Deadly crashes in Brazil, Indonesia and Africa last year led to the first global uptick in serious jetliner accidents in a decade, an international aviation trade group said yesterday.

However, the overall number of deaths from flying declined, to 692 last year from 855 a year earlier, according to the annual safety report by the International Air Transport Association. Passenger traffic was up 6 percent during the same period, the Geneva-based organization said.

Fewer than one in a million flights involving Western-built jets ended with an accident that destroyed or severely damaged the plane. But the rise in this so-called hull-loss rate - to 0.75 accidents out of a million flights in 2007, from 0.65 in 2006 - is the first increase in the serious accident rate since 1998, when it stood at 1.4 crashes per million flights. Western-built jets, such as those made by Boeing Co or Airbus, are by far the most common passenger planes in the world.

IATA counted a total of 100 accidents involving jet and turboprop planes in 2007, up from 77 accidents a year earlier.

North America, Europe, and the countries of the former Soviet Union had the lowest accident rates last year. Africa had the worst record, with a hull-loss rate of 4.09 per one million flights.

"While this is an improvement over last year, it is still six times less safe to fly in Africa than the rest of the world," IATA Director General and Chief Executive Giovanni Bisignani said in a statement.

Agencies

(China Daily 05/09/2008 page12)