Bullwinkle wrote:
To all those interested about safety,

I realize I'll get flamed for this, but I'd like to point out that in the
March 1988 Soaring I proposed that we stop focusing on accident prevention
as our primary safety goal, and instead think about injury prevention. (I
got flamed a bit then, too.)

It changes a lot when you shift your focus that little bit. I won't
re-develop all the points I made then, just go back and read the article.

Once you've made the shift, you're no longer blaming the accident pilot for
being an idiot who didn't listen to their instructor (therefore it's all the
pilot's fault), you're wondering what could have been done differently to
prevent the fatality, or lessen or prevent the injury.

And I don't want to hear from the "prevent the accident and you've prevented
the injury" crowd. That argument is so wrong a 5 year old could see through
it.

We've probably got close to the maximum benefit from improved flight
instruction, so it's now time to improve other things in the safety world.
Famous Professional Flight Instructors who write books and such disagree
with this viewpoint, but you'd expect that, wouldn't you.

Just my two cents, now sinking back into lurkerhood.

Before you go, maybe you could elaborate on what "injury prevention"
means: stronger cockpits, shock absorbing landing gear, BRS
installations, spin-proof gliders?

--
Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA