Is there any incentive to *not* report?
Heck, why get creative -- Well, OK, unless there was something suspect
that I don't want to reveal, like I was flying out of a medical, out of
maint requirements, or one of many other ways to not be 100% legal.

There are clearly a lot of NTSB reports out there where the damage was
far less than the "substantial" line that you're aggressively drawing,
so I guess some would be fine to not split the hair or possibly even
prefer to report it for whatever reason.



T

Vaughn Simon wrote:
"JGalban via AviationKB.com" u32749@uwe wrote in message
news:8a3d77a58a076@uwe...
I would assume that an aircraft ditching into a
river would result in "substantial damage" as described in Part 830.

That would depend on the nature of the damage caused by the ditching.
Critically read the definitions of "aircraft accident" and "substantial damage"
in 830.2. There is lots of "wiggle room". Since no $ amount is specified in
the definition of "substantial damage", an intact ditched plane could easily be
(at least arguably) non-reportable even though the actual damage may exceed the
value of the aircraft. Remember; engine failure, engine damage, prop damage,
skin damage, fabric damage, fairings & landing gear and much more are
specifically exempted.

To give an idea how one can get creative; after you recovered a ditched
plane, you could claim that any structural damage was caused by the recovery
effort, not the actual ditching; thus there was no "aircraft accident"since the
aircraft was not being operated for flight when the damage occurred.

Over the years, I have seen some pretty severe aircraft damage that was never
reported to anyone except perhaps the insurance company.