Explainer | China turned around its air safety record, but how safe is it?
- Last week’s China Eastern crash shocked a nation that had not seen a fatal accident in a decade
- Airlines improved safety measures after a string of deadly disasters in the 1990s and early 2000s
The accident spelled an end to more than 100 million straight hours of safe flying by Chinese carriers, which the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said in late February was a world record.
It was a rare tragedy after a fairly safe decade for the country’s aviation sector.
How safe is flying in China?
Prior to the China Eastern crash, there had been practically no major civil aviation incidents in China in the past 10 years, said Zhu Tao, the aviation safety director at the CAAC.
Like other countries, China is bound by the Convention on International Civil Aviation, also known as the Chicago Convention, that sets out standards to ensure safety no matter which nation’s airline is operating a flight. For example, it requires the CAAC to release a preliminary investigation report 30 days after an aircraft accident.
The overall accident rate of large commercial aircraft operating in China from 2008 to 2021 was also vastly below the global rate, according to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a specialist UN agency.
