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NTSB: Most crashes survivableFrom Mike M. Ahlers WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The apparent successful evacuation of all 309 people aboard an Air France jetliner that crashed Tuesday in Toronto is a dramatic illustration of a theme that the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has highlighted for years. (Full story) Contrary to widespread public opinion, most airline accidents are survivable, the NTSB says. "Fatal accidents ... receive extensive media coverage. Nonfatal accidents, however, receive little coverage. As a result, the public may perceive that most air carrier accidents are not survivable," the NTSB wrote in a March 2001 report. Safety experts say that misperception is one reason passengers do not pay attention to the mandatory safety briefings at the beginning of every flight. The NTSB said it studied aircraft accident survivability to address that mistaken belief and identify factors that could further increase survivability. According to the NTSB, there were 568 airline accidents from 1983 through 2000, 71 of which resulted in at least one fatality. Some 95.7 percent of the occupants survived those accidents. In raw numbers, 51,207 occupants survived; 2,280 died. Accidents in which most or all passengers die, such as TWA Flight 800, which exploded in midair off New York's Long Island in 1996, account for a small percentage of all accidents, the NTSB study shows. "Contrary to public perception, the most likely outcome of an accident is that most people survive," the report says. The report attributes many factors as contributing to passenger's survivability: cabin structural integrity, seatbelts, seat design, child restraint systems, fireproofing, exit design and evacuation procedures. The NTSB also has studied evacuation procedures on commercial planes. It studied 46 evacuations -- successful and unsuccessful -- involving 2,651 passengers between September 1997 and June 1999. As a result of that study, it issued 20 safety recommendations and reiterated three other safety recommendations to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration -- including making all newly certified commercial airplanes meet evacuation demonstration requirements. 
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