It's time for the FAA to set an aggressive goal, comparable to the ones they set for airliners, for reducing the general aviation fatal accident rate. Without one, senseless accidents will continue, needless lives will be lost, and potential new pilots will be scared away.
In recent years, general aviation averaged over 300 fatal accidents per year, resulting in around 600 deaths per year. This is very high compared to air carrier aviation fatalities, which numbered 40 in 2005. By comparison, the NTSB reports that annually railroads account for over 700 fatalities, boating accidents claim over 800 lives, and car accidents kill over 40,000 people. Nonetheless, while the public shows little reticence to board a boat or drive a car, they tend to view small planes as unsafe.
Max Trescott on General Aviation: General Aviation Needs an Aggressive Safety Goal
:: First off, as big fan of Max's book on the Garmin G1000 Glass Cockpit, I'm geeked that Max has started a blog.
CAP is the single largest operator of Cessna piston singles, CAP is well on the way to being the biggest G1000 operator. (well... at least until some G1K equipped VLJ air taxi operation builds more... but that's another post!)
I agree with Bob Miller from Over the Airwaves, who also says that GA safety can be drastically improved if we get our butts in gear.
Let's get to it.
According to the AOPA's 2006 Nall report on general aviation accidents, 83% of fatal general aviation crashes are due to pilot-related factors and less than 10% are due to known mechanical issues. There is only so much that the government, non-profits, etc. can do to make people smarter or to demonstrate more common sense using voluntary programs such as we have.
Probably the only thing that might do some good would be to require general aviation pilots to undergo some sort of regular safety training or refresher training with instructor pilots or form-5 like flight checks on a regular basis.
While this might actually do some good, it really goes against just about every insticts American's have. We figure if the government certifies us once, we're good to go until we're legally blind.
When you get right down to it, the number of people lost in general aviation accidents is so low, is it really worth concentrating on given the much higher loss of people in car accidents? We could spend hundreds of millions of dollars worth of pilot's time and money (and government time and money to oversee it) paying for such a mandatory program, but would it be worth it to save a few hundred more lives a year?
The biggest bang for your buck would be in reducing fatal car accidents.
Posted by: Auxman | January 06, 2008 at 13:39