How safe is it, really?

Actually Mike, I believe you are mistaken...or just looking at one
side of the equation. Let's take a look at some actual numbers,
gleaned from

http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/02nall.pdf
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/hs00/pdf/in3.pdf
http://www.car-accidents.com/pages/stats.html

I'm using 2000 or 2001 numbers, depending upon the source, so they are
pretty comparable. Numbers are rounded for convenience...you can
calculate using the exact numbers from these sources. And I am making
a few 'reasonable' assumptions (i.e. average car use is 12,000 miles
per year, average GA aircraft flys at 125 knots, converted into
statute miles for comparison) and I also realize that the numbers are
not perfect...but they do give us 'some' real information upon which
to judge risk.




Automobiles
----------------
Miles traveled - 1,584,000,000,000
Deaths - 43,000
Injuries - 3,200,000
Accidents - 6,300,000
Total casualties (deaths+injuries) - 3,243,000

GA Fixed Wing Aircraft
-----------------
Miles traveled - 4,183,125,000
Deaths - 521
Injuries - 2400 (assuming a [high] 1.5 injuries per acident)
Accidents - 1600
Total casualties (deaths+injuries) - 2921


Let's look at the 'miles per incident' rates for various events:

Event Automobile Plane
--------------------------------------------------------
Deaths 36,837,209 8,029,030
Injuries 495,000 1,742,969
Accidents 251,429 2,614,453
Total Casualties 488,437 1,432,087




Now, from these statistics, it is pretty clear that your chances of
dying in a GA plane are significantly higher (per mile) than in an
automobile. But they are both quite low.

But, your chances of being a 'casualty' (being injured *or* killed) is
*much* greater in a car than in an airplane. There is one casualty for
every 488,000 miles in a car...only one for every 1,432,000 miles in a
GA plane. Additionally, you are *10 times* as likely to be in a car
wreck (again per mile) than in a plane wreck. But again, they are
still pretty low.

And this isn't even factoring in the 'what if' that the poster
commented on (i.e. about 2/3rds of GA accidents being pilot
error)...that would reduce the danger even more.

To a great extent, it depends on how you define 'dangerous'. If the
question is "If you were to travel 1000 miles in either a car or a GA
airplane, in which vehicle would you be more likely to be injured or
killed? The answer is "You're significantly more likely to be injured
or killed in the automobile."

If 'safety' means the probability of arriving at your destination
without a scratch, then you will be 'safer' in a GA airplane than an
automobile, and certainly than on a motorcycle.

If 'safety' means the probability that you won't be killed before
arriving at your destination, then you will be 'safer' in an
automobile.


Cheers,

Cap



"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message link.net...
You are fooling yourself. According to the Nall Report, the pilot was the
"major cause" of 70% of fatal accidents. This leaves 30%. Even if you
eliminate all the accidents from risky behavior or poor/rusty skills,
personal flying is still more dangerous than other forms of transport.
Pilots like to try to twist the stats to suit their beliefs. This makes no
sense to me. The motorcycle stats have people acting irresponsibly too.

The real question is "What is an acceptable level of risk?" That level
varies by person. I have this discussion with my wife over mountain
climbing all the time. My view is that you cannot perserve life, you have
to live it.

Mike
MU-2


"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
om...
(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.

The motorcycle comparison is not a good one. Really, the safety has
everything to do with the type of guy your husband is. If he's the
type of person that is going to want to do low level buzzing over his
friends houses or jump into weather he isn't trained to deal with, it
could be dangerous. Unlike a motorcycle, a pilot gets to choose his
level of risk. I've flown with pilots that worry me, and I've flown
with pilots that will have very long lives. It really depends on his
choices. I have two young boys myself.

-Robert, Flight Instructor.

"Captain Wubba" wrote in message
om...
Actually Mike, I believe you are mistaken...or just looking at one
side of the equation. Let's take a look at some actual numbers,
gleaned from

http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/02nall.pdf
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/hs00/pdf/in3.pdf
http://www.car-accidents.com/pages/stats.html

I'm using 2000 or 2001 numbers, depending upon the source, so they are
pretty comparable. Numbers are rounded for convenience...you can
calculate using the exact numbers from these sources. And I am making
a few 'reasonable' assumptions (i.e. average car use is 12,000 miles
per year, average GA aircraft flys at 125 knots, converted into
statute miles for comparison) and I also realize that the numbers are
not perfect...but they do give us 'some' real information upon which
to judge risk.




Automobiles
----------------
Miles traveled - 1,584,000,000,000
Deaths - 43,000
Injuries - 3,200,000
Accidents - 6,300,000
Total casualties (deaths+injuries) - 3,243,000

GA Fixed Wing Aircraft
-----------------
Miles traveled - 4,183,125,000
Deaths - 521
Injuries - 2400 (assuming a [high] 1.5 injuries per acident)
Accidents - 1600
Total casualties (deaths+injuries) - 2921


Let's look at the 'miles per incident' rates for various events:

Event Automobile Plane
--------------------------------------------------------
Deaths 36,837,209 8,029,030
Injuries 495,000 1,742,969
Accidents 251,429 2,614,453
Total Casualties 488,437 1,432,087




Now, from these statistics, it is pretty clear that your chances of
dying in a GA plane are significantly higher (per mile) than in an
automobile. But they are both quite low.

But, your chances of being a 'casualty' (being injured *or* killed) is
*much* greater in a car than in an airplane. There is one casualty for
every 488,000 miles in a car...only one for every 1,432,000 miles in a
GA plane. Additionally, you are *10 times* as likely to be in a car
wreck (again per mile) than in a plane wreck. But again, they are
still pretty low.

And this isn't even factoring in the 'what if' that the poster
commented on (i.e. about 2/3rds of GA accidents being pilot
error)...that would reduce the danger even more.

To a great extent, it depends on how you define 'dangerous'. If the
question is "If you were to travel 1000 miles in either a car or a GA
airplane, in which vehicle would you be more likely to be injured or
killed? The answer is "You're significantly more likely to be injured
or killed in the automobile."

If 'safety' means the probability of arriving at your destination
without a scratch, then you will be 'safer' in a GA airplane than an
automobile, and certainly than on a motorcycle.

If 'safety' means the probability that you won't be killed before
arriving at your destination, then you will be 'safer' in an
automobile.

Why are you using the composite light GA numbers when personal flying has an
accident rate 50% higher?

Mike
MU-2

Why am I using the composite automobile numbers when highway numbers
are much higher (more dangerous)? Why am I using *any* set of numbers?
If we can pick and chose the numbers we want, we can 'prove' virtually
anything. It made the most sense to me, when comparing 'travel by car'
to 'travel by GA plane' to use the figures for *all* cars vs. *all* GA
planes.

Please feel free to break out 'self-piloted' GA numbers from the total
number of hours, the total number of deaths and the total number of
injuries if you so wish...but when you analyse the question 'Will you
be safer on a 1000 mile trip if you travel by car or by GA airplane?'
*Even if* you use the '50% higher' figures you want to use, you will
STILL find that

If 'safety' = 'probability of arriving at your destination without
injury or death', then travel by GA plane (personal flying), is
*still* safer than travel by car.

If 'safety' = 'probability of not getting killed before reaching your
destination', then travel by car is safer than travel by GA (personal
flying).

It depends on which definition you want to use. What is 'safe'? Just
for giggles, I asked that question ("Which of these two definitions
would you personally use in determeing if something was safe or not?")
to 8 non-aviator co-workers today. 6 of them said 'Injured or killed'
(which favors GA) and 2 of them said 'killed' (which favors cars).

The numbers don't lie tho...to say that aviation is 'less safe' than
car travel, one has to use a particular definition of 'safe'. You may
feel it is the 'better' definition. I don't.

Cheers,

Cap


"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message link.net...
Let's look at the 'miles per incident' rates for various events:

Event Automobile Plane
--------------------------------------------------------
Deaths 36,837,209 8,029,030
Injuries 495,000 1,742,969
Accidents 251,429 2,614,453
Total Casualties 488,437 1,432,087




Now, from these statistics, it is pretty clear that your chances of
dying in a GA plane are significantly higher (per mile) than in an
automobile. But they are both quite low.

But, your chances of being a 'casualty' (being injured *or* killed) is
*much* greater in a car than in an airplane. There is one casualty for
every 488,000 miles in a car...only one for every 1,432,000 miles in a
GA plane. Additionally, you are *10 times* as likely to be in a car
wreck (again per mile) than in a plane wreck. But again, they are
still pretty low.


Why are you using the composite light GA numbers when personal flying has an
accident rate 50% higher?

Mike
MU-2

I would say safety is a function of surviving the trip! Your last numbers
showed a fatal accident rate for aircraft 4.6 time greater than for autos on
a per mile basis. Looking at another set of numbers for autos, the NTSB
shows a rate of 1.48 fatal accidents/100 million miles. Converting the NTSB
data for GA to miles (assuming 125kts and 1.15 sm/nm) we get 9.46 fatals/100
million miles and as I pointed out earlier, this number understates the risk
for light GA personal flying by a factor of two. The overwhelming majority
of auto injuries are minor, some are not even noticed before the ambulance
chaser suggest them. If you rephrased the question including the fact that
the flying is 12 times as likely to result in death but the auto has a
higher chance of minor injury, I doubt if anyone would consider flying to be
safer.

Mike
MU-2




"Captain Wubba" wrote in message
om...
Why am I using the composite automobile numbers when highway numbers
are much higher (more dangerous)? Why am I using *any* set of numbers?
If we can pick and chose the numbers we want, we can 'prove' virtually
anything. It made the most sense to me, when comparing 'travel by car'
to 'travel by GA plane' to use the figures for *all* cars vs. *all* GA
planes.

Please feel free to break out 'self-piloted' GA numbers from the total
number of hours, the total number of deaths and the total number of
injuries if you so wish...but when you analyse the question 'Will you
be safer on a 1000 mile trip if you travel by car or by GA airplane?'
*Even if* you use the '50% higher' figures you want to use, you will
STILL find that

If 'safety' = 'probability of arriving at your destination without
injury or death', then travel by GA plane (personal flying), is
*still* safer than travel by car.

If 'safety' = 'probability of not getting killed before reaching your
destination', then travel by car is safer than travel by GA (personal
flying).

It depends on which definition you want to use. What is 'safe'? Just
for giggles, I asked that question ("Which of these two definitions
would you personally use in determeing if something was safe or not?")
to 8 non-aviator co-workers today. 6 of them said 'Injured or killed'
(which favors GA) and 2 of them said 'killed' (which favors cars).

The numbers don't lie tho...to say that aviation is 'less safe' than
car travel, one has to use a particular definition of 'safe'. You may
feel it is the 'better' definition. I don't.

Cheers,

Cap


"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
link.net...
Let's look at the 'miles per incident' rates for various events:

Event Automobile Plane
--------------------------------------------------------
Deaths 36,837,209 8,029,030
Injuries 495,000 1,742,969
Accidents 251,429 2,614,453
Total Casualties 488,437 1,432,087




Now, from these statistics, it is pretty clear that your chances of
dying in a GA plane are significantly higher (per mile) than in an
automobile. But they are both quite low.

But, your chances of being a 'casualty' (being injured *or* killed) is
*much* greater in a car than in an airplane. There is one casualty for
every 488,000 miles in a car...only one for every 1,432,000 miles in a
GA plane. Additionally, you are *10 times* as likely to be in a car
wreck (again per mile) than in a plane wreck. But again, they are
still pretty low.


Why are you using the composite light GA numbers when personal flying has
an
accident rate 50% higher?

Mike
MU-2

Sure. We can rephrase the question to get any answer you are looking
for. Let me know which answer you want to hear...I'll give you the
'right' question to ask. The question I 'choose' to look at is "Which
mode of travel is more likely to get me from point A 100 miles to
point B without injury or death?" Well, the answer to *that specific*
question is PROVABLY 'general aviation flying' over 'automobile'. Even
'owner flown GA' over automobile. You want to ask a different
question? Only considering deaths? Fine...you'll get the answer that
GA travel is less safe.

And by the way, the Nall Report only covers Fixed Wing GA aircraft
weighing under 12,500 lbs. So that takes out many of the profesionally
driven G-IVs, Lears, Citations, Challengers, etc.

You want to break out the numbers to prove various things? Great.
Multiengine flying is *much* more dangerous than single engine flying,
at least in GA, per the Nall Report. Multiengine aircraft flew
something along the lines of 8% of GA hours, but were responsible for
almost 22% of fatalities. Should we tell people that, statistically,
if they only fly in single engine planes they will be much safer than
if they fly in multiengine GA planes? Lets look at hours. According
to the Nall Report, almost 80% of accidents involved pilots with less
than 500 hours in type. So should we break it out and tell the
original poster 'Well, once your husband reaches 500 hours in type, he
becomes *much* safer, statistically?'. Almost 40% of accidents
involved pilots with less than 500 hours total. Should we tell her
that once he hits 500 hours, he's safe to fly with?

So what numbers should we use? I chose to use 'all' GA versus 'all'
auto travel. Which definition of 'safe' should we use?

Either way, there is not much chance of dying in either. In a GA
airplane, I'd have to fly almost 8000 hours before I even had a 10%
chance of dying in a plane. But by then, of course, my risk per hour
would be much lower since high-time pilots are clearly much safer than
low-time pilots. I don't think that would apply to driving.

But either way, I'm not worrying much about it. For that 10%
probability of dying in an airplane to happen I'd have to fly *very*
actively...10 hours per week, every week, month-in and month-out for
over 15 years.

And one of the other issues was about how much pilot 'personality' and
decision making affects safety. Let's just look at single-engine
fixed-wing travel for the moment...that accounted for 412 deaths in
2001. Maneuvering flight accidents are almost *always* avoidable.
Actually pretty easy to avoid...don't buzz, always watch your
airspeed, coordinate your turns...the basic stuff I drill into primary
students all the time. Maneuvering accidents accounted for 38% of
fixed-wing single-engine fatal accidents. Weather-related incidents
accounted for another 10% of fatal accidents.

OK. This isn't rocket science. If a pilot is suffucuently well trained
and disciplined to *never* buzz, to *always* go around when an landing
looks shaky [so they don't have to do erratic maneuvering to get back
to the centerline], *never* go below the sector safe altitue, unless
you know precisely where every obstacle is, and *never* fly unless you
know that the weather is well above marginal VFR conditions, then that
pilot has removed himself from the conditions that cause nearly 50% of
all fatal accidents.

If you fly with/as a pilot who is able to avoid those conditions that
lead to those deaths (actually pretty easy to fix, with sufficient
training and discipline), then you are left with an accident
probability of 1/2 of what it is for all GA pilots taken as a whole.

If you remove those, do you know how many fatal accidents would have
occurred in 2001, in single-engine fixed-wing planes? 65. Total.

Take these numbers with some 'reasonable' assumptions, and now you are
up near one fatality for every 15 million miles, with a pilot
'disciplined' and well-trained enough to not out himself in
circumstances where a manevuvering or weather incident is likely.

So basically, if you fly with a pilot in a fixed-wing single, who is
proficient, who is well trained, and who is disciplined enough to
avoid the almost-entirely avoidable accidents involving weather and
maneuvering, then you are in a situation where, before you would have
even an 0.1 probability of dying in an aircraft accident, you'd have
to fly with him 10 hours per week, every week of every month, for *30
years*. Is that safe enough for you?

As I said before, there are lots of ways to look at the numbers...and
depending on how you want to slice and dice them, and which questions
you choose to ask, you can find anything. But in the end, as a CFI and
as a pilot, I feel *very* comfortable telling people (truthfully) that
general aviation is quite safe. And I believe I have the evidence to
back that up.


Cheers,

Chris



"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message link.net...
I would say safety is a function of surviving the trip! Your last numbers
showed a fatal accident rate for aircraft 4.6 time greater than for autos on
a per mile basis. Looking at another set of numbers for autos, the NTSB
shows a rate of 1.48 fatal accidents/100 million miles. Converting the NTSB
data for GA to miles (assuming 125kts and 1.15 sm/nm) we get 9.46 fatals/100
million miles and as I pointed out earlier, this number understates the risk
for light GA personal flying by a factor of two. The overwhelming majority
of auto injuries are minor, some are not even noticed before the ambulance
chaser suggest them. If you rephrased the question including the fact that
the flying is 12 times as likely to result in death but the auto has a
higher chance of minor injury, I doubt if anyone would consider flying to be
safer.

Mike
MU-2

"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
ink.net...
I would say safety is a function of surviving the trip! Your last numbers
showed a fatal accident rate for aircraft 4.6 time greater than for autos
on
a per mile basis. Looking at another set of numbers for autos, the NTSB
shows a rate of 1.48 fatal accidents/100 million miles. Converting the
NTSB
data for GA to miles (assuming 125kts and 1.15 sm/nm) we get 9.46
fatals/100
million miles and as I pointed out earlier, this number understates the
risk
for light GA personal flying by a factor of two. The overwhelming
majority
of auto injuries are minor, some are not even noticed before the ambulance
chaser suggest them. If you rephrased the question including the fact
that
the flying is 12 times as likely to result in death but the auto has a
higher chance of minor injury, I doubt if anyone would consider flying to
be
safer.


"Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater
degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness,
incapacity, or neglect." -- Unknown

On Fri, 3 Dec 2004, Matt Barrow wrote:

"Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater
degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness,
incapacity, or neglect." -- Unknown

"Captain A. G. Lamplugh, British Aviation Insurance Group, London. Circa
early 1930's..." (http://www.skygod.com/quotes/safety.html - 2nd quote
from the top)

I've also seen it elsewhere with the same author credited, so it seems
legit.

I've got it set up as one of my wallpaper images on my PC... One of these
days I'll have to stick some of my aviation wallpaper things up on my
website...

Brian
PP-ASEL/Night
http://www.warbard.ca/avgas/index.html

On Sat, 4 Dec 2004 20:03:56 -0800, Brian Burger
wrote in c.ca::

On Fri, 3 Dec 2004, Matt Barrow wrote:

"Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater
degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness,
incapacity, or neglect." -- Unknown

"Captain A. G. Lamplugh, British Aviation Insurance Group, London. Circa
early 1930's..." (http://www.skygod.com/quotes/safety.html - 2nd quote
from the top)

Thank you very much for that link. The quotations there are
remarkable for their original insights and aptly articulated truths.
David English's choice of which to include adds immeasurably the
content. Bravo!

"Captain Wubba" wrote in message
om...

It made the most sense to me, when comparing 'travel by car'
to 'travel by GA plane' to use the figures for *all* cars vs. *all* GA
planes.

Except that it doesn't, really. A 500-hour pilot flying an Arrow and two
ATPs cuing the FMS on a Gulfstream V are about as different as a wheelbarrow
and a submarine. Even owner-flown jets and turboprops rarely match the
safety record of profesionally-crewed flights in the same equipment. The
data are unambiguous on this point.

It depends on which definition you want to use. What is 'safe'? Just
for giggles, I asked that question ("Which of these two definitions
would you personally use in determeing if something was safe or not?")
to 8 non-aviator co-workers today. 6 of them said 'Injured or killed'
(which favors GA) and 2 of them said 'killed' (which favors cars).

As any exit pollster will tell you, how people answer the question is
largely determined by how you ask it.

Try asking the question this way: "Activity A is three times more likely to
cause you an injury than Activity B. Activity B is four and a half times
more likely to kill you than Activity A. Which sounds like the safer
activity?"

Another problem is that you're not weighting for the severity of injury.
Breaking an arm and being paralyzed from the neck down are thus being
counted the same. Without knowing this breakdown we can only guess at what's
going on.

The numbers don't lie tho...to say that aviation is 'less safe' than
car travel, one has to use a particular definition of 'safe'. You may
feel it is the 'better' definition. I don't.

By your own tortured numbers you are 4.5 times as likely to die in a plane
crash as a car crash. QED.

-cwk.

"C Kingsbury" wrote in message link.net...
"Captain Wubba" wrote in message
om...

It made the most sense to me, when comparing 'travel by car'
to 'travel by GA plane' to use the figures for *all* cars vs. *all* GA
planes.

Except that it doesn't, really. A 500-hour pilot flying an Arrow and two
ATPs cuing the FMS on a Gulfstream V are about as different as a wheelbarrow
and a submarine. Even owner-flown jets and turboprops rarely match the
safety record of profesionally-crewed flights in the same equipment. The
data are unambiguous on this point.

Indeed. And since we are comparing 'autos' to 'GA Airplanes', then if
you are going to start teasing out certain components from one side to
make the data appear a certain way, then we need to tease the data out
from the other side as well. Highway travel, for instance, is
significantly more deadly than local driving. So...do you want to
tease out 'car trips over 200 miles' and compare them to 'plane trips
over 200 miles'? How about 'Plane trips over 200 miles flown by pilots
over 25 years of age' versus 'car trips over 200 miles made by....'
You want to talk 'wheelbarrows' and 'submarines'? Then it is equally
unfair to use auto statistics that include 100 drivers driving 2 miles
to the video store each way and back and comparing that to a Mooney
driver flying a 400 mile XC in hard IFR at night. And when you start
teasing out all the possible permutations, the data really becomes
meaningless. Is it *really* useful to know that travelling 300 miles
at night in the Southwest US during October, you are 3.16 times more
likely to be injured in a car than in an airplane?

I'm not arguing that professionally flown aircraft are safer.
Professionally driven cars are safer too. But even increasing the
accident, injury, and death per hour rates by 50%, you *still* find
that by using GA (even owner-flown) you are *still* more likely to
arrive at your destination without a scratch (i.e. without being
injured or killed) than if you take that same trip by car.


It depends on which definition you want to use. What is 'safe'? Just
for giggles, I asked that question ("Which of these two definitions
would you personally use in determeing if something was safe or not?")
to 8 non-aviator co-workers today. 6 of them said 'Injured or killed'
(which favors GA) and 2 of them said 'killed' (which favors cars).

As any exit pollster will tell you, how people answer the question is
largely determined by how you ask it.

Try asking the question this way: "Activity A is three times more likely to
cause you an injury than Activity B. Activity B is four and a half times
more likely to kill you than Activity A. Which sounds like the safer
activity?"

Indeed. And I can ask the exact same question a different way and get
a different response. I understand what and agree with what you are
saying.


Another problem is that you're not weighting for the severity of injury.
Breaking an arm and being paralyzed from the neck down are thus being
counted the same. Without knowing this breakdown we can only guess at what's
going on.

The numbers don't lie tho...to say that aviation is 'less safe' than
car travel, one has to use a particular definition of 'safe'. You may
feel it is the 'better' definition. I don't.

By your own tortured numbers you are 4.5 times as likely to die in a plane
crash as a car crash. QED.

Well, that isn't quite 'true' The liklihood of dying in any event is
proportional to the time spend performing it. But basically you are
right...and you are 4 times more likely to be injured per mile while
driving a car than flying. But to have a 'serious' (i.e. 10%)
probability of dying in *either*, one would have to spent several
*years* doing either as a full time job. And in aviation, it's been
very clearly shown that low-time pilots (under 350 hours) have a
*vastly* higher accident and death rate than more experienced pilots
(See "The Killing Zone", by Paul A. Craig), then the more you fly, the
lower your odds per mile traveled of dying becomes. I doubt that is
the case withd riving, but I don't know.

This issue is harder to get a hold of than some people seem to think.
It is *not* as simple as just saying 'GA aviation is more dangerous
than driving' It is *provable* that if you define 'more dangerous' as
'more likely to experience injury or death', then GA is actually
clearly *safer* than driving. if you define 'more dangerous' as 'more
likely to experience death', then GA travel is clearly *more
dangerous*.

Cheers,

Cap





-cwk.