Judah writes:
According to the AMA (at
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content...ct/291/10/1238 ), 20,000
Americans a year die from having sex, as compared with 43,000 who die in
Automobile Accidents, and 17,000 who die using illicit drugs.
75,000 Americans die from Microbial Agents, and 55,000 die from toxic agents.
Aviation accidents didn't make the list. 820 people per year die in aviation
accidents.
How many people have sex each year? How many ride or drive in cars?
How many take illicit drugs? And how many ride or fly planes?
Commercial aviation is quite safe. General aviation, however, is
significantly less so. The great majority of aviation accidents
involve general aviation. The accident rate per flight hour is nearly
40 times higher for general aviation than for commercial airlines; the
number of fatalities per flight hour is almost 82 times higher. There
are more general aviation accidents per week in the U.S. than there
are per year for commercial airlines, and they both have comparable
numbers of flight hours (24 million for GA vs. 19 million for
airlines).
This doesn't necessarily mean that general aviation is intrinsically
less safe. It says more about a lack of discipline in general
aviation: careless pilots, careless maintenance, etc. It is also true
that reciprocating engines are much less reliable than turbine
engines, which contributes to the statistics.
I think people's fear of GA is not based on fact, but it's based on a
combination of Acrophobia (fear of heights) and Tachophobia (fear of speed).
And we just sit here and take it.
Unfortunately, their fear of GA (in comparison to commercial air
travel) is quite justified, as the numbers above make clear.
You can avoid becoming one of the statistics by being a disciplined
and safe pilot and taking no chances, and by flying only aircraft that
are properly maintained, in the conditions for which they were
designed. But you can be sure that other, careless pilots and poorly
maintained aircraft will continue to keep the accident rates high.
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