Snakes on a Plane: The Risk Management Crisis in Modern Aviation

Mechanical Failures and the Limits of Engineering Assumptions

Commercial aviation was built on the back of engineering confidence. Aircraft systems were designed with redundancies, maintenance schedules tightly regulated, and pilots extensively trained. For decades, this model worked. But today, aging fleets, deferred maintenance due to pandemic-era cost pressures, and global supply chain bottlenecks are testing the boundaries of that model.

The U.S. FAA reported a 19% increase in ground-return events in 2024 compared to pre-pandemic baselines. Transport Canada has issued over 30 airworthiness directives in the past year related to legacy aircraft. Meanwhile, major carriers have extended aircraft lifecycle usage by an average of 3–5 years due to backlogged orders from Boeing and Airbus.

Incidents linked to metal fatigue, sensor malfunction, and flight control anomalies are rising. The Boeing 737 MAX grounding saga continues to cast a long shadow, not just over manufacturing confidence but insurer exposure and public trust.

Risk managers must now question: Are our systems built to last, or merely to function under ideal conditions?

The Private Jet Boom and Regulatory Blind Spots

As commercial aviation faltered during the COVID-19 pandemic, private aviation flourished. The U.S. alone saw over 5 million private flights in 2024, a 32% increase over 2019 levels. But unlike commercial carriers, private operators often fly under less stringent Part 91 rules, which impose far fewer safety and training requirements.

This growth has exposed significant regulatory blind spots. Charter services operating under “grey market” conditions blur the lines between private and commercial aviation. Maintenance oversight is inconsistent. Pilot fatigue monitoring is often nonexistent. And insurance underwriting struggles to keep up with the patchwork of operator compliance.

The 2023 crash of a Gulfstream G200 in Colorado, attributed to an improperly trained pilot and unreported mechanical issues, revealed the fatal consequences of lax oversight. Yet enforcement remains sporadic.

With high-net-worth individuals, executives, and even heads of state increasingly flying private, the stakes are rising. So too is the need for insurers and brokers to adapt their assessment models beyond conventional rating tables.

Drones, UAM, and the Battle for Airspace

The rise of drones and urban air mobility (UAM) has added a new layer of complexity, and chaos, to the airspace. While drones offer promise for logistics, infrastructure inspection, and emergency response, they also present a growing threat to manned aviation.

Near-miss incidents involving drones have more than doubled since 2022 across North America. Many of these occur in urban areas or near airports, where amateur operators or poorly coordinated commercial fleets operate beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) with minimal enforcement.

The 2024 Toronto incident, in which a commercial drone collided with a small plane’s winglet on approach, was a wake-up call. Although the aircraft landed safely, the event highlighted the difficulty of real-time drone detection and accountability.

Meanwhile, the insurance market for drones remains fragmented. Liability limits vary widely, and exclusions are common for intentional interference, data loss, or navigation system disruption.

Insurers and aviation authorities must now contend with one of the thorniest challenges in modern aviation: deconflicting human and machine traffic in a three-dimensional, real-time environment.

Climate Change: Weather Isn’t Just a Delay Anymore

From Canadian wildfires to heatwaves in Phoenix to unexpected hailstorms in Texas, weather-related disruptions are not only more frequent, they’re more violent. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) reported that weather contributed to 29% of all significant flight disruptions in 2024, up from 17% in 2019.

Extreme heat, in particular, is affecting aircraft performance. Runway softening, reduced lift at high temperatures, and altered fuel burn rates are now regular considerations for flight planning. Smoke and low visibility from wildfires are leading to unexpected diversions and delays, and in some cases, airport closures.

The growing unpredictability of climate events is also testing insurers. Traditional actuarial models based on 30-year weather averages no longer reflect the current reality. Parametric insurance products, covering heat index thresholds, wind speeds, or precipitation levels, are growing in appeal but remain underutilized due to complexity and cost.

Airlines and airports must consider whether climate volatility is an externality, or an enterprise risk.

Cybersecurity: The Silent Saboteur

In 2023, the U.S. FAA experienced a system-wide outage due to corrupted NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions) data. Hundreds of flights were delayed, and the cause, believed to be a contractor’s failed software patch, exposed the fragility of digital aviation infrastructure.

Airlines, airports, air traffic control systems, and even aircraft avionics are now deeply dependent on networked software. Yet the aviation sector lags behind other critical industries in cybersecurity maturity.

Many regional airports lack 24/7 Security Operations Centers (SOCs). Vendor systems often go unpatched. And few operators simulate real-world cyber breach scenarios despite mounting exposure.

Insurers are responding by raising premiums, narrowing coverage, and requiring cyber hygiene audits. Some are outright excluding losses caused by third-party IT vendor failure, a common weak link.

The attack surface in aviation is vast. And as systems become more autonomous and AI-assisted, the potential for digital disruption grows exponentially.

Risk Has Evolved—Have We?

The aviation industry has long relied on one truth: flying is statistically the safest mode of travel. But that truth is increasingly undermined by converging, compounding risks that cannot be managed in isolation.

It is no longer enough to manage risk by checklist. Leaders must anticipate cross-domain failure scenarios, where a cyberattack disables scheduling software during a wildfire evacuation, or a drone incurs a mid-air close call while climate turbulence pushes a pilot to the limits of manual control.

Aviation risk is now a system-of-systems challenge. It demands a new mindset, one of orchestration, not containment; of foresight, not just hindsight.

At EPIC Insurance Consultants, we believe the skies can still be safe. But only if the industry accepts one sobering reality: the snakes on the plane aren’t going away. They’re multiplying, and only radical risk transparency, smarter insurance design, and executive vigilance can keep them from striking.