According to EASA’s latest annual safety review, fatalities from accidents involving member state-registered non-commercial complex (MS-NCC) business airplanes in 2022 were the highest recorded over the past decade. Ten people lost their lives in two such accidents last year versus zero fatal accidents in the previous three years. NCC airplanes are defined as any turbofan aircraft exceeding a mtow of 12,566 pounds or any multi-engine turboprop.
The two fatal accidents last year involved aircraft crashing into the sea. On Sept. 4, 2022, a privately-operated, Austrian-registered Cessna Citation II/SP departed Jerez-La Parra Airport, Spain, continued past its planned destination of Köln/Bonn (Germany) Airport, and plunged into the Baltic Sea off Latvia nearly five hours after taking off. The pilot and three passengers were killed.
On Oct. 21, 2022, a German-registered Piaggio Avanti II crashed into the Caribbean Sea near Costa Rica. The privately operated turboprop twin disappeared from ATC radar about 17 miles from its intended destination of Puerto Limón Airport after a flight from Palenque Airport in Mexico. Killed in the accident was the pilot and his five passengers.
The review also noted that all four occurrences in 2022 involving air taxi operations of helicopters were fatal accidents, which is significantly above the average figures of the preceding decade for this type of operation.