What does the ch-aviation Accidents & Incidents data cover?

The ch-aviation Accidents & Incidents data gives you a comprehensive overview of aviation occurrences on an individual aircraft (tail number) level, dating back to the 1950s. Occurrence information is provided in cooperation with the Flight Safety Foundation and is fully mapped to ch-aviation fleet data, so every event is linked to the exact aircraft, operator and variant involved.

The data is available for both Commercial Aviation and Business Jets, each as a separate subscription.

What information is included for each event?

• Operator details – the operator involved, its type, base and location.
• Aircraft details – registration, line/serial number, manufacturer, family, variant and age.
• Flight details – flight nature, flight phase, origin and destination.
• Event profile – event date, time and location, damage type, casualties and occupants.
• Occurrence Category – how the event is classified (see below).
• Loss Category and Subcategory – ch-aviation’s own classification of the cause of the event.
• Event description – a short explanation of what happened, together with the original source.

What are Occurrence Categories?

Each event is assigned an Occurrence Category that reflects its severity and nature:

• Accident – an event resulting in serious injury, death or substantial damage to the aircraft.
• Serious incident – an event in which an accident nearly occurred.
• Incident – an event affecting, or which could affect, the safety of operation, but less severe than the above.
• Unlawful interference – an act deliberately compromising the safety of the aircraft, such as a hijacking or an attack.
• Unknown occurrence – an event for which the category cannot yet be determined.

New: provisional Occurrence Categories

To give you an earlier view of recent events, we have introduced four new Occurrence Categories:

• Accident (provisional)
• Serious incident (provisional)
• Incident (provisional)
• Unlawful interference (provisional)

A provisional category is assigned based on the information available at the time, before an official classification has been confirmed. Once confirmed, the event is moved to its final category, so a provisional classification may change over time. If your analysis requires confirmed classifications only, simply exclude the provisional values from your Occurrence Category filter.

The new categories are available on the website as well as in data feeds delivered via AWS.

What are Loss Categories?

Loss Categories describe the cause of an event and are researched by ch-aviation. There are five main categories, each with more detailed subcategories:

• Equipment/Mechanical – failure or malfunction of an aircraft system or component, including powerplant and APU issues.
• Act of Nature – weather and environment-related events, such as bird strikes, hail, lightning, turbulence or volcanic ash.
• Accidental Act – unintentional events, such as runway excursions, ground collisions, fuel-related issues or tailstrikes.
• Intentional Act – deliberate acts, such as security-related events, intentional drone strikes or seizure of the aircraft.
• Undefined/Other – events with an unknown or other cause.

How can I search the data?

You can combine a wide range of search criteria to narrow down your results:

• Accident/Incident – Occurrence Category, casualties, occupants, nature, damage, phase and Loss Category/Subcategory.
• Geographical location – operator continent, country or region, event location, flight origin and destination.
• Operator – operator name and operator type.
• Aircraft type – market group, manufacturer, production line, family and variant.
• Aircraft – registration, line/serial number and block number.
• Dates – event date, date built, delivery date and aircraft age.

Typical searches include all bird strikes in a specific region over the last five years, all events involving a certain aircraft variant, or all occurrences at a specific airport. You can also add operators to a favourites list to review a group of airlines together, for example an insurance pool.

Can I download the data or receive it as a data feed?

Yes. Depending on your subscription, the data can be downloaded as an Excel, .csv or .json file. It is also available as a data feed, for example via a shared AWS S3 bucket or the Snowflake Marketplace. A full description of all available columns can be found in our Accidents & Incidents Data Dictionary.

How do I get access?

Access requires a subscription to Commercial Aviation Aircraft Accidents and Incidents Data and/or Business Jet Accidents and Incidents Data. To add the module to your account, please contact your Account Manager or reach out to sales@ch-aviation.com.

If this article does not answer your question or resolve your issue, you can always submit a ticket and our Customer Support team will get back to you as soon as possible.