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Fatalities: Rentals vs Owned?
While discussing flight safety in a different thread, the idea popped
into my head that rental planes are probably more dangerous to fly than owner-flown aircraft. In my case, some of the rental birds I used to fly were down-right scary, and I know that they were often abused and ignored. This as opposed to my own aircraft, which have been meticulously maintained and pampered. (And, other than the hangar queens that are owned by "pilots" that never fly, every active pilot owner I know treats their plane in much the same way.) Strangely, I can't seem to find any statistics on this seemingly obvious (and easy-to-compile) issue. Does anyone know if any studies have been done in this regard? -- Jay Honeck Iowa City, IA Pathfinder N56993 www.AlexisParkInn.com "Your Aviation Destination" |
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Fatalities: Rentals vs Owned?
NTSB reports do not reflect the ownership status, only the FAR under which
the flight was being conducted. But you knew that. Bob Gardner "Jay Honeck" wrote in message ups.com... While discussing flight safety in a different thread, the idea popped into my head that rental planes are probably more dangerous to fly than owner-flown aircraft. In my case, some of the rental birds I used to fly were down-right scary, and I know that they were often abused and ignored. This as opposed to my own aircraft, which have been meticulously maintained and pampered. (And, other than the hangar queens that are owned by "pilots" that never fly, every active pilot owner I know treats their plane in much the same way.) Strangely, I can't seem to find any statistics on this seemingly obvious (and easy-to-compile) issue. Does anyone know if any studies have been done in this regard? -- Jay Honeck Iowa City, IA Pathfinder N56993 www.AlexisParkInn.com "Your Aviation Destination" |
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Fatalities: Rentals vs Owned?
Jay Honeck wrote:
While discussing flight safety in a different thread, the idea popped into my head that rental planes are probably more dangerous to fly than owner-flown aircraft. In my case, some of the rental birds I used to fly were down-right scary, and I know that they were often abused and ignored. Interesting. I don't have any studies, but from a strictly maintenance standpoint, I see things completely opposite. Every single rental aircraft I have flown is meticulously maintained, by certificated and qualified mechanics with factory training. I'm picky about what I fly. Some of the owners I know? They just go out and do whatever to their airplanes, legal/safe or not. It's the "it's my plane, I can do what I want to it" mentality. |
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Fatalities: Rentals vs Owned?
On Oct 21, 7:31 pm, Emily wrote: Interesting. I don't have any studies, but from a strictly maintenance standpoint, I see things completely opposite. Every single rental aircraft I have flown is meticulously maintained, by certificated and qualified mechanics with factory training. I'm picky about what I fly. Some of the owners I know? They just go out and do whatever to their airplanes, legal/safe or not. It's the "it's my plane, I can do what I want to it" mentality. I'd agree. I've flown plenty of rental and "Working" planes, and while they are ugly to look at (torn up interiors, chipped paint, etc.) they tend to be generally well maintained underneath. Required 100 hour inspections mean that cables, spars, etc. are getting looked at as much as once a month or two rather than once a year. My experience has been that Owner/pilots are more likely to cut corners on maintenance issues that they do not see as a safety issue. The reality is however, that maintenance induce accidents are relatively rare. If there is a statistic significant increase in the accident rate for rentals, its likely due to the comparably less proficiency that renters have compared to owners. I'd venture to guess that in the broad scheme of things, the accident rate for rentals is likely lower as high insurance rates and renter requirements discourage flight schools from putting more accident-prone aircraft on the rental line. |
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Fatalities: Rentals vs Owned?
Jay Honeck wrote:
Strangely, I can't seem to find any statistics on this seemingly obvious (and easy-to-compile) issue. Does anyone know if any studies have been done in this regard? I don't know of any statistically valid studies. From my own experience, I believe the local fatalities have been 3:1 owners to renters. My pet theory is that it has to do with more exposure as an owner. Renters tend to fly less. As an aside, I don't recall any of the local GA fatalities were caused by mechanical deficiencies. They seemed to be either weather or health related instead. -- Mortimer Schnerd, RN mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com |
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Fatalities: Rentals vs Owned?
Jay Honeck wrote:
Strangely, I can't seem to find any statistics on this seemingly obvious (and easy-to-compile) issue. Does anyone know if any studies have been done in this regard? it might actually be difficult to make comparisons because I would guess -- i.e., this is not based on any numbers/evidences, just wild speculations -- that privately owned aircraft are used quite differently from rentals; for instance, I would imagine that the former are used more for travels and the latter more for training for instance... --Sylvain |
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Fatalities: Rentals vs Owned?
Mortimer Schnerd, RN wrote:
Jay Honeck wrote: Strangely, I can't seem to find any statistics on this seemingly obvious (and easy-to-compile) issue. Does anyone know if any studies have been done in this regard? I don't know of any statistically valid studies. From my own experience, I believe the local fatalities have been 3:1 owners to renters. My pet theory is that it has to do with more exposure as an owner. Renters tend to fly less. Yes, a renter might fly less, but what about a rental aircraft? |
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Fatalities: Rentals vs Owned?
On 21 Oct 2006 15:45:58 -0700, "Jay Honeck" wrote:
While discussing flight safety in a different thread, the idea popped into my head that rental planes are probably more dangerous to fly than owner-flown aircraft. In my case, some of the rental birds I used to fly were down-right scary, and I know that they were often abused and ignored. This as opposed to my own aircraft, which have been meticulously maintained and pampered. (And, other than the hangar queens that are owned by "pilots" that never fly, every active pilot owner I know treats their plane in much the same way.) Strangely, I can't seem to find any statistics on this seemingly obvious (and easy-to-compile) issue. Does anyone know if any studies have been done in this regard? It's not that easy to compile accurately, I think. The NTSB accident summaries do include the owner and operator names, and has a "Oper_same" column, but there's no way to really tell the relationship of the pilot to the owner. If the pilot was "Joe Smith" and the owner is listed as "ABC Investments," was the plane rented or did the pilot just operate it as a corporation for tax purposes? If the "Oper_Same" flag is "N", was it rented or was it borrowed from a friend? Certainly there are some owners who keep their airplanes in much better shape than the average rental hack. But then, there are owners who cut corners and defer repairs. I have run a couple of analyses of NTSB data to investigate homebuilt aircraft accident statistics. For these, I use a combination of Cessna 172s/210s as a control group (leaving out the 172s involved in training accidents). During the 2002-2004 period, about 20% of the 172/210 group accidents were due to some sort of mechanical problem, including faulty maintenance. But a third of those were "unexplained engine failures" that might have been due to the pilot. All boiled down, between 70% and 80% of the accidents had nothing to do with who actually owned the airplane...the pilot goofed up. Perhaps some of the remainder crashed because they were rental birds in poor condition, but the raw number is not likely to be statistically significant. Convincing pilots to NOT run their gas tanks dry would save more lives than tightening FBO maintenance oversight. It's interesting to note that I've seen the same argument made for homebuilts...that homebuilt owners take better care of their airplanes. The statistics don't bear that out. Homebuilts (which, it must be pointed out, are generally manufactured *and* maintained by amateurs) have a mechanical-failure accident rate about 50% higher than my C-172/210 control group. Ron Wanttaja |
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Fatalities: Rentals vs Owned?
This is a tough one Jay. I don't have figure 1 on this, but from personal
experience through the years I've seen it both ways. I've seen operations that maintained their airplanes like a Swiss watch and many I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole. I've seen owners who maintained perfectly and owners whose airplanes I absolutely would not fly. I think a useful and plausible answer to this one is going to be tough to nail down. Dudley "Jay Honeck" wrote in message ups.com... While discussing flight safety in a different thread, the idea popped into my head that rental planes are probably more dangerous to fly than owner-flown aircraft. In my case, some of the rental birds I used to fly were down-right scary, and I know that they were often abused and ignored. This as opposed to my own aircraft, which have been meticulously maintained and pampered. (And, other than the hangar queens that are owned by "pilots" that never fly, every active pilot owner I know treats their plane in much the same way.) Strangely, I can't seem to find any statistics on this seemingly obvious (and easy-to-compile) issue. Does anyone know if any studies have been done in this regard? -- Jay Honeck Iowa City, IA Pathfinder N56993 www.AlexisParkInn.com "Your Aviation Destination" |
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Fatalities: Rentals vs Owned?
On Sat, 21 Oct 2006 17:27:47 -0700, Brad wrote:
I'd agree. I've flown plenty of rental and "Working" planes, and while they are ugly to look at (torn up interiors, chipped paint, etc.) they tend to be generally well maintained underneath. Required 100 hour inspections mean that cables, spars, etc. are getting looked at as much as once a month or two rather than once a year. My experience has been that Owner/pilots are more likely to cut corners on maintenance issues that they do not see as a safety issue. I'd say that the bag is mixed on both sides. During my PPL training, the aircraft were in a state that would - had I known what I know now - worry me. It's very possible that all the flaws I saw were all there were to see, and that the actual underlying MX was flawless. But how would I know? Another FBO on the same field had newer and better maintained airplanes. On the other hand, how do I know that all the effort wasn't spent on keeping the plane looking good, with corners cut underneath? I don't. Still, I could easily see one shop taking MX more seriously than the other. Sure, the rentals are required to have 100 hour inspections. But, as far as I recall, there's no requirement for (for example) oil analysis. So there's room for "good MX" and "bad MX". I'm sensitive to that at the moment as that analysis just told us of a possible problem in one engine in the partnership to which I belong. The question arose: were we safer in that airplane (where all MX people, including Mattituck, said that the proper response was to fly it for 15 hours and then recheck, but for one A&P who said that the 200-hour-over-TBO engine should be overhauled immediately) or in a rental airplane that wasn't given oil analysis. After all, if we did do the analysis we'd not know about the copper in the oil. So who can tell about the engines on the rental fleet? - Andrew |
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