Out of curiosity, I ran my usual type of accident analysis against the T-6/SNJ airframe. Time period covered was 2008 through 2022. Fifty-eight total T-6 accidents in that period. Kind of surprised me, that's almost four per year. I see ~625 registered as of the first of this year. At this rate, we have 150 years left....
As one might expect, the pilots in the accidents are very experienced. Median total flight time is 3,000 hours with 260 hours in type. In comparison, pilots in homebuilt accidents have a median of about 1000 hours total time, and Cessna 172 pilots are down to 243 hours.
Only one midair; T-6 and a helicopter.
Rate of engine issues is almost identical to that of the Cessna 172. Kinda surprised me, however, we ARE talking only a 58-aircraft set. However, the rate of other mechanical issues are higher with the T-6/SNJ. Four out of the 58 were tailwheel/tailwheel-rigging issues.
About 50% of the T-6/SNJ accidents were due to what I call Pilot Miscontrol (e.g., stick-and-rudder errors by the pilot). This compares to about 62% for the Cessna 172 set, and about 40% for homebuilts. However, note that the pilots in these two sets are much less experienced. Over half the T-6/SNJ pilots had Commerical or ATP tickets, vs. about 13% of the Cessna 172 pilots.
The biggest single factor I saw was a loss of directional control on landing. 14% of the Cessna 172 accidents, vs. about 40% of the T-6/SNJ set. Yes, the North American *is* a taildragger. but the typical pilot involved in the accident has ten times the experience of the Cessna 172 one.
Not applicable to the Reno accident, of course, but I got curious and thought folks would like to see the result.
Ron Wanttaja
