GA, Airline Accidents Increase; Air Taxis Decrease

The NTSB Friday released preliminary statistics for last year showing an increase in aviation accidents for airline and general aviation operations, and a decline for on-demand air taxis. According to the Safety Board, there were 1,669 accidents in 2005 involving recip and turbine GA aircraft versus 1,617 in 2004. The 562 fatalities involved in GA accidents were four more than in 2004. The NTSB also reported fewer GA flight hours. More fatalities and more accidents on fewer flight hours resulted in higher GA rates, which are recorded as accidents per 100,000 flight hours. Although the number of nonfatal accidents involving turbine and recip air-taxi aircraft increased from 43 to 55 year-over-year, fatal accidents dropped from 23 in 2004 to 11 last year. Combined with an increase in flight hours last year, air-taxi accident rates decreased.