ROYAL AIR FORCE

Evening Post, Issue 25, 30 January 1935, Page 21

ROYAL AIR FORCE

FEWER FATAL ACCIDENTS

EFFICACY OF PARACHUTES

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, Januaiy 5.

Last year wast the safest the Eoyal Air Force ever experienced. In spits of further increases in strength and. in the amount of flying- done, the number of K.A.F. officers and men killed : was less than half the average figure for the past eight years, and less than one-1 third the figure for 1926, when the toll reached a peak with 85 lives lost in 54 fatal accidents. In 1934 there were 19 fatal accidents involving tha- deaths of 28 members of the E..A.F. Twenty members of the E.A.F. saved their lives by using their parachutes. In 1933 there were 38 fatal accidents and 53 deaths. The figures showing fatal accidents in the R.A.F. for the past nine years are a remarkable tribute to the increased safety of aeroplanes. For nine years the K.A.F. fatal accidents fieures wcie:—»

The causes of this, marked improvement are probably to he found mainly in the improved trustworthiness: in the' aeroplanes1 and engines. Engine' failure is a rarity in service machines today, and breakage; of- any part of* the airframe structureis. almost unknown with British, machines. ;

TTatal Squadrons. Accidents. Deaths. L926 v 61 54 85 L927 .63 40 - 57 1928 ....... 69 50 76" L929 73 . 31 42 L930 ■ 85 .45 65 L931 85 45 75 1932 88 32 48 L933 90 38 53 L93-1 93 I» 28