or aircraft damage. Incidents involving heavy turbulence in which there is a significant injury also is classified as an accident.

During 1987, the major airline accident rate--covering fatal and non-fatal accidents--was 0.43 per 100,000 departures compared with 0.31 the previous year, the safety board said. The accident rate for commuters was 1.43 per 100,000 departures, the highest since 1981.

PSA Crash

The major airline accident rate figure did not include the crash of a Pacific Southwest Airlines jet in California on Dec. 7 in which the cause is believed to have been a passenger firing a gun in the cockpit. The PSA crash, which claimed 43 lives, was included in the board’s total accident and death figures, however.

The other major accidents during the year included the crash of a Northwest Airlines jetliner on Aug. 16 near Detroit, in which 156 people died; the crash of a Continental Airlines DC-9 on Nov. 15 in Denver, which claimed 28 lives, and the crash of a Buffalo Airways jet on April 13 near Kansas City, which killed four people.