Mxsmanic writes:

A quick look at the NTSB reveals that there were no less than ten GA
accidents on October 18, 1974 alone, and that two of them had
fatalities (both involving Pipers). The deadliest was the one you
described, which killed four people.

Actually, I missed the second page! There were _seventeen_ GA
accidents on October 18, 1974.

Out of curiosity, I picked some other dates at random:


July 21, 1970 12 accidents, 6 deaths
September 21, 1996 13 accidents, 4 deaths (1 in a Piper)
June 6, 2003 9 accidents, 14 deaths
August 1, 2005 10 accidents, 1 death (in a Piper)

On August 1, 2005, there was also an incident aboard a commercial
airliner: a pitch-up event occurred briefly. The flight landed
uneventfully and no one was injured.

Most GA accidents have no fatalities. What is unsettling, though, is
that the probable cause for the accidents with fatalities seems to be
almost exclusively pilot error (true for most of the non-fatals, too).
In other words, non-fatal accidents occur sometimes when there are
mechanical failures, but a good pilot can compensate enough to avoid
dying in most cases. But when the pilot makes a stupid mistake,
everyone dies, even in a perfectly functioning aircraft.

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