In the first nine months of this year, accidents involving turbine business airplane operations worldwide declined by 30 percent compared with the first three quarters of last year. According to AIN research, business jets and turboprops suffered 38 nonfatal mishaps and 14 crashes that caused 46 deaths in the first nine months of 2016 versus 57 nonfatal accidents and 19 crashes that took 68 lives in the same period last year.
Nonfatal accidents involving U.S.-registered business jets dropped to six in the previous three quarters from 15 last year, with Part 91 mishaps falling to five from 12. Accidents involving Part 135 on-demand operations remained at one nonfatal accident for each of the comparable periods. There was one fatal crash under Part 91 in each of the two periods. On Jan. 18, 2016, a U.S.-registered Cessna Citation 525 on a Part 91 IFR flight plan broke up while maneuvering at altitude. The ATP-rated pilot and his passenger were killed. Still under investigation is the Aug. 16, 2015 midair between a civilian Rockwell Sabreliner, on a Part 91 flight for the U.S. Navy, and a privately operated Cessna 172. The four people in the business jet and the one person in the Skyhawk perished.
Two people died in one accident involving a non-U.S.-registered business jet in January through September 2016 versus 11 fatalities in two crashes involving non-U.S.-registered jets in the 2015 period. On August 16 this year, the two pilots died in the crash of a Venezuelan-registered Citation 550. A video shows the twinjet gaining just a little height on takeoff before turning right, sliding down a slope, hitting a rocky embankment and bursting into flames.
The four fatal accidents involving U.S.-registered business turboprops in the first nine months of this year were half the number for last year, with a consequent drop in fatalities: to 15 in the 2016 period from 25 in the same time frame last year. The safety record for non-U.S-registered turboprops remained about the same: 27 people died in eight crashes this year compared with 28 in the same period last year.
The accompanying charts do not include the Sept. 22, 2016 incident in which a parked King Air was substantially damaged when it was hit by a Cessna 210 that went out of control during takeoff. The 2016 figures also do not include the following mishaps: a Citation 560 dinged June 8 when maintenance workers taxied the jet into a van; a 208 Caravan that incurred substantial damage June 5 when the tail stand collapsed while passengers were boarding; a parked Cessna 441 that was damaged on May 14 when hit by a homebuilt aircraft during a crash landing; a Citation 525 that caught fire in a hangar on February 20; and the crash on April 6 of a Japanese Air Force Hawker 800, killing all six people on board.