The final accident figures are out for the 2007 calendar year, and they are depressing. If we thought we were making any meaningful kind of progress in reducing the accident rate or the fatalties, we were wrong. And anybody who tries to spin these numbers to make it seem otherwise is either not being honest with you or with themselves. Maybe both.
Now, before you start talking about accident statistics, you always need to say that the numbers we have are not accurate and they're probably not reliable either. Even though the FAA is using what it says is a more accurate survey method, these figures need to be taken with a grain of salt. The figures that really matter is how many airplanes got wrecked and how many lives were lost. Those figures we know.
The number that really stands out is total accidents. There were 1,385 GA fixed-wing accidents, an increase of 6.3 percent from the year before, a sure sign that we are making too little progress or, perhaps, none at all.
There was a slight decrease, around 5 percent, in the number of fatal accidents and the fatalities. There were 252 fatal accidents in '07, a reduction of 14 accidents, and there were 449 fatalities, an improvement with 48 fewer lives lost. The fatal accident rate of 1.18 per 100,000 flight hours was an improvement, based on the FAA numbers, from a rate of 1.24 the year before.
You can look at the numbers in great detail, and that needs to be done. But examining a big problem with a microscope can lead you to forget the nature of the beast itself. There were more than 449 fatalities in GA flying last year, and that's simply too big a number. It could be argued, in fact, that this figure represents no statistically meaningful improvement over the historic record,
What can we do? Well, the FAA and the AOPA Air Safety Foundation are both doing a good job of pointing out the areas where pilots and their passengers come to grief. And we''ve all been attacking those hot spots with education, education, education, technolgy, technology, technology. And a little regulation here and there. It's not as though we aren't trying. We all care deeply about the issue. But for all that concern, we don't seem to making a lot of progress in making the GA skies safer.
Take just one issue: There is a lot of speculation as to how the growing numbers of technologically advanced aircraft have helped, or hurt the record. Do advanced avionics and in-cockpit weather keep pilots safer, or embolden them? Do airplanes designed to fly long distances at a good rate of speed put pilots at odds with the weather in a greater way than in the past? These questions, and more, deserve to be discussed. Maybe we can makes some gains if we better understand what's happening here.
And the same is true for numerous risk areas: VFR into IMC, CFIT, loss of control at low altitude, icing and more. All of this slices deserve attention. But when it comes to the big picture, all you need to do is look at the big numbers and ask yourself, have our efforts been enough?
You should only come up with one answer to that question: No.
The next question is tougher: What do we do now?
Great piece. More of these please
Posted by: pat koenig | April 01, 2009 at 06:20 PM
We all know that many GA accidents are not reported. How many prop strikes and landing gear failures are dragged into the FBO with no calls to the FAA if the FBO gets the repair work?
Ask any airport worker to get a more clear account of the number of GA accidents that are not reported or "filtered" depending on who owns the aircraft.
Posted by: Bob Clark | April 18, 2009 at 08:00 AM