Quote Originally Posted by 1600vw View Post
Are the Stats really correct? I wonder how many non fatal accidents there have been that do not get reported. I have had a few folks tell me stories of accidents where the aircraft mangled and then is pushed off into a hangar before anyone ever noticed. These where all EAB's that are of the single seat design. Its not until this is fatal that we hear about it.
Yep, you hit a key point. If a 172 does a forced landing in the boonies, the pilot is probably incapable of doing much more than calling an FBO and having them send out a mechanic and a trailer. The FAA naturally shows up. But if it's a homebuilt, the owner is likely to be quite capable of disassembling the plane himself and carting it away, no one the wiser.

Years ago, one of my EAA chapters was having a picnic at a local airpark. One of the members based at the field lost his engine on the takeoff run. He ground-looped the plane to keep from going off a steep hill at the end of the runway, wiping out the gear (no one hurt). Coincidentally, it happened at the end of the runway near this man's hangar. Chapter members ran out, grabbed pieces of airplane, and hauled them into the hangar. By the time the cops arrived, the hangar door was shut. "What accident?"

More recently, a plane undergoing taxi testing had an accident. The owner successfully convinced the investigators that this did NOT count as an aircraft accident, since the plane...uhhh, "vehicle"...had not yet been given its airworthiness certificate nor been registered.

And as Flybuddy has pointed out, the NTSB accident records themselves are shot with errors, with "homebuilt" used as a catch-all term for all non-standard-airworthiness aircraft.

The problem is, the NTSB reports are all we have. There's nothing else to use, to try to compare production to homebuilt safety. All we can do is hope the errors even out....

Ron Wanttaja