10 Reasons pilot crash airplanes

bflynn

bflynn

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Brian Flynn
vkhosid said:
There's a top 10 list?
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There are a few lists. It was a topic on AOPA forums a couple of years back and someone (Dr. Bruce?) turned it into a short article in AOPA Pilot.

My list is slightly different that what was published, but it is substantially the same. I don't recall now what I changed, but it was more semantics than substantial.

(1) Pilot flew into other than air - midair collision, CFIT, VFR into IMC, scud running.
(2) Pilot expected performance beyond capability of the aircraft - high density altitude, low level stall, etc.
(3) Pilot was cognitively impaired - drugs, fatigue, alcohol, medicine, sickness, health
(4) Pilot departed with known deficiency in airplane or conditions.
(5) Pilot was a scofflaw - no medical, out of annual, no BFR, “What-did-you-expect”
(6) Pilot ran the airplane out of fuel
(7) Pilot FAIL in icing conditions
(8) Pilot failed to perform a know and normal action correctly - runway incursion, bounced landing, inproper crosswind performance.
(9) True mechanical failure
(10) System failure, ATC induced collision in IFR, etc.
 
I think this is the original AOPA list. I changed things from 7 on, more substantial than I thought. But there were several versions of this floating around.

1) Pilot needlessly flew into other than air.....(night VMC think Superstition mountain, mid air collision, and improper IFR, Runway LOC, and ?hey watch this?)
(2) Pilot expected performance wildly beyond capability of the aircraft (high density altitude, Wintertime climbout from big rocks, four in a C172 with full fuel, Baron with five up and full Fuel and uphill runway eg. St. Ignace accident, etc).
(3) Pilot was cognitively impaired (drugs, fatigue, long duty cycle).
(4) Pilot departed with known deficiency (propped the B58 and geared it up, Y***** J***** accident in Newark).
(5) Pilot was a scofflaw (no medical, out of annual, no BFR, ?What-did-you-expect?).
(6) Pilot ran out of go-juice (planes fly better with go-juice).
(7) Pilot fails to request help.
(8) Pilot FAIL in icing conditions (think TMB 850 accident at MMU).
(9) Pilot did a **** poor job with the planning and failed to abort the accident chain (get-there-it is, both fuel and weather).
(10) Pilot failed to perform adequate on-ground actions
 
"Pilot was a scofflaw - no medical, out of annual, no BFR"

Really? How does a lack of a medical cause a crash? I've been flying without one for years. If it wasn't #9, mechanical failure (first list), then how would the lack of an annual cause a crash?
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
"Pilot was a scofflaw - no medical, out of annual, no BFR"

Really? How does a lack of a medical cause a crash? I've been flying without one for years. If it wasn't #9, mechanical failure (first list), then how would the lack of an annual cause a crash?
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Because no one looked. Why do you think?

Those regulations are not on the books because people just want to stick it to you. They are attempts to solve real problems.

Lack of inspection can absolutely prevent the detection of a simple mechanical problem that would otherwise be repaired on the ground. Not all of these are detectable at run-up.
 
Caught that too - no one crashes because their medical or BFR is out of date; that's just lock-step nonsense logic.
 
I love the fact that Bruce wrote the list. Saddest thing is people still die from the same old stuff.
 
I would have broken out VFR into IMC for #1... last I knew it was still on top by a wide margin.
 
And the number one reason . . . . . .


Gravity!
 
The list is missing pilot incompetence.
 
cowman said:
I would have broken out VFR into IMC for #1... last I knew it was still on top by a wide margin.
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Anyway, it seems curious that it is grouped as "flying into something other than air"

To me, IMC is air. It's certainly not dirt or metal.
 
NoHeat said:
Anyway, it seems curious that it is grouped as "flying into something other than air"

To me, IMC is air. It's certainly not dirt or metal.
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It can quite easily contain either, and under some circumstances can cause the aircraft to break up without contacting anything hard.
 
MAKG1 said:
Inertia is a bigger problem.

It's not the fall that kills you. It's the sudden stop at the end.
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Maybe. But the list wasn't the top ten reasons people hurt themselves, now was it?
 
bflynn said:
(6) Pilot ran out of go-juice (planes fly better with go-juice).
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This one should probably be "engine ran out of go-juice". There have been plenty of accidents where the plane still had go-juice but the engine did not by way of a mis-positioned fuel selector. And 6PC is the only pilot I know that drinks 100LL.
 
Sundancer said:
Caught that too - no one crashes because their medical or BFR is out of date; that's just lock-step nonsense logic.
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You obviously haven't seen what scofflaws do to hurt themselves. It isn't a matter of lack of medical, inspections, etc. it's an all-encompassing attitude that rules don't apply, whether they have a foundation in blood or not.
 
MauleSkinner said:
You obviously haven't seen what scofflaws do to hurt themselves. It isn't a matter of lack of medical, inspections, etc. it's an all-encompassing attitude that rules don't apply, whether they have a foundation in blood or not.
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That there. The anti-authority attitude (one of the Five Hazardous Attitudes) that gets people killed. Many of them never stop to think why the law is there. Sure, some laws are overkill, but most of them are written in blood.
 
The reason for posting the list was because someone asked about it. It was mentioned as part of a way for someone to demonstrate to their wife that they were being safe. Run it like a checklist and say "ok, I will have go juice" and then you're 10% better than other pilots.
 
bflynn said:
(1) Pilot flew into other than air - midair collision, CFIT, VFR into IMC, scud running.
(2) Pilot expected performance beyond capability of the aircraft - high density altitude, low level stall, etc.
(3) Pilot was cognitively impaired - drugs, fatigue, alcohol, medicine, sickness, health
(4) Pilot departed with known deficiency in airplane or conditions.
(5) Pilot was a scofflaw - no medical, out of annual, no BFR, “What-did-you-expect”
(6) Pilot ran the airplane out of fuel
(7) Pilot FAIL in icing conditions
(8) Pilot failed to perform a know and normal action correctly - runway incursion, bounced landing, inproper crosswind performance.
(9) True mechanical failure
(10) System failure, ATC induced collision in IFR, etc.
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Based non-training-related Cessna 172 accidents, 1998-2010:

#1: 5.8% of total
#2: Density altitude, 0.5%. Roughly 9% of accidents involve stalls.
#3: 0.1%
#4: Probably on the order of 1%.
#5: No way to compute.
#6: 7.3%
#7: 0.08%
#8: About 55% of all accidents are caused by miscontrolling the aircraft.
#9: 13%
#10: 0.2%

Here's my list:
------------------------
#1 Pilot Miscontrol: 56.0%
#2 Fuel Exhaustion: 7.25%
#3 Other: 6.57% (covers a lot of small-occurrence items)
#4 VFR into IFR: 4.38%
#5 Manuevering at low alt: 4.13% (includes flying up box canyons, etc.)
#6 Undetermined Loss of Power: 3.37%
#7 Engine Mechanical: 2.78%
#8 Maintenance Error: 2.27%
#9 Midair Collision: 2.10%
#10 Carb Ice: 1.68%

Ron Wanttaja
 
MauleSkinner said:
You obviously haven't seen what scofflaws do to hurt themselves. It isn't a matter of lack of medical, inspections, etc. it's an all-encompassing attitude that rules don't apply, whether they have a foundation in blood or not.[/QUOTE

Your brush is too broad. . .I've witnessed scofflaws, nerds, toe-the-liners, slugs, and gifted aviators hurt themselves. All-encompassing doesn't pass the smell test, either. . .your target implication is all folks with an expired BFR are scofflaws, for example. . .

A pilot that never breaks a rule is as foolish as one who always does. See, words in a row can't be constructed such that every eventuality is addressed. At some point, you have to make a call, and live with it, and I don't buy that anti-authority drivle, either - yeah, some hard heads fall in the category, sure. . .and some folks can diffrentiate between the trivial and the essential, too.

So, no, I don't fly under bridges inverted, but yes, I log night if it's dark outside, and I do not give a single efff what the "official" defintion of "night" is.
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You obviously didn't read my post. I made no implication that not having a medical makes one a scofflaw. Nor does one reg ignored.

But when you see an accident where the pilots hadn't completed the before takeoff checklist properly for most of the last 175 take offs, or one where the empty weight & CG were doctored in addition to other paperwork, "scofflaw" starts to take on meaning.
 
Well, by far the most common "crash" of an airplane is hangar rash. Hitting the hangar door or other part of hangar while manuevering the airplane. Almost every airplane gets banged that way someday, sad to say.

The next most common crash is running off the runway on landing or takeoff.

Of course those are minor crashes.
 
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MauleSkinner said:
You obviously didn't read my post. I made no implication that not having a medical makes one a scofflaw. Nor does one reg ignored.

But when you see an accident where the pilots hadn't completed the before takeoff checklist properly for most of the last 175 take offs, or one where the empty weight & CG were doctored in addition to other paperwork, "scofflaw" starts to take on meaning.
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Obviously? I do not think this means what you think it means. . .seriously, I did read your post. While it may not have been your intent, Obviously
that was the effect it engendered. . .

You miss the mark, I think, in using extremes at the "bad boy" end of the spectrum as illustrative. . .People can, and do, operate safely (or at least as safe as is rationally acheivable in GA) and still routinely break rules. And a rationally based anti-authority attitude is a healthy thing - as in, pencil-whipped III Class medicals obtained from a AME "mill", or doing some maintenance that falls a bit outside the "owner permitted" boundaries, or flying within 1,999 feet of a cloud, etc.

I'm saying the FAA more or less codifies things because that's what bureacracies do. Mostly for the best of reasons, but also plenty of times to protect their turf, justify $$$, meet a political agenda, boost a career or two, or just because it sounded like a good idea. So yeah, some rules, in some situations, you might have to be a dumb azz to follow.
 
wanttaja said:
Here's my list:
------------------------
#1 Pilot Miscontrol: 56.0%
#2 Fuel Exhaustion: 7.25%
#3 Other: 6.57% (covers a lot of small-occurrence items)
#4 VFR into IFR: 4.38%
#5 Manuevering at low alt: 4.13% (includes flying up box canyons, etc.)
#6 Undetermined Loss of Power: 3.37%
#7 Engine Mechanical: 2.78%
#8 Maintenance Error: 2.27%
#9 Midair Collision: 2.10%
#10 Carb Ice: 1.68%
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Just out of curiosity, the latest AOPA Pilot talks about a guy who was in IMC when his AI failed and the end result was an in-flight breakup. Would that be a #1, #3 or #8?
 
asicer said:
Just out of curiosity, the latest AOPA Pilot talks about a guy who was in IMC when his AI failed and the end result was an in-flight breakup. Would that be a #1, #3 or #8?
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If this is the recent Bonanza that broke up over Long island there are other factors beyond what you listed that were in play in that accident.

However, if one takes just the factors you list as a generality, my response would be: "What the hell is someone doing in IMC if he/she is incapable of handling the loss of just the AI?". That is #1.
 
asicer said:
Just out of curiosity, the latest AOPA Pilot talks about a guy who was in IMC when his AI failed and the end result was an in-flight breakup. Would that be a #1, #3 or #8?
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On my system, it would be #13.... "Other Mechanical Failure," referring to the AI failure that initiated the accident sequence.

#11 Inadequate Preflight
#12 Disorientation
#13 Other Mechanical
#14 Fuel Starvation
#15 Fuel Contamination
#16 Fuel System
#17 Undetermined
#18 Landing gear/brakes
#19 Taxi Accident
#20 Turbulence/Winds

Ron Wanttaja
 
Sundancer said:
Obviously? I do not think this means what you think it means. . .seriously, I did read your post. While it may not have been your intent, Obviously
that was the effect it engendered. . .

You miss the mark, I think, in using extremes at the "bad boy" end of the spectrum as illustrative. . .People can, and do, operate safely (or at least as safe as is rationally acheivable in GA) and still routinely break rules. And a rationally based anti-authority attitude is a healthy thing - as in, pencil-whipped III Class medicals obtained from a AME "mill", or doing some maintenance that falls a bit outside the "owner permitted" boundaries, or flying within 1,999 feet of a cloud, etc.

I'm saying the FAA more or less codifies things because that's what bureacracies do. Mostly for the best of reasons, but also plenty of times to protect their turf, justify $$$, meet a political agenda, boost a career or two, or just because it sounded like a good idea. So yeah, some rules, in some situations, you might have to be a dumb azz to follow.
Click to expand...
Ok...maybe it's the "read" part...I assume comprehension is included in that.

I'm not sure how you get from my statement that "it isn't a matter of a lack of medical, inspections..." to "your target implication is that all Folks with an expired BFR are scofflaws."
 
I pinged on the "all encompassing attitude that rules don't apply" . . .as in any arena, there are some of these folks in aviation; in my experience they are a small minority. And a much larger majority that recognize some rules are more equal (or rational) than others.

Busting minimums, say, versus taking your airplane out of state ahead of a hurricane, even though a "required" instrument gives up the ghost on run-up.

Some rules are writ in blood, for sure. Some others are writ in dollars, or personal ambition, or political expediency. Or by the non-accountable.

I ratchet down the holier than thou and self righteous judgements a bit more as I age.
 
So you take a statement out of context and accuse me of saying something entirely different.

Maybe you need to ratchet down your holier than thou and self righteous judgements a bit more.
 
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