Airline Safety Report

[Hank]

Does anyone know the units for OSHA's "Total Recordable Incident Rate" that has been tracked everywhere that I've ever worked [3 decades +, 7 locations] ? I know our actual rate, and our target rate, and about how many people have worked at each location. But I can't do the math to figure the effect of one more or one less incident, or 100 newly-hired people, and the unitless number carries no meaning to me. If "1.2" is incidents per million man hours, it's good; if it's incidents per month and we have 150 people working 40 hours each, it's bad; if it's incidents per 100 people for the mentioned period regardless of hours worked [I've always seen it tracked monthly], it's really bad . . . .

[0TreeLemur]

1 minute ago, aviatoreb said:

I am going to go to the Moon.  It is only 1 away.  And I should get there in about 1.  And It should cost about 1.  (Nondimensional units - which still have the physical units attached to have meaning) (1 Moon to Earth distance unit = ~250,000 miles) (1 time to get to moon unit = 2 months in a 172 flying nonstop at 60miles per hour). (1 is the cost of the project which converted to dollars - I dunno).

That's why the Nautical Mile makes sense for terrestrial navigation.   It is 1/3600 of the distance around the globe assuming a mean spherical Earth's radius.  It's a fundamental place-based measure.  It's strictly not metric, English Imperial, nothing.  It is a fundamental unit of length closely related to the size of the planet.  The meter is another, but any physical tie to the equator-pole distance was long ago discarded.   BTW 1 nautical mile is defined as exactly 1852.00000 m, so it has a precise metric definition.   At 1 n.m.= 6076.1155 ft, the nautical mile doesn't have a precise Imperial definition.

Fun Fact: The only existing craft affected by the mean radius assumption on the length of the Nautical Mile to date: the demonstration helicopter presently warming up to fly on Mars.  The Nautical Mile is different (shorter) on Mars because of its smaller mean planetary radius.

 

[MooneyMitch]

I love this place !!!

[0TreeLemur]

2 hours ago, aviatoreb said:

To my point - I wasn't just being pedantic - does anyone know the units on that 0.13 number?

Let's work it out using an order of magnitude analysis, and see if we can deduce likely candidates:

Fatalities per million butt miles?    0.13 seems too high for that.

Fatalities per million flights?  0.13 is maybe still too high?  Neglects number of butts in seats.

??

 

[steingar]

Site has too damn many engineers.

[aviatoreb]

1 hour ago, 0TreeLemur said:

That's why the Nautical Mile makes sense for terrestrial navigation.   It is 1/3600 of the distance around the globe assuming a mean spherical Earth's radius.  It's a fundamental place-based measure.  It's strictly not metric, English Imperial, nothing.  It is a fundamental unit of length closely related to the size of the planet.  The meter is another, but any physical tie to the equator-pole distance was long ago discarded.   BTW 1 nautical mile is defined as exactly 1852.00000 m, so it has a precise metric definition.   At 1 n.m.= 6076.1155 ft, the nautical mile doesn't have a precise Imperial definition.

Fun Fact: The only existing craft affected by the mean radius assumption on the length of the Nautical Mile to date: the demonstration helicopter presently warming up to fly on Mars.  The Nautical Mile is different (shorter) on Mars because of its smaller mean planetary radius.

 

I thought the nautical mile was defined by knots.  An ancient mariner measurement of speed where they would tie actual rope knots on a piece of rope at equally spaced distanced (but I don't know how they decided the distance - something to do with the ship length?) and then they tied on a little floating barrel-buoy, and tossed it off the front of the ship and would watch how many knots would furl out in a given time?  ...I must have something wrong there.

But in any case I did not have any idea it was standardized initially to anything to do with the size of the earth - in fact doesn't this pre-date the understanding that the Earth is a sphere (a fact still hotly debated in some corners...and I do not mean the folks who understand Sir Isaac Newton correctly describe that the centripetal force of a spinning globe causes an oblong spheroid - I mean the flat earth folks).

My guess is somehow it was standardized later to what you just said?

[aviatoreb]

Just now, steingar said:

Site has too damn many engineers.

Did you just call me an Engineer?!!!  Why I never!   :-(

[aviatoreb]

1 hour ago, 0TreeLemur said:

Let's work it out using an order of magnitude analysis, and see if we can deduce likely candidates:

Fatalities per million butt miles?    0.13 seems too high for that.

Fatalities per million flights?  0.13 is maybe still too high?  Neglects number of butts in seats.

??

 

I tried this...nothing was coming up plausible.  I tried also per million hours of exposure which is a typical unit of risk rate.  That is not working.

i.i.d. it should work out to P=1-(1-p)^n

I tried per million hours with how many hours in a working year - 2080 working hours in a year for a 40 hour a week stiff.  That got a bit closer.  Still no good.

[aviatoreb]

1 hour ago, Hank said:

Does anyone know the units for OSHA's "Total Recordable Incident Rate" that has been tracked everywhere that I've ever worked [3 decades +, 7 locations] ? I know our actual rate, and our target rate, and about how many people have worked at each location. But I can't do the math to figure the effect of one more or one less incident, or 100 newly-hired people, and the unitless number carries no meaning to me. If "1.2" is incidents per million man hours, it's good; if it's incidents per month and we have 150 people working 40 hours each, it's bad; if it's incidents per 100 people for the mentioned period regardless of hours worked [I've always seen it tracked monthly], it's really bad . . . .

Right - and OSHA straight away is on the right track since they are saying " incident rate" as the word rate which already has a denominator which is likely in a time unit.

The quoted article at the beginning of this thread just says "risk" so not risk rate.  Risk per mile.  Risk per hour.  Risk per dollar?  Risk of fatality per lifetime of the aircraft.  Risk of incident per lifetime of flying per passenger?  Risk of fatality per number of elephants on the airplane on a per flight basis?

[MooneyMitch]

8 minutes ago, steingar said:

Site has too damn many engineers.

We wouldn’t be here (specifically flying Mooney airplanes) if it weren’t for Inganears  ! 

[Hank]

22 minutes ago, steingar said:

Site has too damn many engineers.

 

20 minutes ago, aviatoreb said:

Did you just call me an Engineer?!!!  Why I never!   :-(

Just can't take a compliment, can you? 

Yesterday I could not spel enjinere. Today I are one.

--BS Mechanical Engineering, MS Engineering 

[aviatoreb]

4 minutes ago, Hank said:

 

Just can't take a compliment, can you? 

Yesterday I could not spel enjinere. Today I are one.

--BS Mechanical Engineering, MS Engineering 

I'm just kidding around.  PhD in applied math - and there's always this tension in academia- "pure mathematicians" vs "applied mathematicians" and both vs "engineers" and vice versa.  Turning noses up at each other.  I am currently an applied mathematician living in an electrical and computer engineering department.  Call me whatever you want.  You can call me Al.  Call me Al.

[0TreeLemur]

I downloaded the original source, the IATA 2020 Safety Report.   They define the "fatality risk" as the "number of full-loss equivalents per 1 million flights".   According to  the definition provided in appendix one, this means the probability of all souls on board perishing for a particular flight is: 0.13/1.0E+06, or 1.3E-07.  So the units are 1/flights.

Somehow I'm not satisfied.  Not all flights are created the same.

[Hank]

59 minutes ago, aviatoreb said:

You can call me Al. 

"You can call me Ray. Or you can call me Jay. Or you can call me . . . . "

I know you're a Math prof. I took only the required math classes as an Engineering undergrad, and lacked one class to qualify for Math Honor Society or for a Math Minor (if engineers had minors). The ribbing is intended in good spirits and friendly jesting!

But as an Engineer, I had to respond!! 

[aviatoreb]

6 minutes ago, 0TreeLemur said:

I downloaded the original source, the IATA 2020 Safety Report.   They define the "fatality risk" as the "number of full-loss equivalents per 1 million flights".   According to  the definition provided in appendix one, this means the probability of all souls on board perishing for a particular flight is: 0.13/1.0E+06, or 1.3E-07.  So the units are 1/flights.

Somehow I'm not satisfied.  Not all flights are created the same.

Well done sir - that sounds like a reasonable unit. 1.3e-7 number of full-loss equivalents per flight.   A reasonable figure. So the interpretation in the article referenced at the beginning, was really off in left field.

I agree - hardly the whole story but at least properly stated.  I think you must be thinking in terms of conditionals.  Conditional probabilities.  Everything is all marginalized out in the 1 summary statistics.  And also it says nothing about the tails and so forth which are good to know.  But this is standard practice when boiling everything down to one number.

[aviatoreb]

1 hour ago, Hank said:

"You can call me Ray. Or you can call me Jay. Or you can call me . . . . "

I know you're a Math prof. I took only the required math classes as an Engineering undergrad, and lacked one class to qualify for Math Honor Society or for a Math Minor (if engineers had minors). The ribbing is intended in good spirits and friendly jesting!

But as an Engineer, I had to respond!! 

I knew you were kidding around and so am I!  :-)

[0TreeLemur]

4 hours ago, aviatoreb said:

Well done sir - that sounds like a reasonable unit. 1.3e-7 number of full-loss equivalents per flight.   A reasonable figure. So the interpretation in the article referenced at the beginning, was really off in left field.

I agree - hardly the whole story but at least properly stated.  I think you must be thinking in terms of conditionals.  Conditional probabilities.  Everything is all marginalized out in the 1 summary statistics.  And also it says nothing about the tails and so forth which are good to know.  But this is standard practice when boiling everything down to one number.

Correct, so the probability of total-loss accident for a particular flight on the planet is 1.3E-07.   How many seats?  Which operator?  How many and what type of engines?  The country of registry?   I'll note the big difference between U.S./E.U. and FSU commercial aviation standards.  Another important consideration as demonstrated by the Max fiasco is:  How new is the design and did MBA's overrule engineers on design of some critical system?

<gloom mode on>

Adherence to international standards and practices has made commercial aviation in most of the world extremely safe.  As a globally reported average p=1.3E-7 is such an extremely remote probability that interpretation is impossible.  But, I'd wager that that probability varies a lot regionally, increasing in certain countries/regions where international standards and practices are ignored.   Like that innovative g/u touch and go done in a loaded Airbus in Pakistan a year or two ago, investigation of which determined the flight crew were wholly incompetent leading to a total loss.  Those folks didn't know it, but when they boarded that flight they had a 100% chance of dying that day.  Same for the two Max flights.

</gloom mode off>

 

[aviatoreb]

1 minute ago, 0TreeLemur said:

Correct, so the probability of total-loss accident for a particular flight on the planet is 1.3E-07.   How many seats?  Which operator?  How many and what type of engines?  The country of registry?   I'll note the big difference between U.S./E.U. and FSU commercial aviation standards.  Another important consideration as demonstrated by the Max fiasco is:  How new is the design and did MBA's overrule engineers on design of some critical system?

<gloom mode on>

Adherence to international standards and practices has made commercial aviation in most of the world extremely safe.  As a globally reported average p=1.3E-7 is such an extremely remote probability that interpretation is impossible.  But, I'd wager that that probability varies a lot regionally, increasing in certain countries/regions where international standards and practices are ignored.   Like that innovative g/u touch and go done in a loaded Airbus in Pakistan a year or two ago, investigation of which determined the flight crew were wholly incompetent leading to a total loss.  Those folks didn't know it, but when they boarded that flight they had a 100% chance of dying that day.  Same for the two Max flights.

</gloom mode off>

 

I agree all.

In GA the fatality rate is roughly 1 per 100,000 hrs of exposure (and I believe that is on a per flight basis vs per seat - but I am not sure - its not terribly different in GA).

But that is marginalized across all pilots, all airplanes, all behaviors and all missions styles.  Part 135 jets with 2 pros in the front.  vs yahoos in a Mooney loaded down with meth on a drug run.  Ag cropduster flights vs two gray haired experienced dudes on a severe clear day looking for expensive hamburgers.  Surely there are orders of magnitude difference between best and worst within the ga class on any given day.

[0TreeLemur]

Just now, aviatoreb said:

I agree all.

In GA the fatality rate is roughly 1 per 100,000 hrs of exposure (and I believe that is on a per flight basis vs per seat - but I am not sure - its not terribly different in GA).

But that is marginalized across all pilots, all airplanes, all behaviors and all missions styles.  Part 135 jets with 2 pros in the front.  vs yahoos in a Mooney loaded down with meth on a drug run.  Ag cropduster flights vs two gray haired experienced dudes on a severe clear day looking for expensive hamburgers.  Surely there are orders of magnitude difference between best and worst within the ga class on any given day.

ROFL

[carusoam]

@Missile=Awesome A topic you may like...

Scott has some industrial OSHA knowledge...

Best regards,

-a-

[Hank]

13 hours ago, aviatoreb said:

I agree all.

In GA the fatality rate is roughly 1 per 100,000 hrs of exposure (and I believe that is on a per flight basis vs per seat - but I am not sure - its not terribly different in GA).

But that is marginalized across all pilots, all airplanes, all behaviors and all missions styles.  Part 135 jets with 2 pros in the front.  vs yahoos in a Mooney loaded down with meth on a drug run.  Ag cropduster flights vs two gray haired experienced dudes on a severe clear day looking for expensive hamburgers.  Surely there are orders of magnitude difference between best and worst within the ga class on any given day.

I've read NTSB reports with two gray haired experienced dudes (both ATPs, both > 20,000 hours) chasing expensive food who augured in . . . . No one is invincible or mistake-proof. Seems one such flight hit guy wires from a tower, always a quick end to a flight. 

I try to stay away from the edges of the flight envelope, and from the edges of my capabilities. Boring flights are fun! My very few "exciting" flights ended at home with a stiff drink. It's so much more fun to talk about what we didnat the destination, and how we couldn't have made the daytrip or weekend visit if we'd had to drive.  

[0TreeLemur]

14 hours ago, aviatoreb said:

I agree all.

In GA the fatality rate is roughly 1 per 100,000 hrs of exposure (and I believe that is on a per flight basis vs per seat - but I am not sure - its not terribly different in GA).

But that is marginalized across all pilots, all airplanes, all behaviors and all missions styles.  Part 135 jets with 2 pros in the front.  vs yahoos in a Mooney loaded down with meth on a drug run.  Ag cropduster flights vs two gray haired experienced dudes on a severe clear day looking for expensive hamburgers.  Surely there are orders of magnitude difference between best and worst within the ga class on any given day.

Now that I've quite laughing, I'll extend this and work towards a more apples-to-apples comparison.  

TL;DR: Commercial part 135 operations have procedures in place that reduce the risk of an IATA "total loss" of all souls on board by about a factor of 150, compared to non-commercial, non-experimental, not turbine part 91 flights.  The difference?   GA pilots have much wider latitude to make poor decisions and act on them compared to commercial operations.

AOPA reports that single, and multi-engine GA, excluding turboprop/jet and experimental, amasses 13.5 million hours per year.  Assuming avg 2 hours per flight, we get 6.5m flights/year, probably more because it would be positively skewed towards shorter flights, so I'll assume 8 m flights per year.

AOPA reports data from 2017 showing that non-commercial GA experienced 258 fatalities in non-turbine tricycle gear aircraft (single and multiengine).  For the non-commercial single/multi-, non-experimental class, the fatality rate is therefore:  258/13.5E+06= 19 fatalities per million hours.  Considerably higher than the 13 per million hours reported for all GA.   This indicates that the commercial (Part 135) GA fatality rate is considerably less than 13 per million.

The "loss rate" to use the vernacular of the IATA report, the probability of a fatality in a given flight, might be approximated as 258 fatalities per year / 8 million flights per year, or 32.25 fatalities per million flights.    To convert this to the "total loss rate" we'd need to conditionalize this on flights where all on board perished.  Based on my reading of the NTSB accident pages over the year, I'd estimate that if an accident is bad enough to cause one fatality, it probably is a total loss with all on board perishing a little over half the time.   I'll assume 0.6.  Of course a deeper dive into the NTSB records would allow determining this.

Then the IATA equiv. total loss rate is then =0.6* 32.25= 19.35 total losses per million flight hours.  This number for non-experimental, non-turbine, non-commercial GA is more-or-less comparable to the 0.13 for commercial operations reported by the IATA.

Compared to the commercial (pt 135) total loss rate of 0.13, the non-experimental, non-commercial, non-turbine GA total loss rate is 19.35/0.13 ~~ 150 times higher.

With the above assumptions, the probability of a passenger on a private non-experimental, non-commercial, non-turbine flight perishing in an accident that claims all on board is therefore 150*(1.3E-07)=2.0E-05.

Now you could condition this by pilot experience, purpose of flight, number of seats, recent maintenance, VFR/IFR, etc.  But it indicates that our flight sector involves about 150 times the risk of flight on part 135 operations. 

Back in January I did a deep dive I did into the NTSB reports of all Mooney M20C crashes from 1993-2008 to learn about causes of crashes involving fatalities.  Most of them were not instances of a perfectly good airplane having a random issue flown by a pilot who made the right decisions and still had a bad outcome.   Here's the list sorted by causes in no particular order:

1.  Fuel mismanagement

1a.  Pilot did not sump tanks on a Mooney that hadn't flown in months and was parked outdoors.   Rainfall during the period when the plane was parked outdoors: 5 inches.  Fuel starvation on departure due to water ingestion.

1b.  Pilot forgot to switch to the fullest tank before starting a night approach in VMC when the non-fullest tank was almost empty.

1c. Pilot knowingly departed with 10 gallons of fuel for a local flight, then used it all up.  Engine quit 1.3 miles from airport.  Stalled trying to stretch the glide.

1d.  FBO closed.  Pilot did not want to wait for the FBO staff to come to airport to fuel the airplane.  Departed without waiting.  Pilot turned around after realizing insufficient fuel to reach destination, then run out of fuel on night VMC final approach after returning to the very same airport where pilot was unwilling to wait for fuel.

2.   Drugs

2a.  Pilot took cough syrup containing codeine before departing into clouds and becoming spatially disoriented after a vacuum pump failure.

2b.  Pilot took methamphetamine and flew into IMC.  Tried to shoot and NDB approach without an instrument rating, AND ran out of fuel.

3.   Spatial disorientation

3a. Non instrument rated pilot flew into IMC over mountains at 13,900'.

3b. Non instrument rated pilot crashed into trees in low ceilings and fog while trying to find a grass strip.

3c. Non instrument rated pilot flew into IMC while looking for VFR route to airport.   Tried to shoot ILS with radar vectors.   Failed.

3d.  Instrument rated pilot departs night into IMC and on climb out loses control after reporting a "prob".   No problem found with engine, vacuum or gyros.

4.  Failure to fly the airplane

4a.  Pilot flew into the ground while doing low-altitude pipeline reconnaissance flight with a jury-rigged 36 gallon auxiliary fuel tank in the baggage compartment.

4b.  Departure stall with a normally running engine.   4 fatalities, including pilot and three grandchildren.

5.  Lack of training in complex aircraft.  A 100 hour total time pilot with 3 Mooney hours, takes three friends for a ride with no complex training, only to produce a departure stall.  One survivor.

6. Poor decision making (maybe shouldn't be a separate category)

6a.  Two IR pilots warned during wx briefing about light to moderate icing between 6,000 and 18,000 ft and deciding to go anyway.  Flight over mountainous terrain.  Pilots failed to apply carburetor heat when engine quit at 12,000 ft.  Night forced landing unsuccessful.

6b.  Non instrument rated pilot takes off in mountainous terrain with low ceilings hoping to find a VFR route out.  Doesn't.

7. Pilot Health

7a.  Pilot reports of "chest pains" after departure.  Doesn't make it back to the field.

7b.  69 y.o. solo pilot has a heart attack aloft.

8.  Poor/Incorrect Maintenance

8a.  Clogged fuel strainer in right tank.  Left tank empty.  Resulted in unsuccessful off-field landing.

These reports suggest that increased probability of having a fatal accident in a M20C is strongly correlated with poor decision making and/or inattentiveness, and nighttime, independent from ratings and/or total time.   The compliment to this suggestion is that good decision making and attentiveness really reduces the probability of having a fatal accident.   I didn't find one summary that show a really good set of decision making that had a fatal outcome.   Nothing close.  I don't raise this to belittle anyone dead or alive, but to point out that the NTSB database clearly shows that bad decision making, including flying outside of abilities, rules, or currency, clearly kills pilots more than any other factor.

The big commercial operators employ decision-making processes to eliminate most of these factors, plus have two pilots on board in almost all cases.  All that decreases the risk of a "total loss" by a factor of 150.  This explains why the commercial risk is tiny.   GA offers pilots a much wider range of latitude to make and act on poor decisions.

 

•  

 

Edited March 27, 2021 by 0TreeLemur
clarity

[aviatoreb]

15 minutes ago, 0TreeLemur said:

Now that I've quite laughing, I'll extend this and work towards a more apples-to-apples comparison.  

TL;DR: Commercial part 135 operations have procedures in place that reduce the risk of an IATA "total loss" of all souls on board by about a factor of 150, compared to non-commercial, non-experimental, not turbine part 91 flights.  The difference?   GA pilots have much wider latitude to make poor decisions and act on them compared to commercial operations.

AOPA reports that single, and multi-engine GA, excluding turboprop/jet and experimental, amasses 13.5 million hours per year.  Assuming avg 2 hours per flight, we get 6.5m flights/year, probably more because it would be positively skewed towards shorter flights, so I'll assume 8 m flights per year.

AOPA reports data from 2017 showing that non-commercial GA experienced 258 fatalities in non-turbine tricycle gear aircraft (single and multiengine).  For the non-commercial single/multi-, non-experimental class, the fatality rate is therefore:  258/13.5E+06= 19 fatalities per million hours.  Considerably higher than the 13 per million hours reported for all GA.   This indicates that the commercial (Part 135) GA fatality rate is considerably less than 13 per million.

The "loss rate" to use the vernacular of the IATA report, the probability of a fatality in a given flight, might be approximated as 258 fatalities per year / 8 million flights per year, or 32.25 fatalities per million flights.    To convert this to the "total loss rate" we'd need to conditionalize this on flights where all on board perished.  Based on my reading of the NTSB accident pages over the year, I'd estimate that if an accident is bad enough to cause one fatality, it probably is a total loss with all on board perishing a little over half the time.   I'll assume 0.6.  Of course a deeper dive into the NTSB records would allow determining this.

Then the IATA equiv. total loss rate is then =0.6* 32.25= 19.35 total losses per million flight hours.  This number for non-experimental, non-turbine, non-commercial GA is more-or-less comparable to the 0.13 for commercial operations reported by the IATA.

Compared to the commercial (pt 135) total loss rate of 0.13, the non-experimental, non-commercial, non-turbine GA total loss rate is 19.35/0.13 ~~ 150 times higher.

With the above assumptions, the probability of a passenger on a private non-experimental, non-commercial, non-turbine flight perishing in an accident that claims all on board is therefore 150*(1.3E-07)=2.0E-05.

Now you could condition this by pilot experience, purpose of flight, number of seats, recent maintenance, VFR/IFR, etc.  But it indicates that our flight sector involves about 150 times the risk of flight on part 135 operations. 

Back in January I did a deep dive I did into the NTSB reports of all Mooney M20C crashes from 1993-2008 to learn about causes of crashes involving fatalities.  Most of them were not instances of a perfectly good airplane having a random issue flown by a pilot who made the right decisions and still had a bad outcome.   Here's the list sorted by causes in no particular order:

1.  Fuel mismanagement

1a.  Pilot did not sump tanks on a Mooney that hadn't flown in months and was parked outdoors.   Rainfall during the period when the plane was parked outdoors: 5 inches.  Fuel starvation on departure due to water ingestion.

1b.  Pilot forgot to switch to the fullest tank before starting a night approach in VMC when the non-fullest tank was almost empty.

1c. Pilot knowingly departed with 10 gallons of fuel for a local flight, then used it all up.  Engine quit 1.3 miles from airport.  Stalled trying to stretch the glide.

1d.  FBO closed.  Pilot did not want to wait for the FBO staff to come to airport to fuel the airplane.  Departed without waiting.  Pilot turned around after realizing insufficient fuel to reach destination, then run out of fuel on night VMC final approach after returning to the very same airport where pilot was unwilling to wait for fuel.

2.   Drugs

2a.  Pilot took cough syrup containing codeine before departing into clouds and becoming spatially disoriented after a vacuum pump failure.

2b.  Pilot took methamphetamine and flew into IMC.  Tried to shoot and NDB approach without an instrument rating, AND ran out of fuel.

3.   Spatial disorientation

3a. Non instrument rated pilot flew into IMC over mountains at 13,900'.

3b. Non instrument rated pilot crashed into trees in low ceilings and fog while trying to find a grass strip.

3c. Non instrument rated pilot flew into IMC while looking for VFR route to airport.   Tried to shoot ILS with radar vectors.   Failed.

3d.  Instrument rated pilot departs night into IMC and on climb out loses control after reporting a "prob".   No problem found with engine, vacuum or gyros.

4.  Failure to fly the airplane

4a.  Pilot flew into the ground while doing low-altitude pipeline reconnaissance flight with a jury-rigged 36 gallon auxiliary fuel tank in the baggage compartment.

4b.  Departure stall with a normally running engine.   4 fatalities, including pilot and three grandchildren.

5.  Lack of training in complex aircraft.  A 100 hour total time pilot with 3 Mooney hours, takes three friends for a ride with no complex training, only to produce a departure stall.  One survivor.

6. Poor decision making (maybe shouldn't be a separate category)

6a.  Two IR pilots warned during wx briefing about light to moderate icing between 6,000 and 18,000 ft and deciding to go anyway.  Flight over mountainous terrain.  Pilots failed to apply carburetor heat when engine quit at 12,000 ft.  Night forced landing unsuccessful.

6b.  Non instrument rated pilot takes off in mountainous terrain with low ceilings hoping to find a VFR route out.  Doesn't.

7. Pilot Health

7a.  Pilot reports of "chest pains" after departure.  Doesn't make it back to the field.

7b.  69 y.o. solo pilot has a heart attack aloft.

8.  Poor/Incorrect Maintenance

8a.  Clogged fuel strainer in right tank.  Left tank empty.  Resulted in unsuccessful off-field landing.

These reports suggest that increased probability of having a fatal accident in a M20C is strongly correlated with poor decision making and/or inattentiveness, and nighttime, independent from ratings and/or total time.   The compliment to this suggestion is that good decision making and attentiveness really reduces the probability of having a fatal accident.   I didn't find one summary that show a really good set of decision making that had a fatal outcome.   Nothing close.  I don't raise this to belittle anyone dead or alive, but to point out that the NTSB database clearly shows that bad decision making, including flying outside of abilities, rules, or currency, clearly kills pilots more than any other factor.

The big commercial operators employ decision-making processes to eliminate most of these factors, plus have two pilots on board in almost all cases.  All that decreases the risk of a "total loss" by a factor of 150.  This explains why the commercial risk is tiny.   GA offers pilots a much wider range of latitude to make and act on poor decisions.

 

•  

 

I agree all.

Stats aside since when managing my own flights, I want to not become some else's statistic.

When I first started flying, I decided to look at what are the main modalities that get people, often well meaning lovely people whom we would be proud to call friends.  continued vfr into imc (even by ifr certified pilots), base to final turns gone bad, fuel exhaustion, got-a-get-there-itis against all odds, and on and on.  What we can each do individually is understand exactly these things and try to make them entirely outside our own performance, not by some kind of "well I am better than that" attitude but some specific practice we do for each and every one to avoid it, to check it if we have inclination, and to stop doing it if nonetheless something goes awry and we realize we are doing it.  I am a firm believer that with good and honest self management and self talk, we can potentially enjoy stats for our own selves that may be a (guessed number) an order of magnitude better than the general stats suggest.

Related - I always block the name of this concept and it has a name - but it is the idea - 90% of the risk is concentrated on 10% of the actors.  The bad actors.  But that doesn't mean they are necessarily bad people.  Just not good habits.  (Anyone remember the name of this principle? Its named after a person.)

[aviatoreb]

26 minutes ago, Hank said:

I've read NTSB reports with two gray haired experienced dudes (both ATPs, both > 20,000 hours) chasing expensive food who augured in . . . . No one is invincible or mistake-proof. Seems one such flight hit guy wires from a tower, always a quick end to a flight. 

I try to stay away from the edges of the flight envelope, and from the edges of my capabilities. Boring flights are fun! My very few "exciting" flights ended at home with a stiff drink. It's so much more fun to talk about what we didnat the destination, and how we couldn't have made the daytrip or weekend visit if we'd had to drive.  

A local 14,000hr CFI - DPE and local legend for his calm demeanor and knowledge - the same guy who checked me out for my private about a dozen years ago, suffered a CFIT about 10 years ago doing a scud rudding flight that had all the earmarks of exactly the setup and outcome as he taught us diligently to avoid.  It was a shock to us all that he allowed himself to get into that situation.  A shock and a mournful thing that we lost Dan whom we all beloved.  And for me a reminder that well if he could fall victim to his own bad decision making then so could any of us, and so could I, and therefore I must always remember that.  

[amillet]

22 hours ago, MooneyMitch said:

We wouldn’t be here (specifically flying Mooney airplanes) if it weren’t for Inganears  ! 

Although, Al Mooney was self taught and had no engineering degree if I remember correctly