The safety and statistics of flying

With a series of aviation tragedies in recent days CHCH’s Al Sweeney took a look at the safety and statistics when it comes to bucking up and taking off in a plane.

He met up with Captain Luigi Salvi a pilot air safety expert whose company in Mississauga gives people the experience of flight. Pilots in training and regular people can get the feel of flying a Boeing 777 jumbo jet with Ufly’s flight simulator.

And Salvi says business is booming. More people are training to be pilot in what’s the safest way to travel.

That’s despite a year that has been unusual for aviation tragedies with the focus on two events involving Malaysian Airways.

239 people were on board when one of their jets went missing this spring on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Then last week, it was a Malaysian Airways plane that was shot down over Ukraine with 298 people on board.

One accident is still unexplained and the other was not related to the plane’s internal safety when it was hit by a missile.

On top of that, 47 people were feared dead this week in a plane crash in a typhoon in Taiwan.

Now 116 are feared dead in a crash in Africa Thursday.

Flights to Tel Aviv were cancelled earlier this week because of airport safety fears and then a Westjet plane had to make an emergency landing in Toronto on Thursday.

If passengers are getting rattled, experts like Salvi can calm their fears.

“So we have more aircraft running, or flying, more air, the air space is getting more busy but the number of of the accidents continues at the same level so the safety has increased.”

And the figures back that up.

Air deaths have been declining steadily down to 60 in Canada last year.

That’s a lot safer than driving with almost 22 hundred road deaths in Canada last year.

Despite the high profile air tragedies, experts say air travel is still safe and getting safer.