Sector safety performance

Between 2014 and 2023, there were 4,769 instructional flying occurrences in Australia reported to the ATSB.

There were 220 accidents with 14 being fatal.

Table 1 The breakdown of occurrences across the sector (2014 to 2023).
Incident type	VH Aeroplane	VH Helicopter	RAAus Aeroplane	Total
Accidents	128 (8 fatal)	29 (2 fatal)	63 (4 fatal)	220 (14 fatal)
Serious Incidents	279	30	85	394
Incidents	3578	194	383	4155
Total	3985	253	531	4769
In %	83.6%	5.3%	11.1%	100%

Source: ATSB occurrence database (2014 to 2023)

Accidents per million flying hours

We analysed ATSB occurrences rates for instructional flying (excluding sport aviation).

Table 2 shows the rate of accidents, serious incidents, and incidents per million flying hours from 2014 to 2023 in this sector. Accident rates are decreasing, serious incidents are increasing, and incident rates are fluctuating, as shown in Figure 2.

Table 2: ATSB occurrences rate (per 1 million movements) for all operations from instructional flying (excluding sport aviation) (2014 to 2023). We estimated the 2023 flight hours by the average of 2014 to 2022.
Rates per 1 million flight hours	Aeroplane and helicopters with VH registration
Fatal accident rate	2.8
Accident rate	44.7
Serious Incident rate	87.9
Incident rate	1073
Total Flight Hours (Part 141 and Part 142, 2014 to 2023*)	3,516,000

SSRP instructional flying diagram figure 2 — Figure 2

Source: BITRE, ATSB occurrence database

Published date: 29 October 2024