We do not know the exact answer to the question of what can be the reason of cyclic changes in solar activity. What can be linked to increased solar activity, solar radiation and magnetic storms with the increased number of plane crashes?
Say at once that the official statistics on the plane crashes, from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) – closed. There is data from open access organization called the Aviation Safety Network, and a database of aircraft accidents over the past few decades is on the site http://www.airdisaster.com.
According to the Aviation Safety Network, which include all possible types of accidents, the victims and without them, equipment failures and attempts to hijack an aircraft, a serious accident and not so, we see the following picture:
clearly stands out rush of air crashes, falls at the beginning of the 70s and also stands out reducing the number of accidents in the last decade, despite a steady increase in total traffic. Correlation with the peaks of solar activity in this case is not observed.
But if we look at the data on the site http://www.airdisaster.com, which counts only the disaster with the deaths, and excluded cases of hijacking an aircraft, the picture becomes more interesting. There is a solid, if not match the peaks of disasters with peaks in solar activity, the strong tendency for this, which is clearly violated in only one case – in the mid 80s.
Mass civil transport were initiated in the second half of the 40s. These were aircrafts with piston engines, unable to develop a supersonic speed. Civil aviation made its first steps, and no wonder a large number of accidents in those days. As you know, safety rules are written in blood, and that’s when the blood flowed, and. And to the fifties has been developed safety standards and the number of accidents has declined dramatically.
But then came the reactive civil aviation. The engine is allowed to develop high speed, developed new models of aircraft increased altitude flight, and the old safety standards were no longer valid. This situation has stabilized in the mid-60′s, when the ships were designed and tested a reliable safety rules.
The next peak of plane crashes – mid 70′s. It is usually associated with an increase in the number of airline and aircraft capacity. The planned tightening of control over the safety ultimately led to a decrease in the number of accidents at all obvious rake has advanced and made conclusions. But bursts of disasters continue, and inaccurate, but are superimposed on the peaks of solar activity.
What can affect the solar radiation or solar flare-induced geomagnetic storm? Either technique, or a person. In the so-called human factor errors in the management of aircraft dispatcher error, accounts for about 60% of the causes of crashes.
We used to assume that the magnetic storms react only the elderly, frail people, who can not be attributed to the pilots. But some scientists believe that in conditions of emotional stress, which, of course, and the crew and the dispatcher is present, increased solar activity affects and in healthy people (reference).
Other scientists at the same time found that increased solar activity provokes a decrease in performance, a general deterioration of the central nervous system, so that people will be more likely to commit errors (reference).
From this point of view of strange looks just the absence of splash incidents in the mid 80s. You can only guess. For example, what was the introduction of technology to facilitate piloting, and the pilots of the “old school” who are able to without it, have become less wrong. Or at the very moment came on a good level of safety, and later came to be used more electronics, actively responding to the particle fluxes. And maybe that actually match the curves of aircraft accidents and the solar cycle does not mean absolutely nothing or very little.
Recent developments in solar activity and crashes
Is the 24th solar cycle, the maximum of which is expected by 2013. But now, in March 2012, solar activity was so powerful that the Earth was a huge dose of radiation, the latter comparable to the strength of a surge of solar radiation was observed in 2005. Air carriers have routes changing planes so as to err on the influence of radiation, disastrous for the devices. As far as next year or two will be quiet in terms of the number of crashes to be seen.
