908 Died On World Flights Last Year

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31364, 9 May 1967, Page 17

908 Died On World Flights Last Year

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) MONTREAL, May 8. The number of passengers killed during flights on world scheduled air services rose to 908 in 1966 from 684 in 1965, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (1.C.A.0.) said in a statement today, the Associated Press reported. “It seems clear, however, that this deterioration in the accident rates can be regarded as a temporary phenomenon caused by the chance occurrence of a number of serious accidents to relatively large aircraft with unusually high load factors,” the statement said. The statement from the Montreal headquarters of the organisation, a United Nations affiliate, was contained in a summary of the annual report of the 1.C.A.0.’s central council. It notes that statistics “sug-

gest that during the present decade the total number of passenger fatalities caused by flying accidents on the scheduled air services of the world is likely to average about 750 per year, to vary any individual year within 200 of that figure." Profits made by airlines in the I.C-A.O.’s 113 member countries amounted to about SU.S. 932 million during 1966 —the highest total revenue recorded since the organisation was formed in 1947. The statement noted that turbojets, which account for nearly 80 per cent of passenger miles travelled, were involved in only about half of all passenger fatalities, suggesting “a strikingly good safety record” for the craft. Accidents to non-scheduled flights accounted for six fatalities in 1966 compared to 12 in 1965 or “a very substantial fall,” the statement says.