Sector safety performance

Between 2014 and 2023, there were 445 Agricultural flying occurrences in Australia reported to the ATSB.

There were 71 accidents with 7 fatal accidents.

Table 1: The breakdown of occurrences across the sector. Source: ATSB occurrence database (2014 to 2023)
Occurrence category	Mustering	Spreading/spraying	Other agricultural	Total
Fatal accidents	7	9	1	17
Total accidents	71	92	12	175
Serious Incidents	9	185	1	195
Incidents	10	59	6	75
Total	90	336	19	445

Accidents per million flying hours

We analysed ATSB occurrences rates for agricultural flying.

Table 2 shows the rate of accidents, serious incidents, and incidents per million flying hours from 2014 to 2023 in this sector. A decreasing trend is clear for accidents as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: ATSB accident rate (per 1 million movements) for all operations from agricultural flying (2014 to 2023). (We estimated the 2023 flight hours by the average of 2014 to 2022.)

Table 2: BITRE, ATSB Occurrence Database
Rates / 1 Million Hours	Mustering	Spreading/Spraying	Other Agricultural	All Agricultural
Fatal Accident Rate	4.7	9.8	4.8	6.5
Total Accident Rate	47.4	61.4	8.0	66.6
Serious Incident Rate	9.8	201.4	1.1	74.3
Incident Rate	47.7	281.4	28.6	28.6
Total 10Y flight hours	1,497,700	918,400	209,670	2,625,770
Average annual hours	149,770	91,840	20,967	262,577

ATSB accident rate from 2014 to 2024. It shows a clear decreasing trend over time. — Figure 2: Source: BITRE, ATSB Occurrence Database

Published date: 24 January 2025