1 in 100 GA Pilots Killed in an Airplane?

[75_M20F]

All these statistical analysis are simply looking back at history of a lot of poor judgement out there in GA flying. It doesn't mean that no matter what you do that you are going to die just the same per the odds. 

Flying at night in a single engine plane, flying in low IMC, flying into icing, running out of gas, not having the proper maintenance done, overloading the airplane, not considering aircraft performance at high density altitudes, not proficient, flying into thunderstorms, on and on take your pick....  mistakes that some good judgment would have prevented.

Unfortunately, the GA pilot community has a certain percentage that just do stupid stuff and it is a shame.

[AIREMATT]

1 hour ago, 75_M20F said:

Unfortunately, the GA pilot community has a certain percentage that just do stupid stuff and it is a shame.

Unfortunately, so do all other recreational communities. Our community just seems to make the news every time which puts it in everyone’s face with much higher frequency than other recreational communities.

[AH-1 Cobra Pilot]

Have you ever seen actuarial tables?  I looked at some many years ago, and the contents are quite interesting.  None of the following numbers are completely accurate, but the approximation is enough to give you the gist.  First, it gave the average American life span as:

76 yrs   154 days  5 hr   12 min  36 sec

Then, if you engaged in certain activities, you would deduct the following:

skydiving
                              3 hr   8 min  54 sec
scuba diving
                              3 hr  16 min  14 sec
flying
                              2 hr  57 min   9 sec
motorcycling
                              5 hr   16 min  27 sec
smoking
5 yrs    209 days  1 hr   43 min  20 sec

Rather stunning.  I do not remember if it had data for drug abuse or having a disease, such as diabetes or others, but your choices DO make a difference.

[tmo]

Q is, if the "flying" is GA or commercial... But yes, agree on the point you're making, every choice matters.

Wonder how many micromorts (or, rather, microlifes) are in a Big Gulp...

[jlunseth]

Well, I haven’t looked at the Nall Report data for awhile, but to gauge overall risk, that data says that you really need to look at three separate sets. The commercial airlines are in a category of their own. They now go for periods of years without fatalities. That is US commercial, not foreign airlines. GA is a little more difficult to gauge because that needs to be split in two parts as far as I am concerned. One part is experimental, which has a very high accident rate, and the other part is certicated aircraft, which has a rate in between the airlines and experimental. I know that the experimental class have moved the needle in recent years, but they have far more fatalities than certificated. If you just use GA all lumped into one category, you are overestimating the certificated risk.

[Andy95W]

3 hours ago, jlunseth said:

Well, I haven’t looked at the Nall Report data for awhile, but to gauge overall risk, that data says that you really need to look at three separate sets. The commercial airlines are in a category of their own. They now go for periods of years without fatalities. That is US commercial, not foreign airlines. GA is a little more difficult to gauge because that needs to be split in two parts as far as I am concerned. One part is experimental, which has a very high accident rate, and the other part is certicated aircraft, which has a rate in between the airlines and experimental. I know that the experimental class have moved the needle in recent years, but they have far more fatalities than certificated. If you just use GA all lumped into one category, you are overestimating the certificated risk.

I’ll second the above, and add that other factors are impossible to factor out.

How do you exclude the individual who doesn’t maintain his airplane properly, if at all?  Who changes his own oil, but doesn’t know how to safety wire the filter (or doesn’t care).

How do you exclude the pilot who hasn’t had a current medical or Flight Review in years? (They’re out there.)

How do you exclude the pilot at my airport who just crashed and killed his family who intentionally filed and flew IFR even though he didn’t have an instrument rating?

[jlunseth]

2 hours ago, Andy95W said:

I’ll second the above, and add that other factors are impossible to factor out.

How do you exclude the individual who doesn’t maintain his airplane properly, if at all?  Who changes his own oil, but doesn’t know how to safety wire the filter (or doesn’t care).

How do you exclude the pilot who hasn’t had a current medical or Flight Review in years? (They’re out there.)

How do you exclude the pilot at my airport who just crashed and killed his family who intentionally filed and flew IFR even though he didn’t have an instrument rating?

Oh, those guys are self-selecting. Unfortunately, they seem to come in to the pilot population at least as fast as they depart it. A guy who dies because of butt ugly stupidity is not funny, but they are unfortunately always going to be part of the statistics.

[irishpilot]

last year was a good year for Mooney's in regards to fatalities. Zero. There were 188 Total  GA fatalities [1]
Cessna led the way with 39
Piper 31
Bonanza 15
Vans 8
Cirrus 4
[1] Dan Gryder research

@mike_elliott, we had two fatal crashes in 2020 resulting in four fatalities. One M20K and one M20J. Still a low year for Mooney nation, but we should keep striving for zero.

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

[mike_elliott]

17 hours ago, irishpilot said:

@mike_elliott, we had two fatal crashes in 2020 resulting in four fatalities. One M20K and one M20J. Still a low year for Mooney nation, but we should keep striving for zero.

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk
 

You are quite correct. Dan Gryder is incorrect on pg 10 of his research not showing the Mooney Family having these 2. It seems like such a long time ago, but by looking back at the Mooney Summit's Bill Gilliland foundation records, we lost Dennis and Bonnie Powell from Spruce Creek last Feb, and John Calvert in March

[cujet]

On 1/20/2021 at 9:05 AM, steingar said:

Sadly, this whole analysis is nearly farcical despite everyone's best efforts.  We all want to know what our risk is so we can better manage it.  The problem is even if we did know, which we can't, we can't manage it, since our risk factors are stochastic by nature.

Nonsense. The FAA and industry, have been addressing safety using the very method you claim does not work. That is, looking at the causes of the most crashes, then actively working to reduce that risk. 

They actively avoid 'low hanging fruit' and go for the worst issues first. The result has been the safest airspace in the world. 

The FAA publishes good information, it's a great tool for us. 

https://www.faa.gov/news/fact_sheets/news_story.cfm?newsId=21274#:~:text=Loss of control remains the,accidents involving amateur-built aircraft.

 

Loss of control in flight remains a top problem for GA pilots. The FAA has some valid guidance. Industry is providing solutions. One such solution is autoland. Another is a "save me" button. It's not just a matter of yelling at pilots and saying "don't do that", it's a matter of providing valid options. 

 

Our fuel hungry Airbus/Eurocopter EC-135 has a very interesting method to manage fuel exhaustion, for example. The single fuel tank has baffles configured to provide one engine 15 minutes more fuel than the other. It adds no real weight or complexity. It will operate just fine on one engine. It's saved a few lives already. Twin engine helicopters are really tough to autorotate such as during fuel exhaustion, as the design relies on the extra engine and not a high inertia rotor system. 

Edited January 31, 2021 by cujet

[steingar]

And the "do you know a dead pilot" argument would be more useful if you asked "do you know a pilot who died this year?"

[Hank]

44 minutes ago, steingar said:

And the "do you know a dead pilot" argument would be more useful if you asked "do you know a pilot who died this year?"

Yep. Started lessons in 2006. Know one killed (2009), know of two others. In the same timeframe, one of my wife's cousins was killed in a car, and I know of many more than two others (including the driver who hit cousin Bob).

[steingar]

I'm rather in the same boat, I know personally one guy who was killed a long time ago.  So I answer "yes" to the question of do I know a dead pilot.  But it's no to do I know one who died this year.  Might ever be know to doI know one who died this decade.  That gives a very different picture.