IATA’s bid to slash the commercial air transport accident rate for Western-built aircraft has suffered a setback after losses in Indonesia and Africa drove the figure up by 15% last year.

The organisation set a target to reduce the 2006 figure of 0.65 hull losses per million flights to just 0.49 in 2008.

But accidents in Indonesia quadrupled the Asia-Pacific region’s rate to 2.76, while Africa and Latin America showed only marginal improvements to 4.09 and 1.61 respectively.

Brazil was the scene of the year’s worst accident, the TAM Airbus A320 overrun at Sao Paulo Congonhas in July, which resulted in nearly 200 fatalities.

IATA points out that the overall number of fatalities fell by nearly a fifth, to 692, despite the number of accidents rising to 100

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