[1/9] After the 22nd May tragedy, I decided to look at some data. I obtained access to the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s (ICAO) datasets on accidents, safety audits and fleet info. Sharing descriptive findings after an initial look for those interested.

[2/9] Accidents: An occurrence is considered an accident if it is serious but does not have to be fatal. Accident rates are defined as the number of accidents per million departures in a country. Since 2008, Pakistan has had 13 accidents; 4 fatal.

[3/9] These include: Airblue(2010), Bhoja(2012), PIA(2016), PIA(2020). The line chart compares accident rates across other countries. We are the red line.

[4/9] Airline Safety Audit: PIA is the only Pakistani airline that seems to undergo IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA). IOSA is designed to assess the operational mgmt and control systems of an airline and is not compulsory. No IOSA data on AirBlue,Bhoja,Shaheen(both defunct)

[5/9] ICAO Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP): It focuses “on a State's capability in providing safety oversight by assessing whether the State has effectively and consistently implemented the critical elements (CEs) of a safety oversight system”.

[6/9] The USOAP is an audit of the civil aviation authority in a country. The last audit in Pakistan was conducted in 2011.

[7/9] Age of Fleet: Data available are from 2016. Age of planes are Pak =14.4 yrs, India=9.5, China=6.8, Bangladesh=17.3, Nepal=20.3, SriLanka=11.37. See Barchart. If relatively newer planes have not been bought, the age today would be more than 14.4 years.

[8/9]Age of Fleet: Another interesting dimension is the %age of planes older than 20 years in 2016. These are: Pak=31%, India=12%, China=4%, Nepal=58%, Bangladesh=40%, SriLanka=12.9%. Even though the avg. age of planes in Srilanka is high, small %age is older than 20.

[9/9]The above stats are from data available in the ICAO database. Please note that to draw any conclusions a rigorous study is required across a lot more data.