How safe is it, really?

This has been an interesting thread! My main interest has been watching
pilots take one set of statistics that show what they want to see, and then
to rationalize that they are safer yet! We see people using the fatal
accident rate for GA as a whole which is much safer than the flying that
people actually are engaged in. Every other type of GA flying (training,
crop dusting, business) has a lower fatal accident rate than personal
flying, but that doesn't deter pilots from using the "better" numbers
anyway! Then they rationalize that they are safer yet because they don't
engage in certain behaviors.

Here are the numbers:

Total GA
Number of hours: 25,800,000
Fatal accidents: 351
Fatal Accident Rate: 1.36/100,000 hrs

Turbine Business GA
Number of Hours 6,446,000
Fatal Accidents: 17
Fatal Accident Rate .26/100,000hrs

Total GA less Turbine Business GA (light GA)
Number of Hours 19,354,000
Fatal Accidents 334
Fatal Accident Rate: 1.73

"Peronal Flying" (from Nall Report)
Hours 47% of light GA
Fatal Accidents 72% of light GA
Fatal Rate: 2.65/100,000hrs.

So the bottom line here is that the accident rate for personal flying is
about twice the figure that pilots like to start with! I admit to using a
mix of 2002, 2003 and five year averages to reach these conclusions but the
accident rates have been fairly consistant over the years.

http://web.nbaa.org/public/ops/safety/20041130.php
http://www.ibac.org/Library/ElectF/s...riefissue2.pdf
http://ntsb.gov/aviation/Table10.htm
http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/03nall.pdf

Wake up guys! It is what it is!

Mike
MU-2


"Captain Wubba" wrote in message
om...
Hello

I'm a flight instructor, and I often get asked this question by
prospective students, their family members, and interested people in
general.

Other people here have given you some numbers that pan out to about 1
accident per 2,200,000 miles flown and one fatal accident per
13,000,000 miles flown. These are based on a conservative 125 knots
average cruise for the 'average GA' plane and 1.15 statute miles per
nautical mile, which kind of 'normalizes' the data in relation to 'car
miles'. (Please no flames from purists...these are ballpark numbers).

As an in instructor, one thing I look for in evaluating the 'safety'
of any given pilot is his or her personality. And this is relevant to
the question you asked. Why? Because in general aviation, avout 80% of
accidents are caused by 'pilot error', and of those about 2/3rds are
attributable directly to one of 3 common mistakes: Low level
maneuvering (buzzing), fuel mismanagement (running out of gas), and
flying VFR into IFR conditions. These three errors cause a great many
deaths, and are *entirely* preventable. This data is taken, by the
way, from an annual report on general aviation safety called the 'Nall
Report'.

A person's approach to solving problems, managing risk, and dealing
with situations is reflected (or contained, depending on how you look
at it) in their personality. And the way a person approaches the
problems and issues of flying determines how likely he or she is to
find themselves in a position where one of these errors is likely.

Let me give you an example. I know an airplane partnership at my local
airport. It is odd, because the 2 partners are *entirely* different in
their approach to flying. They are both well-educated, good men, with
solid technical skills. Both are IFR rated, and both have several
hundred hours of experience. But one is *very* conservative in his
approach to flying. He never lands his plane with less than at least
one full hour of fuel in his tanks, even if that means landing 10
minutes from his destination to refuel. He's IFR rated, but never flys
in conditions that approach even marginal VFR. He never 'buzzes' or
acts ostentatiously in any manner. He is as conservative a pilot as I
have ever met. He's very skilled, and I think he's *very* unlikely to
find himself in one of the situations I mentioned above...which
accounts for a *very* large percentage of aircraft accidents.

His partner (also a very skilled pilot), has run a tank dry (over
water, at night) because he wasn't paying enough attention to his fuel
situation. He has had to put 57 gallons into a 60-gallon-capacity
plane more than once, flys *very* marginal VFR (i.e. 'pretend VFR'),
and flew in solid instrument conditions before he had completed his
instrument rating. He's buzzed lakes and fields and houses, and has a
reputation around the airport as an 'accident waiting to happen'.

The first parter's personality, training, habits, and discipline make
him a very safe pilot. he is *very* unlikely to encounter the
conditions that kill over 1/2 of all GA pilots who die each year. The
other partner is *very* likely to encounter them at some point.

I guess I am asking 'which is your husband'? Earning his instrument
rating *will* make him a better pilot. Every pilot I have ever flown
with has become a better and more skilled pilot during their
instrument training. But his safety or lack thereof is *much* more
heavily influenced by his decision making and his approach to flying
than by any rating or certificate he has.

If your husband is a conservative decision maker, with the discipline
to stick to reasonable 'personal minimums' and firm guidelines about
fuel, weather conditions, personal health, etc., then his flying is
*very* safe. Probably at least as safe (per mile) as driving a car,
and possibly safer. Even factoring in the 'idiot contingent' (as one
of my fellow CFIs call them), flying is quite safe. If you are flying
with a disciplined, thoughtful, and well-trained pilot is is much
safer, and probably a safer means of getting distant places than
driving (highway travel is significantly more dangerous than local
travel).

Talk to your husband and his CFI about your concerns. They are valid
issues, and nobody will dismiss them trivially. But safety depends on
many things. His IFR training will likely make him a safer pilot...and
if he has the personal characteristics and the discipline to avoid the
'voluntary' situations that bring with them significant danger, I
think his safety and that of those flying with him is probably well
within almost everyone's 'comfort region'.

Cheers,


Cap


(June) wrote in message
. com...
I need some information from people 'in the field'. My husband has
his private license and is just starting to work on his IFR for
recreational flying. He wants to buy into a plane partnership, saying
he will be saving money rather than renting.

We have 2 little girls. I worry for his safety as it seems there is
another small plane crash every other time you turn on the news. I
think he should focus on this hobby when the kids are older, not when
he has such a young family.

Your opinions would be appreciated.

Mike Rapoport wrote:

This has been an interesting thread! My main interest has been watching
pilots take one set of statistics that show what they want to see, and then
to rationalize that they are safer yet! We see people using the fatal
accident rate for GA
....

I think this whole statistics discussion is irrelevant, even dangerous.

Imagine a young beginning student pilot. If all those experienced pilots
keep telling him that this or that activity (insert your favorite) is
more dangerous than flying, what attitude will he develop?

Instead, keep hammering in his (and your!) head that flying is extremely
dangerous (which it really is). The only way to survive flying is
knowing the risks and being dead serious about it, each time, always, no
exceptions. A side effect of this attitude will be that the statistics
will go down and flying will *appear* to be less dangerous.

Stefan

"Stefan" wrote in message
...
Mike Rapoport wrote:

This has been an interesting thread! My main interest has been watching
pilots take one set of statistics that show what they want to see, and
then to rationalize that they are safer yet! We see people using the
fatal accident rate for GA
...

I think this whole statistics discussion is irrelevant, even dangerous.

Imagine a young beginning student pilot. If all those experienced pilots
keep telling him that this or that activity (insert your favorite) is more
dangerous than flying, what attitude will he develop?

Instead, keep hammering in his (and your!) head that flying is extremely
dangerous (which it really is). The only way to survive flying is knowing
the risks and being dead serious about it, each time, always, no
exceptions. A side effect of this attitude will be that the statistics
will go down and flying will *appear* to be less dangerous.

Stefan

I agree and have always tried to have a realistic assesment of risk in
whatever I do so that I can make an informed descision about whether the
activity is worth doing. I see no point in downplaying the risks and,
frankly, I'd view anybody whom I could convince that flying with me was as
safe as flying on an airliner to be a total idiot. I am considering some
climbing in the Himalaya and the fatal rate is about 4-5% per trip. There
is no point in thinking these stats don't apply to me because "I won't do
anything stupid" since everyone else who perished thought the same thing.

Last month, I invited a friend to fly to Moose Creek to go fishing. He
asked if flying in the Helio was "safe". I said: "Not really, we will be
flying a single engine airplane over mountains with nowhere to land if the
engine quits. We would probably survive the crash since the airplane is so
slow. Do you want to go or not?" He showed up at the hanger with camping
gear for a week which was an appropriate thing to do.

Mike
MU-2

"Mike Rapoport" wrote
Last month, I invited a friend to fly to Moose Creek to go fishing. He
asked if flying in the Helio was "safe". I said: "Not really, we will be
flying a single engine airplane over mountains with nowhere to land if the
engine quits. We would probably survive the crash since the airplane is so
slow. Do you want to go or not?" He showed up at the hanger with camping
gear for a week which was an appropriate thing to do.

And I would have done the same (especially if I could get a little
stick time). You do what seems reasonable to reduce the risk, and if
after that it still seems worth it, then you do it.

I've been watching this thread with much the same reaction as you. In
fact, pretty mcuh the only reason I haven't contributed much to the
thread is that you've pretty much covered the ground I would have. I
have only one thing to add, and now I'm going to add it.

It seems to me like most pilots here are in denial about the true
risks of what they are doing. I also believe this is the primary
reason we have the product liability climate in GA that we do.

There have been lots of lawsuits against aircraft and component
manufacturers by grieving widows and orphans. A few have even been
successful. I'm not going to claim that the lawsuits were wholly
without basis. By modern standards, many of the aircraft and
components are poorly desinged, built, and maintained. There are all
sorts of reasons for this, but it's an undeniable fact. The GA
fatality rate due to mechanical problems alone is about the same as
the automobile fatality rate as a whole. This doesn't include all the
accidents that the NTSB categorizes as pure pilot error but which have
a lot to do with the sad reality that the aircraft are, in certain
circumstances, so difficult to operate that even the best of us can't
hope to get it right 100% of the time.

But here is the reality - the design flaws are no secret to anyone.
Anyone who flies a taildragger from the back seat knows you can't see
crap from there - but there are controls there anyway. Anyone who
flies a slippery complex airplane in IMC knows that flying it without
an AI can be difficult, and experienced pilots have screwed it up
fatally before, and AI's and vacuum pumps are failure prone - but
backup AI's with independent power sources are not required and are
mostly not present. We all know that engines fail. We all know that
weather forecasts are horoscopes with numbers. We know that our fuel
tanks and carburetors can leak, that our leaning procedures are not
terribly repeatable, and that our fuel gauges are largely inaccurate.
None of this is news.

So why do so many pilots minimize these risks, focus on relatively
small segments of the accident picture, and in general pretend that
private flying is safer than it is? I think it's because if they told
the truth, their wives would certainly never fly with them or allow
their kids to fly, and maybe stop them from flying entirely.

The problem happens when some of these pilots inevitably crash and
die. The thought process their families go through must be something
like this:

He was a very careful and safe pilot. Flying is safe. Therefore
someone else must have been at fault in his accident. Let's punish
that someone else so this never happens again.

Michael

"Michael" wrote in message
om...
"Mike Rapoport" wrote

It seems to me like most pilots here are in denial about the true
risks of what they are doing. I also believe this is the primary
reason we have the product liability climate in GA that we do.

There have been lots of lawsuits against aircraft and component
manufacturers by grieving widows and orphans.

As there have been against companies which do bungee-jumping, parachuting,
hang gliding, mountain climbing, deep-sea fishing, and a million other
activities which any logical person can see require taking risks which can
cause death. "Well, we're going to tie a rubber band around your ankles and
throw you off a bridge."

What it comes down to is acceptance of responsibility. Not a century ago it
was a rare family that hadn't lost one or more young children to disease by
the age of ten and if you survived that there were wars, workplace
accidents, railroad crashes, ships sinking, and a long list of now-routine
illnesses that meant certain death. Today when someone dies in their sixties
we say "so young" and the loss of a child is an agony beyond conception.

We understand everything. We dig tunnels thirty miles long under oceans and
dam rivers to make lakes the size of small countries. We cut peoples' chests
open, stop their hearts to replace a valve or four as if it were just
another engine, and administer a shock to start it all running again.
Satellites a hundred miles above the Earth send images which have turned the
most devastating storms into mere incoveniences. The temperature of the
polar ice cap is three degrees higher than normal? Clearly we are burning
too much fossil fuel!

When an airliner crashes, we suck up five million little bits off the ocean
floor and put it all back together. It takes a year or two, but then a man
in glasses gets up before a screen, and shows a film which explains exactly
what happened. "Here, you see, these indents the size of a dime show where a
cross-member hit, consistent with our theory that a spark in the tank caused
an explosion."

And none of this progress is illusory. The tunnels do not collapse and fill
with water. The patient gets out of bed and three weeks later resumes
hosting his late-night talk show and likely watches his grandchildren
graduate from high school. Airline travel has become safer than driving a
car. Hurricanes in the US regularly cause tens of billions in damage yet
kill hardly any. Men fly, the sick are healed, and oracles predict the
future from their perch in the sky. Have we not become the gods of our own
existence?

The only thing we don't believe in is the unpreventable accident. When
someone dies of cancer, the family sues the doctor for not finding it
sooner. When someone dies in a car crash, the automaker is sued because a
properly-designed car should allow the driver to survive rolling off the
road at sixty miles an hour. Every accident happens for a reason, and since
we know airplanes run out of gas, shouldn't we design ones that can't?

Believe me, the problem runs far deeper than a misplaced belief in the
safety of small planes.

-cwk.

"C Kingsbury" wrote in message
nk.net...

"Michael" wrote in message
om...
"Mike Rapoport" wrote

"Well, we're going to tie a rubber band around your ankles and
throw you off a bridge."


You make is sound like a crazy thing to do!

Mike
MU-2

"Mike Rapoport" wrote
"Well, we're going to tie a rubber band around your ankles and
throw you off a bridge."

You make is sound like a crazy thing to do!

It is.

Also sort of fun.

But going off a bridge with a parachute is more fun.

BTDT

Michael

Recently, C Kingsbury posted:
(largely snipped for brevity)

The only thing we don't believe in is the unpreventable accident. When
someone dies of cancer, the family sues the doctor for not finding it
sooner. When someone dies in a car crash, the automaker is sued
because a properly-designed car should allow the driver to survive
rolling off the road at sixty miles an hour. Every accident happens
for a reason, and since we know airplanes run out of gas, shouldn't
we design ones that can't?

Believe me, the problem runs far deeper than a misplaced belief in the
safety of small planes.

A most excellent summary of the "modern human's" state of mind. Thanks for
posting this!

Neil

"C Kingsbury" wrote
Believe me, the problem runs far deeper than a misplaced belief in the
safety of small planes.

So do you know how many successful lawsuits there have been against
parachute manufacturers? The answer is zero. The last attempt I
heard about was against Relative Workshop. It was eventually settled
by the PLAINTIFF (the woman who got hurt) paying the DEFENDANT (the
manufacturer of the parachute system) for legal expenses.

So what's the difference? Why do parachute manufacturers win all the
lawsuits against them, but the aircraft manufacturers don't?

The answer, my friend, is HONESTY. First of all, skydivers are honest
about the risks they take (mostly, anyway). There's a real "Blue
Skies, Black Death" attitude that is prevalent. Second, the
manufacturers are honest. They tell you that this **** could fail and
kill you - up front and in big letters, not in the fine print. And
you sign a waiver.

Personally, I would love to see a similar approach to little
airplanes.

Michael

"Michael" wrote in message
So what's the difference? Why do parachute manufacturers win all the
lawsuits against them, but the aircraft manufacturers don't?

The answer, my friend, is HONESTY. First of all, skydivers are honest
about the risks they take (mostly, anyway).

I really doubt this. It's lawyers and the silly litagous legal system that
make obscene reward settlements a fact of life. I don't believe for a
second that almost all families of dead jumpers would refuse a chance for a
big settlement. And, the fact that parachute manufacturers do get sued
suggests something else is going on. Maybe judges recognize that only an
insane person would jump out of a perfectly good airplane.

There's a real "Blue
Skies, Black Death" attitude that is prevalent. Second, the
manufacturers are honest. They tell you that this **** could fail and
kill you - up front and in big letters, not in the fine print. And
you sign a waiver.

Does the waiver relate to the jump facility AND the manufacturer?

moo