Mooney down Los Angeles

[M20F]

Searched http://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/ntsb.aviation/index.aspx for Mooney/Fatal/Fire and came up with 174 incidents.  Removed the "fire" filter and came up with 683 items, so about 25% of accidents involve fire.  

To Cliff's point the occupants could have been dead from blunt force and then burning up was just an added bonus.  There are probably instances in there of fire not related to impact as well.  Interesting statistic though.

Diamonds have 7 incidents with fire out of 20 fatal incidents.

Cirrus has 50 incidents with fire out of 111 fatal incidents. 

[markejackson02]

Besides the planes always explode in the movies....

[aviatoreb]

2 hours ago, Alan Fox said:

Eric  diesel (jet A) is more combustible than avgas , It is harder to ignite as a liquid , but as you know pretty much every jet that crashes explodes , because during most crashes the tanks are compromised , and the fuel disperses almost instantly , and as a vapor....As a vapor , Jet A holds much more thermal energy than 100LL .... 

I didn't know that.  Maybe I don't want a diesel....

 

Edited March 1, 2016 by aviatoreb

[aviatoreb]

2 hours ago, M20F said:

Searched http://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/ntsb.aviation/index.aspx for Mooney/Fatal/Fire and came up with 174 incidents.  Removed the "fire" filter and came up with 683 items, so about 25% of accidents involve fire.  

To Cliff's point the occupants could have been dead from blunt force and then burning up was just an added bonus.  There are probably instances in there of fire not related to impact as well.  Interesting statistic though.

Diamonds have 7 incidents with fire out of 20 fatal incidents.

Cirrus has 50 incidents with fire out of 111 fatal incidents. 

Wow - I never knew about that keyword feature in the ntsb.

So that got me thinking - I like your concept - so I tried a few airplanes for comparison.

Mooneys all crashes listed:

All crashes, 3167  

Crashes with fatalities, 683, %CwFatal=683/3167=22%

All fires (with or without fatalities), 276, %CwFire=276/3167=8.7% (% of those crashes that result in fires)

Fatalities w Fire involved, 174, %CwFire =174/3167=5.5% (percentage crashes with fatalities with fires involves), %FatalwFire=174/276=63%

 

And comparing to other planes,

Cirrus, All, 292, 

Crashes with fatalities, 111, %CwFatal=111/292=38%

All fires (with or without fatalities), 1656, %CwFire=72/292=24.7% (% of those crashes that result in fires)

Fatalities w Fire involved, 50, %CwFire =50/292=17% (percentage crashes with fatalities with fires involves), %FatalwFire=50/72=69.4%

 

Cessna 172, All 11432

Crashes with fatalities, 1656, %CwFatal=1656/11432=14.5%

All fires (with or without fatalities), 511, %CwFire=511/11432=4.5% (% of those crashes that result in fires)

Fatalities w Fire involved, 281, %CwFire =281/11432=2.5% (percentage crashes with fatalities with fires involves), %FatalwFire=281/511=55%

 

Cessna 182, All 6199

Crashes with fatalities, 1036, %CwFatal=1036/6199=16%

All fires (with or without fatalities), 468, %CwFire=468/6199=7.6% (% of those crashes that result in fires)

Fatalities w Fire involved, 282, %CwFire =282/6199=4.6% (percentage crashes with fatalities with fires involves), %FatalwFire=282/468=60%

 

A few observations.  Clearly the absolute numbers don't as much reflect crash rates (unknown to this analysis since I dont know how big is the fleet and how many hours were involved), and the number of crashes reflects in large part the number of airplanes in the fleet, how much they are being flown and how long the fleet has existed.  (There are a lot more Cessna 172 crashes absolute than Cirrus crashes since Cessna 172 has been flying for a long time AND there are more of them).

%FatalwFire is high with all these airplanes.  A lot of those crashes with fatalities also have fires, but that does not mean in every case the first caused the fatalities, as maybe harder crashing that causes death also causes fire in many cases I bet.  Across all the airplanes the number is roughly 60%.

From this crude analysis (no statistics or hypothesis testing or testing for significance done) it seems as if the friendly family 172 is best, then mooney and 182 are close to each other in all the measures, perhaps reflecting the more challenging mission flying vs the 172, but the Cirrus has been markedly worse, and seems like they have a lot of fatal crashes, but the number of those with fires is consistent with the number of fatalities - although then leaves to wonder which is the cause and which is the effect. 17% of all cirrus crashes result in fires where the next worse, mooney is 5.5% (close behind 182 at 4.6%).  Parachutes don't seem to be softening the crashes.  ALthough I am well aware that the most recent since 2014 cirrus stats have been much better.

I do not see a trend that mooney is any worse than cessna 182 for likelihood of a fire but in all if you crash and there is a fire, it is a big danger factor.

 

[Alan Fox]

Eric , we didn't cover crashes per hours flown ,  IE Fatalities per 100,000 flight hours....

[Shadrach]

On March 1, 2016 at 0:14 PM, aviatoreb said:

I didn't know that.  Maybe I don't want a diesel....

 

It has more BTUs by volume, but has a much higher flash point. You can put a match out in it. Comparing jet accidents where you have higher impact forces and often a jet engine or engines running at the time of impact is a stretch. Comparing an avgas recip to a compression ignition recip would likey show a lower instance of fire for the latter, but that's a guess, I don't think there's much data yet.

[aviatoreb]

1 hour ago, Shadrach said:

It has more BTUs by volume, but has a much higher flash point. You can put a match out in it. Comparing jet accidents where you have higher impact forces and often a jet engine or engines running at the time of impact is a stretch. Comparing an avgas recip to a compression ignition recip would likey show a lower instance of fire for the latter, but that's a guess, I don't think there's much data yet.

That was my initial guess - that a diesel airplane on average would have less incidence of crash on impact seems to be the logical likely outcome of what you said about "can put a match out on it" higher flash point.

[carusoam]

Turbines have better failure rates than recips...

Turbines are diesel powered...

Fewer amateur pilots fly turbine equipped machinery.

This is going to skew some data.

fortunately it is going to skew things in the right direction for me to move up to a turbine Mooney when available...

Best regards,

-a-