We have seen four fatal plane crashes this month in Europe and
South America claim the lives of hundreds of people.  
On 6 August at least 13 of 39 passengers and crew were killed
after a Tunisian passenger plane made an emergency landing in the
sea off the Italian island of Sicily.  On 14 August, all 121
passengers and crew on a Cyprus airline flight bound for Prague
died when it crashed into a mountainside near Athens.  Two
days later, a Colombian plane operated by West Caribbean Airways
crashed in a remote region of Venezuela, killing all 160 people
on board.  In the latest crash, a passenger plane came down
in Peru's Amazon jungle, causing the deaths of at least 40 of
the 100 people on board.  Investigations continue into what
went wrong on these flights. 

The Operations and Safety editor of Flight International magazine
says that airline safety worldwide is now six times better than
it was 25 years ago.  In 1979 there were three fatal
accidents per million flights, compared with one fatal accident
per two million flights by last year, according to International
Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) figures.  Safety
improvements are due to better technology, compulsory industry
audits and tougher competition, he said.  When compared with
all other modes of transport on a fatality per kilometre basis,
air transport is the safest, insists the Civil Aviation
Authority.