Two national carriers of the UAE — Emirates airline and Etihad Airways — are among the world’s safest carriers, an authentic survey reveals. The survey by Hamburg-based Jet Airliner Crash Data Evaluation Centre, or Jacdec, that examined 60 of the world’s air carriers, said Finnair is the safest airline followed by Air New Zealand, Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific, the UAE’s Emirates and Etihad Airways. In total, 2012 saw a total of 496 fatalities on commercial passenger flights last year, two fewer than in 2011. The German airline safety watchdog releases a list of the safest airlines on earth every year for the past 30 years. According to the survey, Virgin Australia beat British Airways for ninth place while the English carrier came ahead of Germany’s Lufthansa, which was placed 11 on the list. Qatar Airways was ranked 22, while Turkish Airlines was ranked 54 followed by Saudi Arabian Airlines. Brazil’s Tam Airlines came in at 59 while Taiwan-based China Airlines was ranked as the least safe carrier. Jacdec said its roster is “based on annual safety calculations which include all hull loss accidents and serious incidents in the last 30 years of operations in relation to the revenue passenger kilometres (RPK) performed in the same time”. The German watchdog for airline safety also took into account the international safety benchmarks. The agency reports a total of 44 ‘hull losses’ in 2012 with 496 fatalities. Airlines in Europe, New Zealand and Hong Kong scored the highest in terms of safety. Jacdec’s Safety Index took into account how long the airlines had been operating, the time since the airline lost its last aircraft, as well as the total number of aircraft destroyed since 1983 — the year the firm started monitoring airlines. Global aviation safety analysts said the average number of airliner accidents has shown a steady and persistent decline since 1997, probably thanks to the continuing safety-driven efforts by international aviation organisations such as ICAO, IATA, Flight Safety Foundation and the aviation industry. From Khaleej Times