At the Thin Pinstriped Line, Sir Humphrey offers a bit of historical perspective on peacetime aircraft losses:
Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08) underway in the Atlantic on 17 October 2019, participating in exercise “WESTLANT 19”.
Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Nathan T. Beard, US Navy, via Wikimedia Commons.
If you look at historical data, then it shows that for decades, flying fast jets was an exceptionally dangerous occupation. In 1956 the RAF lost six Hawker Hunter aircraft in the space of just 45 minutes. These were just six of no less than 380 British military aircraft and helicopters lost in 1956, which averages out at more than one aircraft lost every day of the year – and this was not an unusual year.
Fast jet flying is and always has been an extremely dangerous business, which requires the highest levels of safety, standards and training to carry out. Over the intervening decades there has been a general decline in losses due to changes in equipment, reliability of machinery and different ways of operating, particularly with new technology, but there is still an element of risk. In particular the Martin Baker ejection seat is worth mentioning – this incident reminds us of the many lives this British company is responsible for saving over many decades.
Carrier aviation in particular remains an extremely dangerous occupation, even if crash rates have dropped. It is important to understand that the combination of fast jets, large warships and complex operating conditions can, and do, sometimes go wrong. We must not assume that aircraft will not crash anymore.
The Wikipedia page covering military aviation accidents for the period 2010-2019 is a good read to understand how risky military aviation is, and how many aircraft have been lost globally during this period.
That said, the current crop of modern British fast jets like the F35 and Typhoon have a phenomenal safety record, being operated in hugely demanding conditions around the globe for many years, and with only a handful lost. It is very telling that the loss of an aircraft is something that has gone from the utterly routine and barely newsworthy, to something that can dominate the media cycle for several days and generate huge national media coverage.
The theme on social media has been peculiar — there have been many posters talking about how embarrassing it is for the UK, or that its somehow a national disgrace that the aircraft crashed, particularly with the US embarked as well. This is utter nonsense – there is no embarrassment in a pilot taking a decision to eject in order to save his life. That is absolutely the right thing to do, and anyone who thinks otherwise has clearly never been faced with the decision on whether to eject or not.
There has been some coverage suggesting that the F35 programme is troubled in some way and that this is a setback for it. Again, this is nonsense – the aircraft first flew 15 years ago, and well over 700 have now been produced flying over 400,000 flying hours. In this time, a total of 5 aircraft (3 American, 1 Japanese and 1 British) have been lost – this is an under 1% loss rate, or one aircraft lost for every 80,000 hours in the sky.
By way of contrast, the Sea Vixen, a British jet used for carrier operations was in service from 1959-1971. Of the 145 aircraft built and operated, no less than 55 were lost in accidents in this period – a loss rate of around 38% of the whole force in just 12 years.
