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GA safety - beyond the emotion

The crusaders

The problem with the self appointed GA safety brigade is that they work backwards. Despite any and all data to the contrary they prefer to insist that GA has a safety dilemma. This justifies them continuing to provide pretentious personal opinions and other largely gratuitous advice aimed at imposing their level of acceptable risk onto other pilots.

Arguing with them is futile. They think they have the moral highground and like all fervent crusaders they see themselves as the repository of the only truth. They're obsessive.... and they're out to save souls.

The danger of the safety brigade is that they are alarmist while at the same time being totally ineffectual in influencing accident statistics. They achieve nothing more than reinforcing a public perception that flying small aircraft is a highly dangerous hobby pursued by a bunch of daredevils. In the end this invites regulatory restrictions and also scares potential pilots from joining our ranks.

Regards Bob Barrow
 
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Painting with Way to Broad a Brush....

Captain Avgas said:
The problem with the self appointed GA safety brigade is that they work backwards. Despite any and all data to the contrary they prefer to insist that GA has a safety dilemma. This justifies them continuing to provide pretentious personal opinions and other largely gratuitous advice aimed at imposing their level of acceptable risk onto other pilots.

Arguing with them is futile. They think they have the moral highground and like all fervent crusaders they see themselves as the repository of the only truth. They're obsessive.... and they're out to save souls.

The danger of the safety brigade is that they are alarmist while at the same time being totally ineffectual in influencing accident statistics. They achieve nothing more than reinforcing a public perception that flying small aircraft is a highly dangerous hobby pursued by a bunch of daredevils. In the end this invites regulatory restrictions and also scares potential pilots from joining our ranks.

Regards Bob Barrow
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Sorry Bob, I think that you are over-generalizing here, and potentially insulting a great many pilots who think professionally.

What does it take to be on your list of Crusaders? Posting a safety article or issue? I am far from a mindless follower of statistics - in fact, I think that the statistics are fairly misleading. As I have mentioned before, I look at the causes (the Root Causes) of accidents, and try to come up with plans, procedures, and layers of protection to keep them from happening to me - the only person that I can really control. Does that make me a "Safety Crusader"?

I can agree with you that safety discussions need to be focused and meaningful, not alarmist and based on faulty logic. But your note seems to imply that all talk of safety is futile and leads to more regulation. I am pretty sure that if we all ignored safety, that would lead to some pretty undesirable regulation as well.

Just my opinion, of course.

Paul
 
Indignance

Bob,

Your indignance is surprising, considering experimental aviation has nearly double the accident rate of GA. It's not GA's rate that concerns me, rather it's the accident rate of our sport. If we all work together, improvement is possible.
 
cryptic?

Captain Avgas said:
That's exactly what he means...I'll leave it up to others to decide whether it's a reasonable hypothesis that because a man requires his car to get to work he is somehow less culpable when he gets totally drunk and runs down some child.

Personally I don't think it's a theory that stands up well to critical examination but I'd be happy for YUKON to expand it further. ;)

Bob Barrow
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Yukon, you are just too cryptic for me. After reading your posts, I completely missed the hypothesis that has been attibuted to you. Darn, I reread your posts and missed it again. Guess I am a slow learner. :) Regards, John.
 
Sceptical

Ironflight said:
As I have mentioned before, I look at the causes (the Root Causes) of accidents, and try to come up with plans, procedures, and layers of protection to keep them from happening to me - the only person that I can really control. Does that make me a "Safety Crusader"?

Paul
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Of course not Paul. Your modus operandi is exactly what I would recommend. You will take care of your well-being and I will take care of mine based on the fact that neither of us wants to die. That is our incentive for seeking out the knowledge and learning the skills necessary for our respective missions.

However some people assume that simply talking about the need for safety (and constantly pointing to the lack thereof) will produce safer outcomes... but I must admit I'm a bit of a sceptic.

The recent VansAirforce safety threads contain almost 150 postings. In your reading of them you may have uncovered some gems of information that you feel have changed the way you view safety. If so I would appreciate it if you could draw my attention to them because I obviously overlooked them

What I saw was a grab bag of suggestions comprising of the same tired, worn out safety cliches such as (for the umpteenth time).....don't fly VFR into IMC...don't run out of fuel. People obviously keep recycling these warnings in the belief that no pilot will act on the advice unless he hears it at least 100 times. :rolleyes:

And then there was the suggestion that perhaps aerobatics and formation flying were too dangerous (personally I can't think of any two endorsements more likely to improve basic flying skills).

I also saw the following statement: "The first thing we have to do is to accept and proclaim the accident rate unacceptable. The solutions will follow".

The trouble is I simply don't believe it. My guess is that today's pilots are mostly doing a decent job to the best of their abilities. I'd go one step further and suggest that the current fatality rate of 1.49 deaths per 100,000 hours is not unreasonable given the intrinsic risk involved in light aircraft aviation and the fact that many private pilots cannot afford to fly the number of hours per year necessary to maintain reasonable currency.

Despite the misgivings held by many, the real threat to private GA is not the safety issue (the data indicates quite clearly that the fatality rate has not changed much in 20 years)...the real problem is in enticing new younger pilots to join our fraternity as the baby boomers fall by the wayside. And I really doubt all the obsessive safety doom and gloom is helping the situation.

Perhaps we should all relax a little...and just go flying. I could advise you to do it safely...it would be a nice thought...but in all honesty I'm reasonably confident it wouldn't make the slightest difference to your conduct of the flight.

Regards Bob Barrow
 
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Some thoughts from a professional

Quoted from:

Severe Weather Flying
Dennis Newton
ASA (Aviation Supplies and Academics)

Forward (in part)

Having been an aviator nearly all my life I have long ago acknowledged that a flying career is truly a classroom of continuous learning with clinical examination by never ending new challenge and experience. In this arena general aviation pilots with no organization behind them are particularly on their own. The biggest challenge by far to gain experience and understanding is that of severe weather. Experience is to be avoided unless a large degree of understanding of the process of severe weather can be achieved. The degree of confidence to operate in an areas where severe weather may occur and the confidence to know one?s limits is a measure of true proficiency. Validation of that judgment is very hard to come by.

A. Scott Crossfield
 
Accident rate confusion.....

mdredmond said:
Yeah, those numbers are way too high.

If I'm reading the GAMA report right, the total GA fleet size in 2005 was 209,708.

That makes the 2005 total accident rate 0.77% (of the fleet) and the fatal rate 0.15% using the accident numbers given above.
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I don't mean to cause the resurrection a dead and buried horse, but I could not but wonder about the rosy aviation safety statistics we are led to believe when confronted with these numbers. From a weekly AOPA report on insurance and older airplanes -

......some shops have decided to save money on insurance by refusing to work on older aircraft. But when you consider that 82 percent of the piston-engine fleet is more than 18 years old, it seems highly unlikely that most shops are going to reject working on some 55,000 aircraft to compete for servicing the 10,000 manufactured within the last two decades. "Nevertheless, AOPA will do whatever it takes to help defend our members' ability to maintain and fly their aircraft," said Cebula.

Does that mean there are 65,000 aircraft in the general aviation fleet or 209,708 as stated above? How can anything be concluded about aviation safety with such vast disconnects of information?

If the fleet is 65,000 aircraft, the accident rate is horrendous.

Maybe my 67% life time loss rate isn't so far off base as some suspect. We do know there were 40263 accidents reported to the NTSB since 1986. The flying hours and active fleet is an estimate, and that could mean there is some vapor with regard to how safe this business really is.
 
David-aviator said:
Does that mean there are 65,000 aircraft in the general aviation fleet or 209,708 as stated above? How can anything be concluded about aviation safety with such vast disconnects of information?
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That's why I find a purely statistical view (or study) of accidents to be of fairly low value - there are too many ways to look at them, and too many organizations that compile them in too many different ways.

Arguing about the statistics might be fun for some, but to me, it's kind of like arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin - might be an interesting debate, but doesn't necessarily help anyone fly safer.

Look at the cause of accidents that are relevant to your operations, and figure out a plan to personally prevent them from happening to you - that, to me, seems to be a better use of accident reports.

Paul
 
Ironflight said:
it's kind of like arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin - might be an interesting debate, but doesn't necessarily help anyone fly safer.
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I agree. Now let's settle the important issue: Who'd win in a fight, Superman or Mighty Mouse?
 
What are the odds......

Ironflight said:
That's why I find a purely statistical view (or study) of accidents to be of fairly low value - there are too many ways to look at them, and too many organizations that compile them in too many different ways.

Arguing about the statistics might be fun for some, but to me, it's kind of like arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin - might be an interesting debate, but doesn't necessarily help anyone fly safer.

Look at the cause of accidents that are relevant to your operations, and figure out a plan to personally prevent them from happening to you - that, to me, seems to be a better use of accident reports.

Paul
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Paul,

Statistics are just a quantification of reality. Numbers put to daily life.

25% of our population chooses to smoke tobacco.

36% of registered voters participated in the last election.

40% of all space shuttle airframes built have crashed.

50% of first marriages end in divorce.

60% of second marriages end in divorce.

65% of casio play is in favor of the house.

70% of Los Angeles is Latino

Your chance of winning the lottery is one in 25 million.

Moral of the story......If you marry a Latino girl while in orbit, don't be surprised if she divorces your *ss before the next presidential election.
 
Safety is a double edged sword.

I invite everybody to take a look between the lines of some of the most recent emails on this thread. Clearly there are people here who WANT general aviation to be deemed unsafe. They will not be satisfied with less. They are representative of a larger group who claim to have the interest of GA at heart but who in reality slander our sport by arguing in public forums that it is fundamentally unsafe.

It is one thing to promote the concept of personal safety through constructive dialogue... it is quite another to infer that we have a problem in GA (or the Experimental Category).

Safety is a double edged sword. We need to be careful when we wield it that we do not injure ourselves.
 
Looks encouraging

If the sky is falling, what's up with this. "While every fatality is one too many, EAA is encouraged by the continuing downward trend of fatal homebuilt aircraft accidents announced by the FAA in October. For the fiscal year October 1, 2005-September 30, 2006, the FAA reports a 21 percent drop in fatal homebuilt aircraft accidents over the previous fiscal year (62 to 49). This is excellent news, expecially since the number of homebuilt aircraft continues to rise each year." Quoted from Dec. Sport Aviation.
 
Captain Avgas said:
It is one thing to promote the concept of personal safety through constructive dialogue... it is quite another to infer that we have a problem in GA (or the Experimental Category).
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We have 100+ times the fatality rate of business aviation and air carriers & it's not because of equipment failures. That's not a problem?
 
Captain Avgas said:
I invite everybody to take a look between the lines of some of the most recent emails on this thread.....
Click to expand...

Bob, I am most reluctant to debate you on aviation safety since we seem to view it from different planets, but the above sentence and your conclusion from it is a major problem.

There is absolutely nothing imaginary or real between the lines. I am as great an advocate for general aviation, and experimental aviation in particular, as anyone. I fly to OSH and SNF or both every year just to look at all the great airplanes and meet old friends, swap war stories, enjoy a couple beers at the homebuilt dinner, and have been doing so since the late 70's. Your conclusion based on an imaginary reading of what you think is written between the lines is nonsense.

My base line on aviation safety is this, some accidents are caused by poor decision making, not mechanic failure. Raising an awareness of this fact is not an attack on the very existence of general aviation.

That's not to suggest all accidents can or will be prevented. Any time anyone climbs into a machine that moves, there is inherent risk. But I do believe we could do better because many of the wrecks did not have to occur. The day we stop trying, it will for sure get worse.
 
mdredmond said:
We have 100+ times the fatality rate of business aviation and air carriers & it's not because of equipment failures. That's not a problem?
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One - This an inappropriate comparison. Two - quote your statistical source.

Our little segment of aviation thrives only because of the freedom from regulation it currently possesses. I read into the above statement, because I know the difference between part 121, 135 and 91 flying, that you are proposing similar regulation. Experimental GA will cease to exist with this burden.

And when's the last time you saw an American Airlines 757 flight flying VFR (i.e., essentially just meandering around the countryside), doing acro, a little formation, droppping in on buddies at other airports..... It's apples and oranges.

Joe -

Let me explain what a "double-edged sword" is exactly. First, this is a figure of speech. No swords are literally involved. Perhaps this is why you thought so little of the expression. In this case it means the more regulation that is imposed on aviation (experimental and/or GA), the more you smother it.

It may also be thought of in risk versus benefit. With zero risk (perfect safety) there would be zero benefit (pleasure).

I don't believe there are actually people here who want the demise of GA/experimental aviation. Although they do exist out there (big airlines, military, segments of federal police, etc.).

Many of the people who angle for more regulation or more "safety processes" are sincerely trying to improve the process. However, many are also natually "Debbie Downers" or those who like to pump up an activity or situation in which they're involved to make is sound more risky or dangerous. I've seen them in many settings. I believe there are some of these who adamently propose more regulations and processes in the name of safety.

Last - who wants to get hurt, or worse, bend their airplane!? I know I darn sure don't want to have to cart my plane back home on a trailer or worse. Anyone who believes that a sane pilot is not interested in listening to good suggestions for improvement is just out to lunch. Good ideas and suggestions are what it's about. Not more processes or regulations.
 
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Agree to Disagree?

Low Pass said:
Joe -

Let me explain what a "double-edged sword" is exactly. First, this is a figure of speech. No swords are literally involved. Perhaps this is why you thought so little of the expression. In this case it means the more regulation that is imposed on aviation (experimental and/or GA), the more you smother it.
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That is what I thought you meant, Brian. However, the statement as is stands is ludicrous:

"Safety is a double edged sword. We need to be careful when we wield it that we do not injure ourselves".
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Rather than... "safety" is a double edged sword... you might have instead said, "talking about safety is a double edged sword. I can respect that point of view but I still disagree with it.

Here is why. In my day job, I am often involved in "Root Cause Analysis Investigations" into petrochemical accidents. There are often hidden or latent contributing factors. These often play into the accident chain that you often hear so much about. Remember the "break one link and prevent and accident" saying? That is exactly what these discussions during our on-line hangar flying sessions can do. An inexperienced pilot can listen to us dissecting an NTSB report for instance and those with more knowledge of the accident or the people involved may reveal other causes that contributed that were not listed in the final report. The NTSB does not always get or give the whole story.

As I said, I respect your position and I believe the discusion is good. In its own way it may be contributing to the process of "getting the word out that often there is more to an accident than first meets the eye".

Would you agree that there is safety risk in not talking about safety and accidents?

Last - who wants to get hurt, or worse, bend their airplane!? I know I darn sure don't want to have to cart my plane back home on a trailer or worse. Anyone who believes that a sane pilot is not interested in listening to good suggestions for improvement is just out to lunch. Good ideas and suggestions are what it's about. Not more processes or regulations.
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I totally agree with all of the above paragraph.

I think some are confusing "safety risk" with "reputation risk" in this thread. In my opinion the way to better the G.A. reputation is not to hide it but to improve on the safety aspect of it by any effective means. I still believe that open discusion is an effective means of improving safety through education. The general public will make a more educated decision before flying with just any pilot and in my mind that is exactly what should happen. I have noticed more news coverage of succesful forced and gear up landings in the last few years. If that continues we should start to see our reputation improve as the public realizes that those are not all that unusual but instead are the norm. We also need to make sure those succesful outcomes are discussed and shared. "Monday morning quarterback the good as well as the bad".
 
Thank's for your opinion, Joe. I too have spent a good bit of time in your business - about 18 years in petrochem reliability engineering - and see the risk versus benefit aspect as quite valid. Also glad you believe I was able to contribute to this discussion!

Regardless, I believe many in this discussion are seeing the various issue in much the same manner but from slightly different perspectives.

Although a little vague, I believe you made a good point about "reputation risk" versus "safety risk". I can see a difference. But you neglected to point out the impact of a poor reputation risk to the ability to exercise our right to fly experimental airplanes. If the public perceives experimentals as being a "bad risk", the legislators start slapping more restrictions on the activity in an effort to improve safety. This will certainly result in a direct impact on my freedom to fly with questionable need and impact on overall safety.
 
Assumed risk.

We speak of safety and possibly the lack thereof in experimental flying. I and I hope many others understand the risk of flying and even as others make poor decisions and suffer as a result of them, that we for the most part will make the right decision and enjoy our sport.

I took part in Motorcycle racing and despite the "huge" risk involved I enjoyed 3 wonderful years of racing with another great group of people. Can racing be made safer? I'm sure it can but at what cost. Would it really be worth doing if we raced around in padded cells, I don't think so. We assume certain risk in activities we do everyday or at least we should, because it will always be out there whether racing, flying or driving to work.

I'm certain we all would prefer not seeing another flying fatality but we can't always prevent people making poor decisions. We can each of us strive to not put ourselves in no win situations and to recognize what those situations are. isn't that what we are really taking about here.

I for one would hate to see move crippling regulations that may reduce accidents simply by keeping us from flying made by people who feel they know best what safe is.
 
There are 2 problems I see with trying to improve GA safety. First of all, you can't change human nature. Look at general health and mortality. A certain number of people are going to get cancer, heart disease etc no matter what they do. It's pure bad luck and nothing will change it. But the rest of the population could dramatically decrease there risk of dying and greatly extend their lifespan by doing a few simple things: don't smoke, eat right, and get some exercise. Everybody knows this, but a huge segment of the population doesn't abide by it. Education doesn't change us, scare tactics don't change us, seeing the deliterious effects on others usually doesn't change us. Sometimes a close call like a non-fatal heart attack or cancer that is "cured" will change people, but even that is often a short term change.

Now look at aviation in a similar way. A certain number of pilots are going to die purely by chance; no amount of training or knowledge will change this number. If you fly, this is the inherent risk. The rest of the accidents are largely preventable, and a large number of these are things that happen over and over again; fuel exhaustion, VFR into IMC, flying into thunderstorms, icing accidents, stall spin accidents in the airport enviroment, aerobatics gone bad, buzzing etc. We all know about these things. We have all been trained to avoid or deal with them. Yet every year you can bet that the same things will be repeated over and over again. Education won't change it, scare tactics won't change it, and really, seeing it happen to others doesn't change it. The question is why. It's not a training issue, because I think you would be hard pressed to find a current pilot that is not aware of these issues or the often fatal consequenses. The reason is human nature. None of us really think it will happen to us. Get a little sloppy on the preflight, miss something on a checklist, rush a departure, fly when your tired, push on a little further into questionable conditions, get a little distracted by a non critical issue in flight and on and on. It happens every day and 99% of the time nothing bad happens. That lack of negative reinforcement leads to further complacency and one day a little error in judgement at the wrong time in the wrong conditions starts a fatal chain of events. I'm not a fatalist, but I seriously doubt there is much of anything we can do to significantly decrease the overall current fatal accident rate in GA.
 
sadams said:
The reason is human nature. None of us really think it will happen to us. Get a little sloppy on the preflight, miss something on a checklist, rush a departure, fly when your tired, push on a little further into questionable conditions, get a little distracted by a non critical issue in flight and on and on.
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I just got my pilot's license in September ( :cool: ), have decades of delightful flying ahead of me to look forward to, and have a keen interest in not crashing. I'm a smart guy and learn fast and exercise a high degree of caution, but I read accident reports and think, "those guys were smart too, and probably just as cautious... how did this happen?"
So I try not to take anything for granted -- don't be in a rush -- don't fall into a routine -- keep on my mental toes all the time -- keep my division of attention going -- reject "get-home-itis" -- don't be afraid to divert -- etc.
Yet even so, there was once that I was in the middle of turning base to final and suddenly noticed, yikes! 10kt slower than I'm supposed to be!


I encountered this recently and it has been resonating / bouncing around in my head: (emphasis mine)
T.S.Eliot said:
Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew,
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.
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