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There's a sharp drop in the number of pilots, too. After 350 hours,
most pilots either go pro, or quit. Going pro at that point generally
means doing the CFI thing - getting into the right seat of a trainer
and going around the pattern. It's pretty hard to get hurt if you
never do anything.

The numbers that you're citing are pretty meaningless unless you know
the experience level distribution of the active pilots. The entire
killing zone conjecture is more than likely just bad statistics.

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I think you're right, the numbers probably are technically
meaningless. I read book and and I think that, even though it may be
statisically flawed, it offers a mindset that is valuable to the
low-time pilot. There are good lessons there, even though one of them
may not be a lesson in how to do statistical analysis.

Rich Russell