ABSTRACT
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Safety Audit is aimed at determining whether individual States have the capacity to provide safe air navigation services to aircraft which traverse their airspace. It comes at a critical time in aviation history, when international civil aviation is on the threshold of a new millennium, both in the upper and lower airspace. In 1997, the total scheduled international flights operated by the 705 carriers of the 185 contracting States of ICAO carried a total of approximately 1,448 million passengers and 26 million tonnes of freight. ICAO’S own figures reveal that of the world-wide airline accident data compiled by ICAO, since 1970, controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) continues to be the most serious threat to safety, accounting for 58 per cent of total fatalities. The ICAO programme for the prevention of CFIT commenced in 1992 and went steadily ahead with the formation of the ICAO and Industry CFIT Task Force in 1993.
