There have been three more serious incidents involving Russian passenger planes in 36 hours following the crash. In the latest incident on Tuesday, a plane carrying the Russian navy's chief of staff and other officers crash-landed and caught fire at an airfield in Ukraine.

No fatalities were reported in any of the other incidents but several people were hospitalized with injuries in the accident of the Tupolev 134 twin-engine plane carrying Admiral Vladimir Masorin, a spokesman for Russia's Black Sea fleet said in a statement.

The plane was destroyed in the incident.

Obtaining a precise figure for dead and injured was complicated by the fact that different officials and media reports gave varying numbers for how many people were on board, while some survivors appeared to have left the scene of the accident without being accounted for.

Most sources, however, put the number of bodies recovered so far at 122 and the number of victims still unaccounted for at between six and nine, putting the death toll from the accident at between 128 and 131.

Tents were erected outside the Irkutsk morgue for the temporary storage of bodies as the morgue itself was not large enough to hold them all. Around 200 members of victims' families were there to identify the bodies of their loved ones on Monday, officials said.

In the decade since TWA Flight 800 exploded off Long Island's South Shore, flying on commercial airlines has grown so much safer that the risk of dying in a plane crash has plunged to its lowest level in history.

The last major crash of a commercial airliner in the United States was in November 2001, when Flight 587 crashed in the Rockaways. That span without a major accident is the longest in modern aviation, Barr said.

Excluding the loss of life on Sept. 11, 2001, the chance of perishing in a domestic flight in the United States has been virtually nonexistent in the past five years. Of the 46 million flights of U.S.-based airlines from 2000 to 2006, only two crashed, including 587, en route to the Dominican Republic, and Alaska Airlines Flight 261, off the California coast in January 2000.

"By every measurement the industry is safer today than it has ever been," said John Cox, a former safety chief for the Air Line Pilots Association and now a Washington, D.C.-based consultant.

Flight 800 had focused attention on stricter airline safety, and Vice President Al Gore convened a commission a few weeks after the TWA 800 crash, saying the nation should aim to reduce airline accidents by 80 percent. Since that time, better pilot training and procedural changes have helped put that goal within reach, experts say.

Also, newer planes make up a greater percentage of the commercial fleet, after airlines parked some of their older models when Sept. 11 caused a slowdown in air travel.

In response to the TWA crash, the Federal Aviation Administration has ordered new procedures to prevent sparks that can cause a fuel tank explosion, and has increased its focus on aging wiring.

Ongoing push for safety

In the 1990s, the risk of being killed in an accident on a random domestic jet flight, excluding underdeveloped countries, was 1 in 13 million. At that rate, you'd have to take a flight every day for 36,000 years before dying in an accident - an example Barnett uses to illustrate the level of safety. In the past five years, with no domestic jet accidents in which passengers died, that risk is essentially nonexistent.

"A passenger could travel on an infinite number of flights" before facing the risk of death, Barnett said.

On international flights between developed nations, including the United States and much of Europe, the risk of dying went from 1 in 6 million in the 1990s to 1 in 8 million between 2000 and now, according to Barnett's analysis.

Despite the added attention on safety in the past decade, the groundwork for some of the improvement in the safety record had been laid decades ago.

The wind shear that was a major cause of accidents in the 1970s has been all but eliminated with new technology. The risk of midair collisions also had been drastically reduced when regulators in the mid-1990s began to require new cockpit devices that alert aircraft to nearby traffic.

Other improvements, including installation of a ground proximity warning system in aircraft worldwide, are helping the rate go down. For nearly two decades, the leading cause of plane crashes worldwide was the phenomenon of a pilot accidentally flying the plane into a mountainside or the ground, called "controlled flight into terrain" - a category of accidents that has been nearly eliminated.

Keeping guard up

"There are major disasters and lots of hand-wringing, and a little something is done, and then there's a period when there's no major crashes. And nothing gets done."

Even technology offers no guarantees it will work properly. In the Boeing 737, for instance, engineers designed what Loeb called an ingenious device to control the rudder, one that saved weight and space over previous models. "But the problem was, it was so complicated that they couldn't understand all the failure modes," Loeb said. Problems with the device became apparent in the crash of USAir Flight 427 in Pittsburgh in 1994.

Maintaining good record

Cox also cautioned that increasing dependence on composite structures instead of aluminum for airframes is one area regulators will have to watch, as well as the new dependence on computerized cockpit systems that can fail.

"Is the trend going to continue? That's going to be based on decisions we make today," Cox said. "If we rest on our laurels, the rate will stagnate or get worse."

In fact, many experts point out that the one fix that could have prevented the fuel tank explosion that brought down Flight 800 still is not required of airlines on existing fleets. The FAA has required only that new-design airplanes - such as Boeing's new 717 - have fuel tanks that would prevent a buildup of flammable vapors. Another rule proposed by the FAA, requiring the new standard on planes now flying, is not expected to become final this year, and the agency is expected to give airlines seven years to comply.

Over the past 40 years, there have been 17 fuel tank explosions aboard aircraft, including Flight 800.

Expanding their approach

What's the next frontier? Cox said the industry must look more closely at issues such as pilots losing control in flight, the potential for runway collisions, and smoke and fire in flight.

And with fewer accidents to investigate, resources should be put on incidents that don't make headlines but could be considered precursors to a deadly crash, he said.

Last month, NTSB investigators went out to California to investigate an engine explosion on an American Airlines Boeing 767 that was undergoing maintenance. The explosion, which sent metal shards into the fuselage, occurred on the ground at Los Angeles International Airport; no one was injured. But it could have been a different story if it had happened in midair.

Despite the dramatic drop in the number of major accidents, top safety officials at the FAA literally knock on wood when someone mentions the crash-free years. The perfect safety record they strive for, the only acceptable figure, will always be elusive. And they'll tell you that the only guarantee a plane won't crash is to never take off.

The chopper pilot TS Chauhan was also killed in the crash in Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh.

The aviation industry says further enforcement in the sector is not the solution to improving public safety.

The Civil Aviation Authority is promising to implement all the recommendations made in a Coroner's report on the fatal Air Adventures crash in June 2003, and in a separate Audit Office report.

Minister of Transport Annette King says enforcement in the sector has not been good enough in the past.

But Aviation Industry Association chief executive Irene King says there has been a 30% reduction in accidents in the past three years.

With national holidays being celebrated on both sides of the border in the next few days, it's timely to discuss with your workers the safety aspect of a popular summertime ritual — the BBQ.

According to the US Fire Administration, every year BBQ grills cause approximately 6,500 fires. The peak month for grill fires? July.

The top ignition factor, accounting for 43% of grill fires, is mechanical failure or malfunction, such as part failure, leak, break or lack of maintenance. Other ignition factors include:

The USFA believes that with proper maintenance, inspection and vigilance, many outdoor grill fires can be prevented. Here are some top BBQ do's and don'ts:

Do

Don't

In case of fire:

If the fire involves a propane tank:

Here's a new thrill to warn your employees against: "teak surfing." Teak surfing is the deadly practice of hanging by your fingertips from a boat and skimming along on the wake.

As every safety professional knows, all gas and diesel engines produce deadly, invisible carbon monoxide. Boat engines build up fumes just above the wake, where teak surfers usually hang. They can quickly — and unknowingly — inhale deadly amounts of the poisonous gas. Due to the growing number of fatalities, some states have banned teak surfing and impose heavy fines on violators.

END - Thanks jetBlue