Safety, yet again...

"Don Tuite" wrote in message
...
Because I'm interesting in *my* probability of dying in a plane crash,
not anyone elses.

We've been here before. Probability has to do with populations, not
with you as an individual.

It has to do with both. No one would complain (from a mathematical
standpoint) about someone decreasing their risk relative to aviation by
simply not getting in an airplane. So obviously personal choices have an
effect on safety.

To me, the real problem with trying to eliminate the "stupid pilot tricks"
component is that I think it likely that many of the pilots who are killed
doing something someone might consider a "stupid pilot trick" probably if
asked beforehand if they'd ever do something so stupid, would have said
"no". And all it takes is making the mistake once.

Heck, for that matter, some of the mistakes are deadly enough that in all
likelihood, most of the pilots killed by such mistakes did them only once.

Which means you can spend your whole flying career avoiding such mistakes,
without doing a single thing to affect your risk of being killed by one.
Why is that? Because the measured risk isn't of pilots who go around making
those mistakes, but rather is of ALL pilots where eventually some make one
of those mistakes.

In other words, it's a fallacy to remove any stupid pilot tricks from one's
"personal risk assessment". I do very much agree with you that it's a
mistake for someone to believe that their personal risk exposure is less
simply because they strive to avoid those stupid pilot tricks.

Now, all that said, looking at the differences between accidents caused by
stupid pilot tricks and accidents caused by something else should (one
hopes) give each pilot a strong appreciation for the importance of avoiding
those stupid pilot tricks. But that doesn't guarantee they won't make one
of those mistakes. It just means they are more strongly motivated to avoid
them.

Pete

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
ups.com...
Point taken, but surely there is knowledge to be gained by subtracting
the "stupid pilot tricks" from the total number of fatal accidents?

There is knowledge, agreed. I just don't think you can use that knowledge
to change in any meaningful way a rational calculation of your own exposure
to the risks.

You can do lots of other useful things with the knowledge. Just not that.

Pete

Does anyone know how to extract the "stupid pilot trick" fatalities
(I.E.: Running out of gas; Flying into terrain; Buzzing your
girlfriend's house; etc.) from this statistic?
Why would you want to?
Because I'm interesting in *my* probability of dying in a plane crash,
not anyone elses.

Your probability is actually higher, just =because= you feel
invulnerable. You think that you would =never= make a stupid mistake.
Yet you have posted many stupid mistakes that you have made, some of
which you realized and some of which you still don't.

You've asked this question before, and you have gotten the same
responses before. It won't change, and it appears it won't change you
either. This is a classic accident-waiting-to-happen.

Jose
--
The price of freedom is... well... freedom.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"John Gaquin" wrote in message
. ..

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message

Does anyone know how to extract the "stupid pilot trick" fatalities
(I.E.: Running out of gas; Flying into terrain; Buzzing your
girlfriend's house; etc.) from this statistic?

Why would you want to? You would then present a false picture of GA,
deliberately skewed to make it appear safer and more responsible than it
truly is.

On that basis, you might want to eliminate the stupid driver trick too, like
DUI, not wearing seat belts etc.

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
ups.com...
Which is safer flying or driving?

Fatalities per million trips Odds of being
killed on a single trip:
Airliner (Part 121) 0.019
52.6 million to 1
Automobile 0.130
7.6 million to 1
Commuter Airline (Part 135 scheduled) 1.72 581,395 to
1
Commuter Plane (Part 135 - Air taxi on demand) 6.10 163,934 to 1
General Aviation (Part 91) 13.3
73,187 to 1


Part 91 includes business aviation as well as recreational/personal flying.
BusAv is several times (x ?) safer than recreationa/personal flying. You can
break BusAv out into Corporate Avaition, with a couple ATP's flying a G5,
and into ownerflown singles (call it BusAv and CorpAv).

IIRC, CorpAv is even safer than Part 135 ???


--
Matt
---------------------
Matthew W. Barrow
Site-Fill Homes, LLC.
Montrose, CO

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
oups.com...
Gosh, I hate it when formating gets all screwed up like that. Let's
try THIS:

Which is safer flying or driving?

Fatalities per million trips
Airliner (Part 121) 0.019
Odds of being killed on a single trip:
52.6 million to 1

Fatalities per million trips
Automobile 0.130
Odds of being killed on a single trip:
7.6 million to 1

Fatalities per million trips
Commuter Airline (Part 135 scheduled) 1.72
Odds of being killed on a single trip:
581,395 to 1

Fatalities per million trips
Commuter Plane (Part 135 - Air taxi on demand) 6.10
Odds of being killed on a single trip:
163,934 to 1

Fatalities per million trips
General Aviation (Part 91) 13.3
Odds of being killed on a single trip:
73,187 to 1

(Sources: NTSB Accidents and Accident Rates by NTSB Classification
1995-2004 DOT Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) 1995- 2004
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.)

It's pretty obvious that GA is the poor step-child of aviation.

Does anyone know how to extract the "stupid pilot trick" fatalities
(I.E.: Running out of gas; Flying into terrain; Buzzing your
girlfriend's house; etc.) from this statistic?

Since most automobile trips probably are the 10 mile, 35 MPH variety, the
comparison is hard to draw. Hell, what's the rate for auto trips versus
walking to the store? :~)

"John Gaquin" wrote in message
. ..

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message

Does anyone know how to extract the "stupid pilot trick" fatalities
(I.E.: Running out of gas; Flying into terrain; Buzzing your
girlfriend's house; etc.) from this statistic?

Why would you want to? You would then present a false picture of GA,
deliberately skewed to make it appear safer and more responsible than it
truly is.

How about sifting out the idiot teenager driver, the old geezer that fell
asleep at the wheel and ran over another car...

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
ups.com...
Because I'm interesting in *my* probability of dying in a plane crash,
not anyone elses.

We've been here before. Probability has to do with populations, not
with you as an individual. You do something, you wind up either dead
or alive. No fractions. The coin comes down either heads or tails.
It doesn't matter what side it came down on the last ten flips.

This is your life. Be careful. Enjoy. Select your risks.

Point taken, but surely there is knowledge to be gained by subtracting
the "stupid pilot tricks" from the total number of fatal accidents?

How often do you drive drunk?

How often do you drive 70MPH or wet or icy roads?

How often do you drive recklessly? Carelessly?...

Your probability is actually higher, just =because= you feel
invulnerable. You think that you would =never= make a stupid mistake. Yet
you have posted many stupid mistakes that you have made, some of which you
realized and some of which you still don't.

He didn't say he would =never= make a stupid mistake, what he said is that
he strives to minimize his exposure to them. I've seen pilots drive up to
our local FBO, walk into the termina, get keys, go out to a rental C150, get
in, start up, taxi out (no runup) and do a mid-field departure (this is an
all-inclusive list). And I've seen this several times.

The results of that kind of behaviour is what Jay is able to avoid by taking
the precautions that he does. There's nothing wrong with the question. If
he (and I for that matter) want to see what our "chances" really are, then
I, for one, don't want to be included in the statistical analysis that
includes my impatient FBO customers that don't preflight, run-up or use all
the 4000ft runway. Because in my world, those three things aren't factors.

Does that mean that I won't die from an engine out or fuel starvation from
my own stupidity? No, but it does mean that I won't take-off with the
gustlocks installed or with detectable water in my fuel.

jf

"Jay Honeck" wrote:
If you remove stupidity from one category, you'd have to remove
it from all of them. Then, you'd have a new piece of information,
the ratio of how many stupid idiots there are in each category.

Well, true enough. But "stupid pilot tricks" are not usually fatal if
they occur in a car.

For example, running out of gas in your Subaru is an inconvenience.
Running out of gas in your Cessna is probably going to bend metal -- or
kill you.

Squealing your tires in front of your girl friend's house might get you
a ticket. Buzzing your girl friend's house might get you killed. And
so on...

I guess the point is that flying is far less forgiving of "stupid
tricks" than driving. Extracting them from both sets of statistics
therefore WON'T result in a straight line, equivalent change of fatal
incidents.

But he's talking about removing only the stupid-drver-trick *accidents*, not
all the stupid drver tricks.

I suspect that if one removes all the fatal stupid-drver-trick accidents
from the record, one would have very few fatal accidents left.

This is not apples-to-apples, of course: in flying, one has less exposure to
risk of death from to the stupidity of other pilots than one does to the
stupidity of other drivers while driving.

Nevertheless, I believe you are making a grave error in attempting to
reassure yourself that you are beating the odds. Private GA flying is
dangerous; more dangerous than driving by two orders of magnitude, according
to the NTSB statistics you posted. That disparity is so huge I don't see
how you can convince yourself that you can reduce it to equality in your own
flying. If you do manage to believe this you are living in a dream world, a
dangerous place for a pilot.

--
Dan
C172RG at BFM