How safe is it, really?

"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

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
"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

"Happy Dog" wrote:
We watch the weather closely, and carefully pick our times to fly. We
ALWAYS refuel after every flight, so that we always have full tanks.
Since we can fly non-stop for over 5 hours, this pretty much eliminates
the "running out of gas" scenario.

I don't know why more pilots don't do this.

Well, sometimes it doesn't make sense.

I'll give you an example: I got back from Houston last Friday with tanks
half full; thirty+ gallons. Yesterday I flew to Dothan, about a 1.1-hour
trip. Why would I tank up and lug 30 more gallons up to cruise altitude when
I already had 3 hours fuel aboard? On top of that, fuel is 20c/gal. cheaper
at Dothan, so I saved $6 by filling up there.
--
Dan
C-172RG at BFM

"Just fun I took a detailed look at a random sample of accidents from
the NTSB Web Site.

Admittedly this is just a small random sample and may or probably not
be representative of the overall statistics. Also some interpretation
as to what happened each of these accidents is involved.

I Selected the Month of May 2004 as being a likely month of slightly
above average General aviation Activity. Currently I have only looked
at May 1 thru May 15th.

I included only Single engine General Aviation activities.

Here is a summary of these dates:

54 total accidents or incidents

5 accidents had Fatalities. Fatal accident rate = 9.2%
I read this to mean if involved in an accident there is a 9.2%
chance of a fatality occurring or a 91.8% chance it will not be fatal.
Fatal Causes we IMC Weather, Unknown loss of control, flying low,
Off airport landing, Pilot skill issue.

16 Mechanical related accidents, at least 3 should have been
preventable with better pilot skill or judgment.
INTERESTING: NONE OF THE MECHNICALS WERE FATAL

13 Pilot Skill related accident where better pilot skills or judgement
would likely have prevented. Only one of these was FATAL.

7 Fuel Related accidents (Ran out, Contaminated, or did not manage
properly)

3 due to flying to low

5 due to Instructor Skill/Judgment ie. The instructor should have
prevented it.

2 due to off airport landings

2 Turbulance

1 Other – Backhoe backed into a taxing airplane

1 IMC conditions

1 Unknown – Loss of control for unknown reasons


Note this does not say anything about how safe flying is, since it
does not reference at all how much total flight time or was flown
during this time period. All it does say is the "Crashing is
dangerous" and if you crash here are the statistics as to how you will
most likely do it in the 1st part of May.












Here is the data I used

Factual Philadelphia, MS Sawyer Skybolt
N32DS Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Low
Preliminary Elberta, AL Cessna 182A
N5099D Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Fuel parachute
Probable Cause 7/29/2004 Harrisonville, MO Cessna 172K
N7448G Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
dual
Factual Cambridge, OH Krotje VM-1 Esqual
N626EA Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
mech experimental
Probable Cause 7/29/2004 Phoenix, AZ Cessna 182K
N2493Q Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Skill
Preliminary Riverside, CA Cessna 195
N195AF Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Skill
Probable Cause 9/29/2004 Laurel, MT Piper PA-18-105
N5483H Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Low
Sunday, May 02, 2004
Probable Cause 7/29/2004 Lake Dallas, TX Cessna 150J
N60539 Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Mech/Skill
Monday, May 03, 2004
Probable Cause 9/1/2004 Winder, GA Beech BE-65 (LF-23F)
N870KS Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Skill/Fuel
Preliminary Cary, NC Mooney M20M
N91514 Fatal(2) Part 91: General Aviation
Fatal Weather IFR
Probable Cause 7/29/2004 Goldthwaite, TX Cessna 150E
N3050J Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Fuel
Tuesday, May 04, 2004
Probable Cause 9/1/2004 Odessa, FL Cessna 172N
N737HW Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Skill
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
Preliminary Cumming, GA Gary Bergmann RANS
S-12XL N8KD Fatal(1) Part 91: General Aviation
Fatal Low experimental
Probable Cause 6/30/2004 Schaumburg, IL Cessna 172P
N65752 Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation

Probable Cause 7/29/2004 Falcon, CO Ercoupe (Eng & Research
Corp.) N94405 Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Turbulance
Thursday, May 06, 2004
Factual Kasilof, AK Piper PA-18
N2521S Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Off airport
Probable Cause 9/29/2004 Blounts Creek, NC Riggs Skyraider 1
N321TR Fatal(1) Part 91: General Aviation
Fatal Fuel/Contamination experimental
Probable Cause 7/29/2004 Fort Pierce, FL Beech H35
N87AD Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Skill
Probable Cause 9/1/2004 Pottstown, PA Cessna 152
N94577 Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Dual
Friday, May 07, 2004
Probable Cause 9/29/2004 Paragonah, UT Branham Vans RV-6
N29KB Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Fuel experimental
Probable Cause 9/29/2004 Natrona, WY Crimmins Smyth
Sidewinder N92AC Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
fuel/contamination experimental
Probable Cause 9/29/2004 Many, LA Piper PA-28-181
N21131 Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Skill
Preliminary Tipton, CA Rocket Flyers LLC
N724TL Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Mech experimental
Factual Sharon, MA Cessna T-50
N45P Fatal(1) Part 91: General Aviation
Fatal Off airport
Saturday, May 08, 2004
Probable Cause 7/29/2004 Mayetta, KS Villeneuve RV-3
N12JV Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Skill/Wind experimental
Probable Cause 7/29/2004 DeKalb, IL Piper PA-28RT-201
N81898 Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
dual
Probable Cause 10/28/2004 Englewood, CO Cessna A185E
N185K Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Fuel
Probable Cause 9/29/2004 Fort Stockton, TX Aeronca 7AC
N3708E Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Mech/Skill
Factual Cumberland, MD Taylorcraft BC
N26644 Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Turbulance
Probable Cause 7/29/2004 Crystal River, FL Beech A23A
N3659Q Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Mech/Skill
Probable Cause 9/1/2004 Shirley, NY Cessna 170B
N1754D Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Mech
Sunday, May 09, 2004
Probable Cause 7/29/2004 Hartford, WI Piper PA-12
N2368M Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Mech
Probable Cause 9/29/2004 Georgetown, TX Diamond Aircraft
Industries DA N89SE Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Midair
Probable Cause 9/29/2004 Georgetown, TX Giles 202
N202XS Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Midair
Factual Broadview, MT 2003 Nash Kitfox II
N308KF Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Mech expermental
Monday, May 10, 2004
Probable Cause 9/1/2004 Oil City, LA Piper PA-38-112
N24007 Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Mech/Skill
Factual Daytona Beach, FL Beech A36
N3670S Incident Part 91: General Aviation
Mech
Probable Cause 9/1/2004 Battle Ground, WA Cessna 172P
N54477 Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Dual/Wind
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Preliminary Chamblee, GA Cessna 172RG
N6562V Incident Part 91: General Aviation
Mech
Preliminary Cortland, AL Piper PA-28-140
N7123R Fatal(1) Part 91: General Aviation
Fatal Skill
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
Preliminary Lake Worth, FL Beech K35
N551PK Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Mech
Probable Cause 9/1/2004 Halifax, MA Aviat A-1B
N17MR Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Skill
Thursday, May 13, 2004
Probable Cause 9/1/2004 Grantham, NC Loehle Ent. 2/3
Earlybird Jenn N112PE Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Mech Experimental
Probable Cause 7/29/2004 Tucson, AZ Piper PA-28-161
N84245 Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Other
Preliminary Carson City, NV Piper PA-28-180
N7584W Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Skill
Probable Cause 9/1/2004 Wauseon, OH Fraker Mustang II
N78K Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Mech Experimental
Factual Shelton, WA Piper PA-22-20
N1829P Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Mech
Friday, May 14, 2004
Preliminary New Bern, NC Piper PA-32-260
N3260W Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Mech
Probable Cause 9/1/2004 Kingman, AZ Cessna 180
N6430X Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Dual/Skill
Factual Lancaster, CA Downer Bellanca 14-19-2
N7658B Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Fuel/Skill
Factual Paulden, AZ Cessna T182T
N5341G Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Skill
Probable Cause 9/1/2004 Sacramento, KY Cessna 150
N7795E Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Skill/wind
Saturday, May 15, 2004
Probable Cause 7/29/2004 Fort Leavenwort, KS Cessna 172C
N1806Y Nonfatal Part 91: General Aviation
Skill
Preliminary Supai, AZ Bachman Lancair IV P
N299SD Fatal(4) Part 91: General Aviation
Fatal Unknown

"Dan Luke" wrote in message
"Happy Dog" wrote:
We watch the weather closely, and carefully pick our times to fly. We
ALWAYS refuel after every flight, so that we always have full tanks.
Since we can fly non-stop for over 5 hours, this pretty much eliminates
the "running out of gas" scenario.

I don't know why more pilots don't do this.

Well, sometimes it doesn't make sense.
I'll give you an example: I got back from Houston last Friday with tanks
half full; thirty+ gallons. Yesterday I flew to Dothan, about a 1.1-hour
trip. Why would I tank up and lug 30 more gallons up to cruise altitude
when
I already had 3 hours fuel aboard?

If there's *no* chance of weather being a factor, then that's more than
reasonable.

On top of that, fuel is 20c/gal. cheaper
at Dothan, so I saved $6 by filling up there.

I assume this is a joke...

moo

"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

"Captain Wubba" wrote in message
om...


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*.

One of my statistics profs in college was fond of saying, "If you torture
the data long enough, eventually it will confess to anything."

It might be that for an IFR pilot to go up and putter around in a 172 for an
hour or two on a nice VFR day is safer than the proverbial drive to the
airport. If he invites a friend to come along, he could reasonably answer
the "how safe is it" question, "safer than the drive to the airport." It is,
on that flight.

But the OP's question was basically, "is my husbnad going to kill himself in
an airplane one of these days." If he does, odds are it isn't going to be on
a sunny Saturday morning. But if his flying contains a mix of conditions,
we'd need to take into account all the types of flying he does. And then you
get into the game of whether a pilot who flies regular IFR is safer because
he's more skilled and able to handle bad conditions, or more likely to get
killed because he "tempts fate" by flying approaches in minimums and such
more often. Guys who fly the bush in Alaska are tremendous airmen but
they're still far more likely to get killed flying a plane than a weekend
hamburger-fetcher in Connecticut.

So rather than falling down the rabbit hole, you look at the gross average,
which by its nature weights for all the possibilities. Imperfectly, to be
sure, as all statistical measures are. But it is by far more valid for
forecasting purposes than picking-and-choosing at every level.

-cwk.

"C Kingsbury" wrote in message
ink.net...
Carnivorous, eh?

A veritable "Litle Shop of Horrors".

(Next summer or so, when my wife shoots the annual "rattlesnake in the
garden", I'll post the picture.)


"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message
online.com...
C Kingsbury wrote:

I'm with Mike on this. Flying is higher risk than gardening.

You've not seen the weeds in my garden.

"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