The world's leading airlines are to be asked to help fund a £5m air crash research centre in Oxford.

Big rises in the number of disasters and near-collisions have led to plans to make Oxford the air safety capital of the world.

Linacre College and the Aviation Study Group will set out their proposals to senior figures in the aviation industry next month.

It is hoped that the centre, which would be based at the college, could be up and running within 18 months.

The idea is to bring together experts from the industry and the brains of Oxford academics, including engineers and psychologists.

The Oxford-based Aviation Study Group was formed in 1992 by a group of specialists.

It now has an impressive international membership, with experts in fields ranging from pilot training to forensic medicine. The group regularly hosts meetings for accident investigators and insurers. Dr James Vant, chairman of the group, said: "It is time to recognise that something must be done. You have only to think back to the number of major accidents that we have seen already this year at Nova Scotia and elsewhere.

"We hope to go on to create the leading research centre for aviation safety in the world.

"Flying is inherently dangerous. That it has become one of the safest methods of transport is a tremendous achievement. But accidents continue to occur and, of these, 70 per cent are attributable to human error. That is no longer acceptable." Linacre College's director of development, Stephen Hague, said it was envisaged that the centre would have a permanent staff of four.

"A proposed centre of this sort could be of tremendous use in making the airways safer for travel at a time when increases in air traffic are giving rise to concern about the number of accidents.

"It would bring together the best qualities of Oxford University with professionals from the aviation industry."

The centre would study and make recommendations on all aspects of air safety, including:

The effectiveness of pre-flight safety instructions to passengers;

Flight deck systems and pilot training;

The increase in near-miss mid-air collisions;

Engineering quality control;

The carriage of dangerous goods.

Both the governing body of Linacre College and the Aviation Study Group will be asked to approve the scheme in principle next month.

The group was recently asked to study whether passengers need to be given more information to improve their chances of surviving an emergency. It is already calling for safety innovations such as smoke hoods and rear-facing seats to be adopted by airlines.

Dr Vant said his organisation would consider the argument that pre-departure information was "simply kidding everybody that everything is going to work out fine".

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