Washington, Jan. 2 (TNS): In another bogus claim, the president of the United States perplexingly takes credit for safest year in aviation history.
Every president likes to take credit when things go well and pass along blame when they go poorly, but perhaps no president has taken that pattern to so brazen an extreme as Donald Trump.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday took to Twitter to celebrate the year in airline safety: “Since taking office I have been very strict on Commercial Aviation. Good news – it was just reported that there were Zero deaths in 2017, the best and safest year on record!”
There was an estimated 3 percent growth in air traffic from 2016 to 2017. And the fatality rate was 0.06 fatalities per million flights — in other words, one fatal accident for 16 million flights.
“2017 was the safest year for aviation ever,” Adrian Young of the Dutch consulting firm To70 said.
The president’s claim can’t withstand even the slightest scrutiny. The 2017 milestone is worth celebrating, but changes in statistics like air safety are achieved over long time scales, and given the small number of crashes involved, minor deviations in the number are unlikely attributable to any specific presidential action—especially one take in the 11 months Trump has been in office.
