Bill Gawthrop "F8" Accident - Sun 07/13/2014 - His Status
On Wednesday, July 30, 2014 2:51:22 PM UTC-7, Andy K wrote:
On Wednesday, July 30, 2014 4:36:43 PM UTC-4, jfitch wrote:
On Friday, July 25, 2014 1:27:20 PM UTC-7, wrote:
There are certainly many popular soaring sites with more challenging airport conditions (and worse safety records) than Truckee.
I have flown at many glider sites in the west including Truckee and Boulder, but nothing comes my mind as having very challenging airport conditions. Can you share with us which sites are more challenging and/or have worse safety records than Truckee?
To be clear, I don't feel Truckee to be too challenging or dangerous. I just want to know which sites I should be careful when I fly there.
I don't want to condemn any particular site, each of them has its own character and challenges. However a routine search of the NTSB accident database for the most recent 13 years of popular sites nearby shows:
Truckee 5 accidents, none fatal, 3 while landing
Minden 13 accidents, 3 fatalities, 5 while landing
Air Sailing 7 accidents, 1 fatal, 4 while landing
Williams 5 accidents, 1 fatal, 2 while landing
Truckee does not stand out as being particularly dangerous. You should be careful at all soaring sites!
What is the total number of flights in each of the places. Makes a big difference.
Very hard to come by that information. Order of magnitude they are about the same. Educated guess would be Williams doing the most (because they operate all year and are pretty active). Based on radio activity Minden probably a little more than Truckee (at least in private tows), with Air Sailing following.
My point is that the site has less to do with the accident rate than many other factors. And the number of accidents is actually quite small compared to operations, and so not particularly predictive of anything - too small a sample size. If you pick one of these sites over another based on safety, I would assert that you would be doing so without much evidence. They are all good sites, each with its challenges.
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