NTSB: Fatalities Up 13% In 2014

Never a good thing when the fatality rate is up and the flight hours are down. We need more parachutes.
 
Good, looks like GA is recovering.

The decrease in fatalities was the result of GA dying during the recession.
 
Must be because of the elimination of the third class medical.
 
Cpt_Kirk said:
We need better CFI's.
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It would be interesting to see the age/experience demographic, and how the SP/LSA proportionality is. If the increase is in LSA with people operating with no medical, that would go a long way to explaining the changes in the PBOR2 wording.
 
weilke said:
Good, looks like GA is recovering.

The decrease in fatalities was the result of GA dying during the recession.
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Bingo. The economic recovery plus a mild retreat in fuel prices has resulted in increased flying. Increased flying leads to:

More accidents.
 
kyleb said:
Bingo. The economic recovery plus a mild retreat in fuel prices has resulted in increased flying. Increased flying leads to:

More accidents.
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I just dont think that the NTSB/FAA has good metrics on aviation activity when it comes to the small-plane GA that drives the accident figures. I dont believe that the number of hours flown in GA has decreased between 13 and 14 as their report indicates.
 
FormerHangie said:
I'm not sure I'd go along with that. The amount of avgas used last year was at the lowest level in many decades: http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mgaupus1&f=a
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Avgas consumption is driven by fleet operators like Cape air, Labcorp, Quest and cabin twins. All of them are moving to different kinds of turbines. I dont believe that the global 100LL number is particularly meaningful to determine whether JimBob Bugsmasher if flying more or less. The other metrics are self-reported hours on third class applications and the 'GA census', both data sources fraught with errors.
 
Cpt_Kirk said:
We need better CFI's.
Click to expand...

That will only help if you intend to have the CFIs fly everyone around. It has nothing to do with poor training. It has everything to do with lack of current experience. When you're short on money, or flight costs are expensive, you don't fly as much. When you fly infrequently your skills decay rapidly.

In addition you tend to save your flying money up for that one big plane trip. You know, the one where you load the plane full of friends, or family and blast off into dark, clouds, winds, or whatever with being proficient only in your mind and on paper according to the FAA. This often leads to tragedy.

IMO, when money is tight, we are far better off forgoing the big long cross countries and just doing multiple short local flights. That's not popular I know, but it's what I've been doing.

Seriously we need to keep this in perspective. 24 more people died. That's it. Maybe more people were carrying passengers last year than before?? :dunno:
 
Dav8or said:
That will only help if you intend to have the CFIs fly everyone around. It has nothing to do with poor training. It has everything to do with lack of current experience. When you're short on money, or flight costs are expensive, you don't fly as much. When you fly infrequently your skills decay rapidly.

In addition you tend to save your flying money up for that one big plane trip. You know, the one where you load the plane full of friends, or family and blast off into dark, clouds, winds, or whatever with being proficient only in your mind and on paper according to the FAA. This often leads to tragedy.

IMO, when money is tight, we are far better off forgoing the big long cross countries and just doing multiple short local flights. That's not popular I know, but it's what I've been doing.

Seriously we need to keep this in perspective. 24 more people died. That's it. Maybe more people were carrying passengers last year than before?? :dunno:
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Yeah, that uptick is likely more noise than it is signal.
 
Dav8or said:
Seriously we need to keep this in perspective. 24 more people died. That's it. Maybe more people were carrying passengers last year than before?? :dunno:
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It said GA not private pilots too, that small of a number could all be from one or two charter flights.
 
RotorAndWing said:
We need better standards, real recurrent training.
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how bout an online accident lesson learned segment as part of the BFR?

we need more sharpening in risk mitigation....and hazard avoidance.:yes:
 
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RotorAndWing said:
An actual recurrent that must be graded and recorded, and not the BFR "you can't fail". Require X number of hours ground training, and X number of hours flight training.
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why even bother?.....might as well retest every two years? :goofy::yikes::D
 
Checkout_my_Six said:
why even bother?.....might as well retest every two years? :goofy::yikes::D
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A lot of countries under ICAO have annual retest requirements, and not with a designee.

A private pilot with an instrument rating in the U.S. can pass his check rides and never see any meaningful training ever again. He can get a CFI buddy to pencil whip a BFR, then he can pencil whip his instrument currency requirements.

Lack of standards, lack of quality recurrence training. It's not hard to see where the problem lies.
 
Clark1961 said:
how do they measure flight hour?
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- the 'general aviation census'. A campaign of postcards sent to random airmen which are promptly discarded by 90%. The 10% that are returned contain unverifiable information.

- 100LL sales

- reports of 'movements' from towered airports

- self reported hours from medical forms
 
Cpt_Kirk said:
We need better CFI's.
Click to expand...

RotorAndWing said:
We need better standards, real recurrent training.
Click to expand...

RotorAndWing said:
An actual recurrent that must be graded and recorded, and not the BFR "you can't fail". Require X number of hours ground training, and X number of hours flight training.
Click to expand...

No, we don't need this. A whopping 254 people died in GA flights during 2014. We need to accept that statistics fluctuate and when the numbers are this small, 24 deaths = 13% increase. I know of no other vehicle, or activity where the Feds are trying so hard to get the fatality number to zero. Every other activity, cars, boats, motorcycles, bicycling, skiing, skateboarding, etc... there are deaths every year and we as a people can grasp that sometimes things go wrong and people die. We collectively move on. Somehow a plane crash has everyone pulling their hair out trying to get the number to zero.

If anything, all we need is a big sticker on the side of the plane that says- "Amateur Pilot" or some such like the E/AB planes have. This might at least give some notice to the passengers that this ain't no airline.
 
weilke said:
Avgas consumption is driven by fleet operators like Cape air, Labcorp, Quest and cabin twins. All of them are moving to different kinds of turbines. I dont believe that the global 100LL number is particularly meaningful to determine whether JimBob Bugsmasher if flying more or less. The other metrics are self-reported hours on third class applications and the 'GA census', both data sources fraught with errors.
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Cape Air's fleet, with the exception of two ATRs that fly in Micronesia, is piston powered.

Avgas consumption is a data point, just as is the FAA's hours flown estimate, and Jay's observations that there's no one in the air with him is one, and my survey that tells me only about half of the larger GA airports in the area have rental aircraft is another data point, and they all point in the same direction, and that is the number of hours flown is slowly declining.
 
Dav8or said:
No, we don't need this. A whopping 254 people died in GA flights during 2014. We need to accept that statistics fluctuate and when the numbers are this small, 24 deaths = 13% increase. I know of no other vehicle, or activity where the Feds are trying so hard to get the fatality number to zero. Every other activity, cars, boats, motorcycles, bicycling, skiing, skateboarding, etc... there are deaths every year and we as a people can grasp that sometimes things go wrong and people die. We collectively move on. Somehow a plane crash has everyone pulling their hair out trying to get the number to zero.

If anything, all we need is a big sticker on the side of the plane that says- "Amateur Pilot" or some such like the E/AB planes have. This might at least give some notice to the passengers that this ain't no airline.
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253 fatal accidents, 419 fatalities.
 
Devil is in the details; mechanical failure, WX, or pilot error?
 
No, we don't need this. A whopping 254 people died in GA flights during 2014. We need to accept that statistics fluctuate and when the numbers are this small, 24 deaths = 13% increase. I know of no other vehicle, or activity where the Feds are trying so hard to get the fatality number to zero. Every other activity, cars, boats, motorcycles, bicycling, skiing, skateboarding, etc... there are deaths every year and we as a people can grasp that sometimes things go wrong and people die. We collectively move on. Somehow a plane crash has everyone pulling their hair out trying to get the number to zero.

If anything, all we need is a big sticker on the side of the plane that says- "Amateur Pilot" or some such like the E/AB planes have. This might at least give some notice to the passengers that this ain't no airline.
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Exactly! Do not over regulate us any further!!! We accept our accident and fatality rate as it is!
 
teejayevans said:
Devil is in the details; mechanical failure, WX, or pilot error?
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Pilot error. It is almost always pilot error of one kind or another. I imagine that all the same pitfalls occurred, and the increase is proportional among the usual categories.
 
RotorAndWing said:
We need better standards, real recurrent training.
Click to expand...
RotorAndWing said:
An actual recurrent that must be graded and recorded, and not the BFR "you can't fail". Require X number of hours ground training, and X number of hours flight training.
Click to expand...
RotorAndWing said:
A private pilot with an instrument rating in the U.S. can pass his check rides and never see any meaningful training ever again. He can get a CFI buddy to pencil whip a BFR, then he can pencil whip his instrument currency requirements.

Lack of standards, lack of quality recurrence training. It's not hard to see where the problem lies.
Click to expand...

I can certainly see your point in that the airlines and the corporate jet world have a far better safety record than GA and they do these things. But I do wonder if these things are the main driver in their safety record. I believe the fact that their pilots have more experience is a major factor.

Other factors are:

1. The amount of sim training they do before flying the actual aircraft far exceeds anything the GA pilot can afford or even has access to.

2. The airlines and some corporate flight departments have a flight ops department that includes professional dispatchers who do the flight planning which really helps the pilots.

3. They have stringent operations rules that are not only embedded in the FARs but also the company manuals.

4. The maintenance is much better which means less mechanical failures/emergencies for the pilots to deal with.

5. They are all IFR rated and on IFR flight plans which means VFR into IMC is never a factor.

Oh yeah, having two pilots doesn't hurt either.

While I do agree that many of our GA brethren could use better training and that the flight review process isn't always utilized as it should be, I don't think making the system more onerous for all of us is necessarily the solution.
 
weilke said:
- the 'general aviation census'. A campaign of postcards sent to random airmen which are promptly discarded by 90%. The 10% that are returned contain unverifiable information.

- 100LL sales

- reports of 'movements' from towered airports

- self reported hours from medical forms
Click to expand...

In other words, they don't measure flight hours
 
SkyDog58 said:
I can certainly see your point in that the airlines and the corporate jet world have a far better safety record than GA and they do these things. But I do wonder if these things are the main driver in their safety record. I believe the fact that their pilots have more experience is a major factor.

Other factors are:

1. The amount of sim training they do before flying the actual aircraft far exceeds anything the GA pilot can afford or even has access to.

2. The airlines and some corporate flight departments have a flight ops department that includes professional dispatchers who do the flight planning which really helps the pilots.

3. They have stringent operations rules that are not only embedded in the FARs but also the company manuals.

4. The maintenance is much better which means less mechanical failures/emergencies for the pilots to deal with.

5. They are all IFR rated and on IFR flight plans which means VFR into IMC is never a factor.

Oh yeah, having two pilots doesn't hurt either.

While I do agree that many of our GA brethren could use better training and that the flight review process isn't always utilized as it should be, I don't think making the system more onerous for all of us is necessarily the solution.
Click to expand...

The Practical Test Standards are a minimum. In order to gain certification one must meet the minimum requirement demonstrated to an examiner.

Fairly clear concept, agree? Now ask the question, how many GA pilots feel they can take a checkride tomorrow for their ratings and pass it? I think the answer you'll find is shocking.

Better recurrent standards is not "onerous". A typical GA pilot will go out and spend $1000 on a new headset, but bellyache at having to spend that same amount to maintain currency and make himself a better, and safer pilot.
 
Dav8or said:
No, we don't need this. A whopping 254 people died in GA flights during 2014. We need to accept that statistics fluctuate and when the numbers are this small, 24 deaths = 13% increase. I know of no other vehicle, or activity where the Feds are trying so hard to get the fatality number to zero. Every other activity, cars, boats, motorcycles, bicycling, skiing, skateboarding, etc... there are deaths every year and we as a people can grasp that sometimes things go wrong and people die. We collectively move on. Somehow a plane crash has everyone pulling their hair out trying to get the number to zero.

If anything, all we need is a big sticker on the side of the plane that says- "Amateur Pilot" or some such like the E/AB planes have. This might at least give some notice to the passengers that this ain't no airline.
Click to expand...

:yeahthat: About 40 people each year die skiing. It is what it is, and there is risk in living a life of utility and adventure.

N Korea had a perfect zero fatality rate last year for GA operations. Of course, they had zero GA operations last year too.
 
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