Female pilot accident rates

I haven't seen any stats on this, but it seems to me that, just
maybe, there could be a much higher rate of crashes when there
are ladies in the cockpit. Maybe this is not the case, and I'm sure
the more PC gents here will be quick to jump on me for even suggesting
it, but during the past, I have noticed more than a few female names
mentioned in news reports about aircraft crashes (with them being one
of the pilots, or the only pilot). Just how many female professional
pilots are there? Aren't they involved in a disproportionately large
number of accidents? Drawing from memory, here are a few:

The accident yesterday that killed 10 with the NASCAR racing team
had a pilot named Liz (haven't met too many guys named Liz).
(Probably pilot error--reasonable guess--because the plane slammed
into Bull Mt. in foggy conditions.)

The commuter crash last week (Indiana?) had a pilot named Kim.

The commuter crash last year (plan overloaded) in Charlotte had
a female captain.

ValuJet crash in Everglades (in '96 I think) had a female captain.
(of course, this one could have gone down regardless of pilot skill,
but airliners *have* landed while blazing with flames (Ex: Air Canada
in Cincinatti I think).

The 1991 Colorado Springs 737 crash had a female in the cockpit.

A small cargo plane that landed here in town on a freeway (not on the
median, but ONTO rush hour traffic, making a firball out of a van,
killing the driver--female pilot survived) a few years ago had a lone
female pilot.

A fatal crash involving a Navy fighter (probably F-14) off a
carrier some time back had a female pilot (just how many female
F-14 pilots are there?)

See what I mean?

-----------

"NoPoliticsHere" wrote in message
om...
I haven't seen any stats on this, but it seems to me that, just
maybe, there could be a much higher rate of crashes when there
are ladies in the cockpit. Maybe this is not the case, and I'm sure
the more PC gents here will be quick to jump on me for even suggesting
it, but during the past, I have noticed more than a few female names
mentioned in news reports about aircraft crashes (with them being one
of the pilots, or the only pilot). Just how many female professional
pilots are there? Aren't they involved in a disproportionately large
number of accidents? Drawing from memory, here are a few:

The accident yesterday that killed 10 with the NASCAR racing team
had a pilot named Liz (haven't met too many guys named Liz).
(Probably pilot error--reasonable guess--because the plane slammed
into Bull Mt. in foggy conditions.)

The commuter crash last week (Indiana?) had a pilot named Kim.

The commuter crash last year (plan overloaded) in Charlotte had
a female captain.

ValuJet crash in Everglades (in '96 I think) had a female captain.
(of course, this one could have gone down regardless of pilot skill,
but airliners *have* landed while blazing with flames (Ex: Air Canada
in Cincinatti I think).

The 1991 Colorado Springs 737 crash had a female in the cockpit.

A small cargo plane that landed here in town on a freeway (not on the
median, but ONTO rush hour traffic, making a firball out of a van,
killing the driver--female pilot survived) a few years ago had a lone
female pilot.

A fatal crash involving a Navy fighter (probably F-14) off a
carrier some time back had a female pilot (just how many female
F-14 pilots are there?)

See what I mean?

-----------
If I were you, I would get ready to duck ! :-))

BMC

OK troll, I'll bite.

I'm only aware of one rigorous study ever performed to determine the
relative aptitude and safety of men vs women pilots as a group.

The study was of ferry pilots in World War II and looked at the performance
of men and women delivering aircraft to England. Remember, this was in the
days of poor weather forecasts and primitive navigation.

The study corrected for training and experience to attempt to determine if
there was any essential difference between men and women. The conclusion was
that there was a statistical basis to support the contention that men should
not be allowed to fly aircraft at all!


--

Roger Long



"NoPoliticsHere" wrote in message
om...
I haven't seen any stats on this, but it seems to me that, just
maybe, there could be a much higher rate of crashes when there
are ladies in the cockpit. Maybe this is not the case, and I'm sure
the more PC gents here will be quick to jump on me for even suggesting
it, but during the past, I have noticed more than a few female names
mentioned in news reports about aircraft crashes (with them being one
of the pilots, or the only pilot). Just how many female professional
pilots are there? Aren't they involved in a disproportionately large
number of accidents? Drawing from memory, here are a few:

The accident yesterday that killed 10 with the NASCAR racing team
had a pilot named Liz (haven't met too many guys named Liz).
(Probably pilot error--reasonable guess--because the plane slammed
into Bull Mt. in foggy conditions.)

The commuter crash last week (Indiana?) had a pilot named Kim.

The commuter crash last year (plan overloaded) in Charlotte had
a female captain.

ValuJet crash in Everglades (in '96 I think) had a female captain.
(of course, this one could have gone down regardless of pilot skill,
but airliners *have* landed while blazing with flames (Ex: Air Canada
in Cincinatti I think).

The 1991 Colorado Springs 737 crash had a female in the cockpit.

A small cargo plane that landed here in town on a freeway (not on the
median, but ONTO rush hour traffic, making a firball out of a van,
killing the driver--female pilot survived) a few years ago had a lone
female pilot.

A fatal crash involving a Navy fighter (probably F-14) off a
carrier some time back had a female pilot (just how many female
F-14 pilots are there?)

See what I mean?

-----------

NoPoliticsHere wrote:

Of course if you enumerate all the crashes involving male pilots
you'd have to use several megabytes. Lets see, keeping on the
NASCAR bent you might try the male pilot who failed to use proper
anti-ice procedures and killed Alan Kulwicki. You might try
Davey Allison who killed himself and injuring Red Farmer.



ValuJet crash in Everglades (in '96 I think) had a female captain.
(of course, this one could have gone down regardless of pilot skill,
but airliners *have* landed while blazing with flames (Ex: Air Canada
in Cincinatti I think).

There isn't much you can do on fire but get your aircraft back on
the ground. The pilot of the J7 pretty much did that. Return
to MIA was the only option and she was doing it as fast as could
be maganed.


The 1991 Colorado Springs 737 crash had a female in the cockpit.

She was the FO. This one is pretty much ascribed to the 737 rudder
issues. It wasn't even until another 737 made a smoking hole in
Pennsylvania that they even figured out what might of caused it, so
it's hard to fault any of the four crewmembers involved.

"Roger Long" wrote in message
...
OK troll, I'll bite.

I'm only aware of one rigorous study ever performed to determine the
relative aptitude and safety of men vs women pilots as a group.

The study was of ferry pilots in World War II and looked at the
performance of men and women delivering aircraft to England. Remember,
this was in the days of poor weather forecasts and primitive navigation.

The study corrected for training and experience to attempt to determine if
there was any essential difference between men and women. The conclusion
was that there was a statistical basis to support the contention that men
should not be allowed to fly aircraft at all!


--

Roger Long



"NoPoliticsHere" wrote in message
om...
I haven't seen any stats on this, but it seems to me that, just
maybe, there could be a much higher rate of crashes when there
are ladies in the cockpit. Maybe this is not the case, and I'm sure
the more PC gents here will be quick to jump on me for even suggesting
it, but during the past, I have noticed more than a few female names
mentioned in news reports about aircraft crashes (with them being one
of the pilots, or the only pilot). Just how many female professional
pilots are there? Aren't they involved in a disproportionately large
number of accidents? Drawing from memory, here are a few:

The accident yesterday that killed 10 with the NASCAR racing team
had a pilot named Liz (haven't met too many guys named Liz).
(Probably pilot error--reasonable guess--because the plane slammed
into Bull Mt. in foggy conditions.)


Unknown at this time what the cause ir causes were....

The commuter crash last week (Indiana?) had a pilot named Kim.

Once again, way too early to assign a cause...


The commuter crash last year (plan overloaded) in Charlotte had
a female captain.

Overloaded? I read as some wieght and balance "guy" screwed up. If , in fact
that was the case........


ValuJet crash in Everglades (in '96 I think) had a female captain.
(of course, this one could have gone down regardless of pilot skill,
but airliners *have* landed while blazing with flames (Ex: Air Canada
in Cincinatti I think).

All sorts of errors(some felonious) in that abortion, however, none by the
flight crew....


The 1991 Colorado Springs 737 crash had a female in the cockpit.


And? Your point is??

A small cargo plane that landed here in town on a freeway (not on the
median, but ONTO rush hour traffic, making a firball out of a van,
killing the driver--female pilot survived) a few years ago had a lone
female pilot.

Did she walk, stumble or crawl away?


A fatal crash involving a Navy fighter (probably F-14) off a
carrier some time back had a female pilot (just how many female
F-14 pilots are there?)


I have no idea but I seriously doubt there's any "fluffers" in the bunch....


See what I mean?


Uh, not really. I'll offer this as advice, if that troll was an attempt to
get a date, maybe you "change the bait."

T3

Get some stats. Otherwise this is bull.

"NoPoliticsHere" wrote in message
om...
I haven't seen any stats on this, but it seems to me that, just
maybe, there could be a much higher rate of crashes when there
are ladies in the cockpit. Maybe this is not the case, and I'm sure
the more PC gents here will be quick to jump on me for even suggesting
it, but during the past, I have noticed more than a few female names
mentioned in news reports about aircraft crashes (with them being one
of the pilots, or the only pilot). Just how many female professional
pilots are there? Aren't they involved in a disproportionately large
number of accidents? Drawing from memory, here are a few:

The accident yesterday that killed 10 with the NASCAR racing team
had a pilot named Liz (haven't met too many guys named Liz).
(Probably pilot error--reasonable guess--because the plane slammed
into Bull Mt. in foggy conditions.)

The commuter crash last week (Indiana?) had a pilot named Kim.

The commuter crash last year (plan overloaded) in Charlotte had
a female captain.

ValuJet crash in Everglades (in '96 I think) had a female captain.
(of course, this one could have gone down regardless of pilot skill,
but airliners *have* landed while blazing with flames (Ex: Air Canada
in Cincinatti I think).

The 1991 Colorado Springs 737 crash had a female in the cockpit.

A small cargo plane that landed here in town on a freeway (not on the
median, but ONTO rush hour traffic, making a firball out of a van,
killing the driver--female pilot survived) a few years ago had a lone
female pilot.

A fatal crash involving a Navy fighter (probably F-14) off a
carrier some time back had a female pilot (just how many female
F-14 pilots are there?)

See what I mean?

-----------

"Roger Long" wrote in message
...
OK troll, I'll bite.

I'm only aware of one rigorous study ever performed to determine the
relative aptitude and safety of men vs women pilots as a group.

There was an NTSB study within the past four years that looked at this
question. I'm going on memory here, but the aggregate accident rates were
not different in a statistically significant way. But there was a suggestion
that the causes of accidents were somewhat different across the two groups.
Women, it seemed, were more likely to be involved in accidents owing to
mishandling the aircraft, while men were more likely to make serious
judgment errors.

A female friend of mine commented on it thusly: "So what they're saying is
women are more likely to be incompetent, while men are just plain stupid."

I thought that summed it up pretty well.

-cwk.

(NoPoliticsHere) wrote in message . com...
I haven't seen any stats on this, but it seems to me that, just
maybe, there could be a much higher rate of crashes when there
are ladies in the cockpit. ...

So, you haven't seen any stats on the subject, are unwilling to
actually find any on the net, and just wish to express a prejudice
anyhow? Your examples are seven accidents over thirteen years, hardly
a decent or useful sample.

Here's a couple stats:

- In September 2004 alone there were 171 NSTB reportable accidents, or
5.7 accidents/day.
- 27 of those accidents had fatalities, a little under one per day.
- the seven descriptions I haphazardly (sorta randomly) sampled all
had male pilots. ("He taxied into a ditch", etc.)

And you want to judge the safety of women pilots on seven accidents
you partly remember? Crazy.

I've flown with male and female pilots. My personal observation is
that personality makes a much bigger difference than gender.

Besides, "ladies in the cockpit"? Have you been asleep since 1960?
Next thing I know you'll be talking about "lady doctors" or "lady
lawyers" too.

-Malcolm Teas

There is very little data available on the subject, largely because
there are so few women who are pilots (about 6% of all pilots, a lower
proportion than that of professional pilots). In WWII, the WASPs had
an accident rate that was virtually identical to their male
counterparts, ferry command in the RAF had women and men flying
precisely the same airplanes (Tiger Moths through Spitfires, Typhoons
and Lancasters..and all British bombers were single pilot) in
precisely the same conditions on delivery flights and the data there
is inconsistent, some shows that the accident rate was a dead heat
other shows the males had a massively higher accident rate (I suspect
it differs in all acidents versus fatal accidents as virtually the
same proportion of men and women RAF ferry pilots were killed). A
look at NTSB reports about ten years ago had female pilots with a
notably lower accident rate than males.

Overall, there just isn't a great deal of information available,
although informal comments indicate that men are more prone to
weather-related accidents due to "macho" attitudes adversely affecting
judgment and may be more likely to commit suicide using an aircraft.
The Beech commuter accident you related, with a female captain, was so
far out of c.g. aft and had a pitch control malfunction, so the sex of
the members of the flight crew was irrelevant. You might check on the
737 at Springs, but it doesn't appear that one would matter as the
causes hypothesized are rotor cloud induced severe turbulence or
rudder hard over, neither of which the crew could have handled, no
matter how super human they were. As you said, the Valujet crash could
not have been saved by the flight crew unless they were psychic and
aborted the flight almost immediately after takeoff (maybe we should
screen for that talent g).

Once it's all sorted out, I suspect that the stats will probably match
that of cars, with women being better drivers/pilots than men, when
one looks at the likelihood of an accident. Women seem to exercise
better judgment than men, being more willing to decide to reroute or
cancel a flight, which, in the end, seems to be the variable that
bites most pilots.

Beyond that, it's an interesting question, women's bodies are more
efficient than men, they can withstand higher g's before
graying/blacking out and can go to higher altitudes without
oxygen...which makes one wonder why we have men flying fighters at all
g.

It is an interesting question, and probably one that can never be
answered. It seems to me that we should look solely at the judgment
and skill of each individual pilot.

All the best,
Rick

(NoPoliticsHere) wrote in message . com...
I haven't seen any stats on this, but it seems to me that, just
maybe, there could be a much higher rate of crashes when there
are ladies in the cockpit. Maybe this is not the case, and I'm sure
the more PC gents here will be quick to jump on me for even suggesting
it, but during the past, I have noticed more than a few female names
mentioned in news reports about aircraft crashes (with them being one
of the pilots, or the only pilot). Just how many female professional
pilots are there? Aren't they involved in a disproportionately large
number of accidents? Drawing from memory, here are a few:

The accident yesterday that killed 10 with the NASCAR racing team
had a pilot named Liz (haven't met too many guys named Liz).
(Probably pilot error--reasonable guess--because the plane slammed
into Bull Mt. in foggy conditions.)

The commuter crash last week (Indiana?) had a pilot named Kim.

The commuter crash last year (plan overloaded) in Charlotte had
a female captain.

ValuJet crash in Everglades (in '96 I think) had a female captain.
(of course, this one could have gone down regardless of pilot skill,
but airliners *have* landed while blazing with flames (Ex: Air Canada
in Cincinatti I think).

The 1991 Colorado Springs 737 crash had a female in the cockpit.

A small cargo plane that landed here in town on a freeway (not on the
median, but ONTO rush hour traffic, making a firball out of a van,
killing the driver--female pilot survived) a few years ago had a lone
female pilot.

A fatal crash involving a Navy fighter (probably F-14) off a
carrier some time back had a female pilot (just how many female
F-14 pilots are there?)

See what I mean?

-----------

"Malcolm Teas" wrote in message
Besides, "ladies in the cockpit"? Have you been asleep since 1960?
Next thing I know you'll be talking about "lady doctors" or "lady
lawyers" too.

-Malcolm Teas


He probably did over in a medical or legal group.

Don't feed the troll

-Gig