With three air crashes in a week claiming over 460 lives, International Air Transport Association (IATA) on Friday said the industry would leave no stone unturned to beef up aviation safety and security.
“This has been a very sad week for everyone involved with aviation....Every accident is one too many. The greatest respect that we can pay to the memory of those involved is to leave nothing unturned in our quest to understand the cause and to take steps to ensure that it is not repeated,” IATA’s Director-General and CEO Tony Tyler said in a statement.
“With three tragedies in such quick succession, many people will, understandably, be asking questions about aviation safety. Our number one priority is safety. And despite the events of the past seven days, flying is safe.
“Safeguarding our customers from harm as we transport them around the world is core to the mission of the aviation industry,” Mr. Tyler said.
Noting that about 100,000 flights take to the sky without incident every day, he said, “In 2013, more than three billion people flew and there were 210 fatalities. Regrettably, we have surpassed that number already this year.”
Mr. Tyler’s statement followed a week of disasters. On July 17, a Malaysia Airlines jet was shot down in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board. On July 23, a Taiwanese aircraft crashed in torrential rain in southwest Taiwan, claiming all 48 lives.
On Thursday, the wreckage of an Air Algerie plane bound for Algier from Burkina Faso with at least 116 people on board was found in Mali’s Gossi region, a day after it went missing.
