Aviation Safety in South Sudan

Africa contributes only 3.9% in air traffic, but records 19% of aviation accidents, in terms of fatalities. High accident rates are attributed to poor compliance with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs). This study analyzed the prevalence of aircraft accidents in the youngest African country, South Sudan, which obtained independence in July 9, 2011. The quantitative study examined aviation accident databases to determine the number of aircraft accidents in South Sudan, the aircraft manufacturers and aircraft models, number of fatalities, and causes of accidents, categorized as pilot error, technical failure, air traffic control, or weather-related events. The accidents were collected from the Aviation Safety Network (ASN) database, which is maintained by the Flight Safety Foundation. A total of 83 accident cases were examined, with 32 satisfying the criteria of accidents covering the July 2011 to May 2021 period. The findings show that Antonov aircrafts account for a majority of the accidents (31.25%), followed by Cessna (21.88%) and LET (15.63%). The 32 aircrafts involved in the accidents were carrying 378 occupants, 72 occupants died, representing a fatality rate of 19.5%. Antonov (66.67%) and LET (27.7%) contributed the greatest fatalities. In terms of accident causes, technical failures (46.9%) and pilot errors (43.8%) were the most dominant causes. Weather-related conditions only contributed to 9.4% of all the cases investigated. These results show that South Sudan continues to suffer from poor aviation infrastructure, poor compliance to internationally recognized SARPs.