Glider accident while filming commercial in 2011. NTSB Report updated

On Tuesday, June 25, 2013 9:24:36 PM UTC+1, Bill D wrote:

Lets try different data sets. For consistency, lets use only serious injury or fatal accidents which should be reported in every country.

Go to this site: http://rdd.me/oj4xenk5 and download the BGA "Safe Winching" PDF Look at Figure 2.

For the 17 years ending in 2004 the UK suffered 18 fatal and 36 serious injury accidents. (379 total accidents or one every 8074 launches) If we assume the current 180,000 launches a year, that is one fatal/serious injury accident every 56,667 launches.

Here are reported German accidents in 2011 in which the DAeC reported 900,000 launches. That's 1:180,000.


That looks pretty consistent with my first post (about 5 posts ago). You've quoted here the UK experience up to 2004. But my point was that a great piece of safety work reduced the number of winch launched fatality / serious accidents after 2006 by a factor of 4 (and for long enough to be statistically significant). If we include fatals and serious, that's 5 between 2006-2012. At 180K launches per year that's 1:250,000. That puts the UK and German numbers in the same ballpark - actually the UK comes out better, but I don't suppose it's significant given one year's German figures and the uncertainty on the number of launches.

You said something earlier to the effect that the UK should pay attention to the differences and do something about it. I'm pointing out that we did..

Paul

On Tuesday, June 25, 2013 3:04:58 PM UTC-6, Paul Ruskin wrote:
On Tuesday, June 25, 2013 9:24:36 PM UTC+1, Bill D wrote:



Lets try different data sets. For consistency, lets use only serious injury or fatal accidents which should be reported in every country.



Go to this site: http://rdd.me/oj4xenk5 and download the BGA "Safe Winching" PDF Look at Figure 2.



For the 17 years ending in 2004 the UK suffered 18 fatal and 36 serious injury accidents. (379 total accidents or one every 8074 launches) If we assume the current 180,000 launches a year, that is one fatal/serious injury accident every 56,667 launches.



Here are reported German accidents in 2011 in which the DAeC reported 900,000 launches. That's 1:180,000.





That looks pretty consistent with my first post (about 5 posts ago). You've quoted here the UK experience up to 2004. But my point was that a great piece of safety work reduced the number of winch launched fatality / serious accidents after 2006 by a factor of 4 (and for long enough to be statistically significant). If we include fatals and serious, that's 5 between 2006-2012. At 180K launches per year that's 1:250,000. That puts the UK and German numbers in the same ballpark - actually the UK comes out better, but I don't suppose it's significant given one year's German figures and the uncertainty on the number of launches.



You said something earlier to the effect that the UK should pay attention to the differences and do something about it. I'm pointing out that we did.



Paul

Actually, those were all the accidents reported in Germany for 2011 of any type. They were not filtered for serious/fatal.

Hi Bill

You're shifting the subject from "acidents" to "fatal accidents" to reduce the numbers. Be consistent.

I am indeed - so that I can be consistent - it seems to me to be a better absolute measure of safety than a poorly defined 'accident'. I think fatal accidents are more likely to get recorded, and won't suffer from differential reporting. (It's also data I could find easily - and note that I only used fatal rather than serious because that was what the German number was.).. If these fatal accident numbers are correct(and I accept I only used one year from Germany, but it was a back of the envelope calculation), they really don't support the contention that winch launching is 10 times as safe in Germany as in the UK. Otherwise we have the proposition that only a 10th as many winch accidents in the UK end up fatal as in Germany - and that seems unlikely. I think different recording is more likely.

It is worth saying that (at least at my club) we're pretty rigorous about recording even relatively minor incidents, and these all end up on the BGA database. We do that, in part I suspect, because the BGA is not seen as a 'regulator' but something that we belong to. And because we've seen the success of initiatives such as the Safe Launching one.

Paul

At 14:47 25 June 2013, wrote:
Hi Bill

You're shifting the subject from "acidents" to "fatal accidents" to
reduc=
e the numbers. Be consistent.

I am indeed - so that I can be consistent - it seems to me to be a better
a=
bsolute measure of safety than a poorly defined 'accident'. I think
fatal
=
accidents are more likely to get recorded, and won't suffer from
differenti=
al reporting. (It's also data I could find easily - and note that I only
u=
sed fatal rather than serious because that was what the German number
was.)=
.. If these fatal accident numbers are correct(and I accept I only used
one=
year from Germany, but it was a back of the envelope calculation), they
re=
ally don't support the contention that winch launching is 10 times as
safe
=
in Germany as in the UK. Otherwise we have the proposition that only a
10t=
h as many winch accidents in the UK end up fatal as in Germany - and that
s=
eems unlikely. I think different recording is more likely.

It is worth saying that (at least at my club) we're pretty rigorous about
r=
ecording even relatively minor incidents, and these all end up on the BGA
d=
atabase. We do that, in part I suspect, because the BGA is not seen as a
'=
regulator' but something that we belong to. And because we've seen the
suc=
cess of initiatives such as the Safe Launching one.

Paul


I believe that if we are really serious about improving safety then all
incidents should be reported if only because an incident was not an
accident due to pure luck in most cases. This then means that it is easier
to analyze what went wrong, simply because we can talk directly to the
pilots. This is obviously not possible following a fatal accident and
difficult after a serious injury one.
Based on this we can then make changes in the way we do things to try to
avoid accidents before they happen. I believe that this is generally the
approach adopted by the BGA.

In short I do not believe that winching, or aero towing for that matter are
inherently dangerous and most incidents and accidents are due to human
error.

Terry Walsh