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Originally Posted On: https://www.stratosjets.com/guide/are-private-jets-safe/
Flying private isn’t all about comfort, convenience, and luxuriousness–though those are major differentiators when making the decision to fly. It’s not even that it’s an opportunity to get from Point A to Point B as efficiently as possible, in class and style.
The point of flying private is to save time and to preserve discretion. On commercial flights, you have to fly on the schedule of the airline, which also may require a connection to your destination. Private aviation is the complete opposite. You set your own schedule and determine the routing, which can dramatically save you valuable time in the air and on the ground.
But even with all of the bells and whistles, and the promptness and the discretion, there’s one thing that never goes unnoticed: Safety and security.
If you’re wondering “Are private jets safe?” you’ll be happy to know that private jets are extremely safe. Between modern technology and logistics, as well as proper planning and management, safety remains a top priority across private jet companies.
Private Jet Safety Statistics
How Safe are Private Jets?
When it comes to the safety of private jets, it all comes down to the preparation and policies of the private jet charter service. There are some private jet services which scrimp on private jet safety considerations. For example, many only fly with one pilot, which can be a problem.
Stratos Jet Charters makes it our 100% guarantee that there will always be two highly trained pilots in the cockpit. This is rare in the air charter business, but it’s something that is an absolute must. We will not, ever, contract with an air carrier that doesn’t live up to this qualification and the other safety requirements that we demand of our air carriers.
Before contracting with an air carrier to fly our clients, we audit their operational history to ensure there are no accidents or enforcement actions taken against them since we’ve last worked with the carrier.
Once booked, Stratos audits the specific aircraft to ensure it is properly certified, we analyze the crew to ensure that they meet very high levels of experience in the type of plane you’ll be flying on and to ensure that the aircraft carriers have adequatecarriers adequate insurance. We take aviation safety extremely seriously and follow rigorous safety standards.
If you want hard numbers and private jet safety ratings, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, there were 205 fatal accidents in private planes per 100,000 flight hours. This is almost entirely attributed to small one or two seat aircraft that are flown by hobbyist pilots.
The private jet industry is much safer, and Stratos Jet Charters has a perfect track record. In all our years of doing business with many, many air carriers, our hard-line policy for making sure that these carriers are following all safety regulations and then some more additional ones we give them, has made it so that Stratos Jet Charters has never had a fatality. In fact, Stratos has never had an injury onboard.
Are Private Planes Safer Than Cars?
Airplane safety is FAR safer than traveling by car, making us wonder why anyone would take a car when they could take a private air charter.
Just a few statistics. In 2021, the International Air Transport Association put out a report that said that there was one airplane crash per 7.7 million flights. What this equates to–and we realize this sounds fantastic, but it’s absolutely true, is that you would need to take a flight every single day for 10,078 years before you’re involved in a fatal aircraft accident.
Now, compare that to cars. It may shock you to learn, but the odds of someone dying in their lifetime in a car accident is mind-bogglingly low. 1 in 101 people will die in a car accident during their lifetime. Compare that to the 100+ lifetimes you’d have to live to die in an airplane accident.
How Often Do Private Airplanes Crash? Private jet vs Commercial Airline Safety Concerns
Now, there is, admittedly, a difference between the death toll of large commercial airliners and small private aviation craft (which, again, includes owner-operator craft that are not flown for commercial purposes under part 135 regulations). On a commercial aircraft, there are fewer than 0.01 fatalities per 100,000 hours of flying. On a private plane, that number jumps to 2.3 fatalities per 100,000 hours flown.
So are private jets safer than commercial flights? While that is a noticeable bump–0.01 is much less than 2.30–there’s no arguing the fact that private aviation remains far less likely to end in a fatality than car travel.
What Do the Statistics Tell Us About the Most Dangerous Part of a Flight?
According to research from Boeing, research shows that takeoff and landing are the most dangerous parts of a flight. 49% of all accidents take place during the landing of the aircraft, and 14% of them take place during takeoff.
The reason for this is that during these times the pilots have much less time to make adjustments and corrections to solve problems that arise. There is more room for pilot error.
However, it’s worth noting that the National Transportation Safety Board indicates that even in the event of an accident during takeoff or landing, passengers still have a 95% chance of surviving the problem.
Private Jet Turbulence
Next comes the question that everyone wants to know the answer to: do private aircraft have a better or worse reaction to turbulence than a large air carrier?
Is Turbulence Worse on Small Private Jets Than on Large Airliners?
Turbulence during air travel is when a plane comes into contact with a patch of rough air. Normally, jets travel through smooth air–that is, they are in the smooth flows of wind. When gusts of wind or disturbances in air pressure appear, they shake the plane up and down and back and forth.
Because bigger planes handle the buffetings of wind better than smaller planes, small private planes are going to feel the effects of turbulence more than a larger plane.
There are a few things you can do if you want to fly private, however. You will (in the absence of a storm) find significantly less turbulence over flat land or open water. Also, early morning and late night flights have less turbulence because there is less wind at night and storms tend to dissipate during the nighttime hours.
Other things you can do are to arrange for a larger private plane, choosing to charter a heavy private jet as opposed to a light one.
Finally, if you are experiencing turbulence, it’s important to return to your seat, and you’ll find that you get the smoothest ride if you sit over the wing as it’s the main center of gravity for the plane and will provide the most stable conditions.
Will There Be Turbulence in a Private Jet Flight Over the Atlantic?
Yes, one of the routes that is considered to be the most turbulent is the flight from New York to London. This is because of the disruption of the jet stream. Most pilots will try to avoid it by flying north or south of it.
The problems over the Atlantic are less pronounced if flying from, say, Miami to Barcelona.
Is It Safe To Fly on a Private Jet?
We hope that we have made it clear in this article that it is very safe to fly in a private aircraft. There will always be risks with every form of travel. There are risks to cars and trains and buses, and even to pedestrians and bicyclists. The best we can do is to minimize the risk as much as possible.
The aviation industry has set standards for business aircraft and other private jets that make sure that private plane flights are as safe as possible. And Stratos Jet Charters takes that a big step further, making sure that an even more rigorous safety protocol is followed by all our jet carriers.
We firmly believe that when you are flying with Stratos Jet Charters you are flying with the best.
