According to the European Aviation Safety Agency’s latest annual safety review, there were no serious accidents involving heavy business jets—those with mtows of more than 12,500 pounds—last year in Europe. Further, it said, over the preceding 10 years large business jets had the lowest mean number of fatal accidents in the region, followed by the offshore commercial helicopter segment.
The report shows that six people lost their lives in five turbine business airplane accidents in Europe between 2007 and 2013. There were no fatal accidents from 2014 through 2017. Three people suffered serious injuries in 22 non-fatal accidents from 2007 through 2017. However, there were no injuries from non-fatal business aircraft accidents or the five serious incidents recorded last year.
While these statistics might appear impressive, EASA said in the report that these “low numbers probably indicate an incomplete dataset, possibly as a result of the lack of reporting of occurrences not classified as accidents.”
EASA lumps accidents and incidents of business jets with that of the airlines because of the relatively low number of events by the business aviation sector and a similar operating environment for both segments. According to the report, incident and accident data of the two segments indicate the lowest-risk areas were runway, obstacle and air collisions, and taxiway excursions. The highest-risk areas were runway excursions and aircraft upsets.