Aircraft

Australian govt report finds turboprops still remain safe

A report by the Australian government’s transport safety board has found that turboprop aircraft are still largely safe demonstrating that the vast majority of incidents (96%) were considered low-risk.

The Australian Transport Safety Board (ATSB) concluded that there were “417 power plant-related occurrences involving turboprop engine aircraft between 2012 and 2016 (83 per year on average).

The subset of occurrences involving the operators whose flight hours were known consisted of 314 occurrences in the four years between 2012 and 2015 (79 per year on average).

With a combined total of just over 1.4 million flight hours for these aircraft in this timeframe, this equates to approximately 2.2 occurrences every 10,000 flight hours, or roughly one occurrence every 4,500 flight hours”.

“The vast majority (96%) of these occurrences were classified as being low risk rating occurrences with a low or no accident outcome, however, there were four occurrences classified as medium risk and three as high risk.

All three high risk rating occurrences involved engine failure or malfunctions with forced/precautionary landings in single–engine Cessna 208 aircraft. There were no occurrences classified as very high risk.

The two occurrences in the set that resulted in any injury (both minor) were the result of engine failure or malfunctions and collision with terrain occurrences in aerial agricultural operations.

The five occurrences classified as accidents all involved aerial work operations, four in aerial agriculture and one in emergency services operations.”

The full report can be read here.

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