Australian aviation safety — observations from the ‘lucky’ country

This paper examines the reasons behind Australia’s good record for commercial jet aircraft operations. The results indicate a complex system of factors ranging from the anecdotal theories on weather, terrain, traffic density and luck together with deeper human factors issues such as the influence of culture at national, industry and organisational levels and the influence of key historical events and personalities. This paper illustrates how these inputs have interacted with each other and the effect this has on the level of risk acceptability within Australian aviation. It also highlights the commonly held perceptions of what makes Australian commercial aviation safe and how these support or contradict the results of scientific case study research into the area. The perceptions of future threats are also highlighted along with some suggestions for how other systems can learn from the Australian experience.