Safety in the skies.

• Author: Gerhart, Clifford
• Position: Safety tips for business travelers

Let's face it. In order to do business in Alaska, you'll probably have to do some flying. With an area over twice the size of Texas, and a state capital that can't even be reached by road, the average Alaskan spends a lot of time airborne. And a lot of this flying is done via small airlines and charter service.

"If we're going to get anywhere in this state, we have to fly," says Jim Campbell, CEO of Alaska Commercial Co., a business with outlets in many bush communities. "Flying in small aircraft is a way of life with us."

Check the figures. It's estimated that Alaska has about six times as many pilots per capita and 16 times as many aircraft per capita as the rest of the United States. Air commerce in Alaska carries the equivalent of four times the state's population each year, compared with about 1.7 times the U.S. population carried annually by air commerce in other states.

As of May 1993, Alaska has 9,391 pilots and 9,408 aircraft. This is about one pilot and one plane for every 58 state residents. General aviation hours flown in Alaska annually average about 951,000, 3 percent of the U.S. total. Alaskans log in about 100 hours per pilot, twice the national average.

Most in the industry think air safety in Alaska is good and has been improving. And while no one questions the responsibility of pilots, mechanics and management of airlines, smart business travelers can ask a few simple questions and take a few basic precautions to ensure a good flight.

How Safe is Safe?

Flying on board the larger airlines remains remarkably safe, with just .155 accidents per 100,000 flying hours in 1992, an all-time low. But after landing in Anchorage, many business trips are continued aboard smaller aircraft run by local airlines or charter services. Nationally, the air taxi division also reached an all-time low accident rate in 1992, 3.32 accidents per 100,000 flight hours.

Despite the air industry's good safety record, all the flying in the state puts employees who must travel at risk. In 1992, 27 Alaskan workers died in air crashes. Eight were air transportation workers, and the other 19 fatalities included eight Army National Guardsmen who died in a single crash and five loggers who died in a single helicopter crash.

How safe is flying in Alaska? Val Aron, regional accident prevention program manager for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), says, "Are the numbers really that bad? I don't know. Right now, we just have the raw numbers. We're...