The Journalistic Enemy of GA Stirkes Again

[Chuck Arnold]

Wes, I mostly agree with you. But note that I said "excessive number," not a "large number," of pilots are killing themselves. I do think it's excessive when so many incidents are caused by things that really shouldn't be happening, like fuel exhaustion and continued VFR into IMC. And I think better training can help prevent some of those accidents. I believe that continuing training, whether it's unusual attitude training, instrument training, or whatever, almost always results in a better, safer pilot.

I agree that GA does not have a safety crisis, but I do think that we as GA pilots have an added burden in the public eye because flying is something most people don't do, and therefore it's something they cannot easily relate to. An airplane going down in the woods somewhere and killing its occupants is more exotic to the public than an SUV going off a highway into a tree, and therefore, for better or worse, more newsworthy. It just means we have to be prepared to explain GA's safety record to our non-flying friends when asked.

[Chuck Arnold]

Interesting piece posted by Air Facts.

"'Because we investigate each of the 1,500 GA accidents that occur in the United States every year, we see the same types of accidents over and over again,' said NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman."

http://airfactsjournal.com/2013/03/n...anyone-listen/h

[WLIU]

I will suggest that the biggest problem with aviation safety is that pilots fly the airplanes. Earning a pilot certificate takes a personality type that is a little arrogant and a lot persistent. "Normal" people play golf. The individual that flies juggles data and risk. Normal people do activities that involve no physical risk. Pilots make a series of risk evaluations from the time that they decide that they will aviate today until the airplane is tied down again. Now any activity that involves making decision based on incomplete data will unavoidably generate a few decision that do not have the desired result. And aviation is, in the words of the practitioner of another discipline, an environment where "anything you do can get you killed. Including doing nothing." So we see that the majority of pilots make decisions that work. A few do not.

The NTSB has no charter to promote aviation. If we followed all of the NTSB reccomendations exactly we would not fly or our equipment would not be capable of leaving the ground. The NTSB is extremely risk averse. But we all make the value judgement that the benefits vastly outweigh the risks (that pesky word again), and 99% keep climbing in the airplane. The hard numbers are that the accident rate is low in relation to the size of the fleet and the number of pilots. Another risk-reward value judgement. So the NTSB points out the hazards, and we all do our best to reap the rewards and avoid the hazards.

So if you want perfect safety, keep pilots out of the airplanes. But perfect is the enemy of good and the hard numbers say that our current safety situation is pretty good.

Be careful out there,

Wes
N78PS

[martymayes]

I know, I know, the evil media is at it again, but here is a story, not only about GA but about homebuilding from the Baton Rouge mainstay newspaper, The Advocate:

http://theadvocate.com/features/peop...-in-the-making

[WLIU]

So the story in the link is a great example of how we can make our activity look like a positive, normal, admirable, part of society. The problem is that we are mostly too busy to encourage our "friends" in the media to do these kind of stories. And guys who spend hours and hours laboring away in their shops do not write press releases for themselves. But in truth, local media will eagerly write these types of human interest stories. And our job is to try to make these stories a lot more common than the "oh my god and airplane fell out of the sky" stories.

Example - When an IAC chapter hosts a contest, we often invite a member of the local media to come out on the first practice day to watch, get a tour, and interview competitors. It is an opportunity to let the community know what all of that extra noise at the airport is, and it gives the news organization material to fill space. I have been interviewed several times and had my airplane photographed. The resulting article has always said nice things about the airport, the event, the people who put the work into making the event happen, and the competitors. Another example of an opportunity for positive press is Young Eagle events. Every media person thinks young people getting a free airplane ride is a great thing. And I will suggest that every EAA chapter should send out a press release after one of their members completes the first flight of a homebuilt.

Giving the media material that you want to see in print, on TV, and on the internet, always produces better results than letting them wander around unguided and picking what they stumble into just before their deadline.

Best of luck,

Wes
N78PS

[N96290]

The motorcycle and aircraft accident rates are simular and higher than cars because a high percentage are related to horse play and operations of exuberance. If you compare the accidents for normal use the numbers will be a lot closer. For cars lets only count the accidents for high performance vehicles and other high insurance rate classes and see how the numbers compare. It's all is in how you spin the facts. The soccer mom mini vans and their drivers skew the numbers unless you are counting the number of people who die of boredom.

[Mayhemxpc]

Well the high speed and horseplay (including teenage male drivers of Silverado pick-ups) may run into soccer-mom mini-vans. So how would that affect the numbers? I read once that 35% of people killed in drunk driving accidents aren't even in the same car as the drunk driver. Just focusing on high-risk driving may not be enough of a discriminator.

[WLIU]

If you could help educate an old guy, I was under the impression that motorcycle accidents were a lot higher and that the majority of them involved motorcycles not been seen by car and truck drivers. At least that was the impression during my motorcycle riding days and I have not seen any data to contradict that. Could you cite the stats for the assertion above?

As for aircraft accidents, in the NTSB reports that I see, and the NTSB recommendations that we hear about through EAA, reckless flying hasn't made the list of top concerns. The few incidents get a lot of publicity, but from what I can see, the big problems are guys flying into weather, misjudging density altitude, etc. Can you provide a statistic?

Ron W just had an interesting article on the safety stats published in Sport Aviation. I did not recall seeing reckless flying highlighted.

Thanks,

Wes
N78PS

[rwanttaja]

Ron W just had an interesting article on the safety stats published in Sport Aviation. I did not recall seeing reckless flying highlighted.

Figure 6 gives the number of fatal homebuilt accidents in 2011 for various causes. The last three would probably encompass "Reckless flying"... Maneuvering at Low Altitude (3 fatal accidents), Midairs (also 3) and Continued VFR into IFR Conditions (2 fatals). That's eight out of 54 total fatal homebuilt accidents. More than twice as many fatals were due to the pilot not controlling his plane or its systems correctly.

Ron Wanttaja

[WLIU]

Thanks for the breakdown!

So I will suggest that the assertion that "a high percentage are related to horse play" is false. I will suggest that the aviation equivalent of "horseplay" translates to the "maneuvering at low altitude" category in Ron's article. Which looks like 3 of 54 accidents or under 6%.

Best of luck,

Wes
N78PS