Safety of GA flying

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evapilotaz

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How do you explain the safety of GA flying to your non flying friends and family?

I have trouble in this area:dunno:

What are your comments when asked this question?
 
Ive read on this site that it's as dangerous as riding a motorcycle. I knew 11 people who were killed in non-combat accidents - separate accidents, one of the guys I knew died with 23 others I didn't know.

One of my civilian instructors broke his back after losing an engine right after taking off. He's in the airlines now.

It's dangerous, but then again, why do you feel the need to explain yourself? It's legal, risky, but not flamboyantly dangerous and you want to do it. If you're taking care of your responsibilities, why let someone back you into a corner of explaining yourself?
 
evapilotaz said:
How do you explain the safety of GA flying to your non flying friends and family?

I have trouble in this area:dunno:

What are your comments when asked this question?
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My wife has been in three car accidents, one was a roll over, another she was rear-ended by a semi and he other was a minor fender bender. I tell her that she has used up her three wishes, so be more careful.

In a prior career field, I investigated fatal car accidents for state and federal governments.

Here is the bottom line..... You have a greater chance of being killed by your doctor, by driving a car or having a heart attack.

Where the stigma comes from is that when a plane crashes, its news. Why? because it doesn't happen that often. It's an unusual event that one does not see too often, so we find mystery in it.

This day and age, very rarely does a common place fatal incident make the news unless there are circumstances surrounding it that are intriguing or you live in a small metro area. The daily murders, hospital deaths and car accidents are just so common place, nobody cares to be honest.

Go pull some stats and see for yourself. You have a better chance of being mugged at gunpoint than being involved in a GA accident.

Bottom line, is if it is an event that shocks the norm, we hear about it. Or in other words, when a plane crashes, we are interested because its unique to daily life.
 
Tell them they are sissies for asking. Chances are you will be right. You don't have to be so blunt but flip the question on them. All human progress comes from risk, ask them what they risk.
 
I tell them it's just like driving.. don't crash and you'll be fine. I just have less of a chance of some idiot hitting me in an airplane while they're texting or yakking on a cell phone.
 
Thanks for the comments. The comment about like as dangerous as riding a motor cycle is not very comforting. I see a mangled motor cycles on the freeway at least once a month on my daily 32 mile commute.
 
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evapilotaz said:
Thanks for the comments. The comment about like as dangerous as riding a motor cycle is not very comforting. I see a mangled motor cycles on the freeway at least once a month on my daily 32 mile commute.
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How many times do you see a mangled C172? :popcorn:
 
0luke1 said:
Ive read on this site that it's as dangerous as riding a motorcycle. ...
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I use this example a lot, but it's part of a commentary that goes something like this:

"It's about as dangerous as riding a motorcycle. Have you ever been driving on the highway and seen a motorcycle go whizzing past at a dangerous speed? Or seen other reckless behaviour by motorcycle riders? The pilot population, like any group of people, have some people that are high risk and end up in a bad accident; the majority don't have any issues.

Well, I call those guys "statistics", I don't ride motorcycles like that, and I don't fly like that. Some of the major causes for small airplane accidents are flying in weather the pilot can't handle, running out of gas, and horsing around, things I can prevent. That brings the risk to a similar level to driving in a car.

To me, this is a hobby, if it doesn't look good enough to go, I don't go. I want it to be enjoyable, for me and my passengers. Full stop.
 
A lot more is in your hands as a pilot than as a rider. I knew a guy just cruising down the street car doesn't see him and pulls out in front he T-bones car and it kills him. At 40mph. I've ridden motorcycles since I was 4, but I hardly ever take them on the street because the variables are just too great. Sadly racing as many years as I have I've seen many people maimed and killed.

Every life comes with a death sentence. I'd much rather fly somewhere than drive or ride, at least I have a much smaller chance of a DUI guy killing my family in the air.
 
If you ever read the NTSB reports seems to me if you don't fly IFR, don't fly at night, don't fly in bad weather, don't run out of gas, don't overload the plane, don't buzz people or things then you would significantly cut the risk. Might not have as much fun but would cut the risk.
 
Unit74 said:
How many times do you see a mangled C172? :popcorn:
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There's one at 39n. Guy tried to put it onto a short grass strip. Everyone walked away, but the plane was a total loss.
 
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DFH65 said:
If you ever read the NTSB reports seems to me if you don't fly IFR, don't fly at night, don't fly in bad weather, don't run out of gas, don't overload the plane, don't buzz people or things then you would significantly cut the risk. Might not have as much fun but would cut the risk.
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One guy I know who died was doing a low level airshow for his wife and sister. He lost it at the top of a loop and didn't have the altitude to recover. His BIL was in the back seat with a video camera. The accident team popped the tape out and had a complete record. They showed it to the rest of us for a "lessened learned."
 
evapilotaz said:
Thanks for the comments. The comment about like as dangerous as riding a motor cycle is not very comforting. I see a mangled motor cycles on the freeway at least once a month on my daily 32 mile commute.
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And some people still ride motorcycles. :dunno: No one is going to argue that flying GA is safer than not flying GA. It's either within your risk tolerance or it isn't. Maybe it's within yours, but it isn't within your friends'.
 
DFH65 said:
If you ever read the NTSB reports seems to me if you don't fly IFR, don't fly at night, don't fly in bad weather, don't run out of gas, don't overload the plane, don't buzz people or things then you would significantly cut the risk. Might not have as much fun but would cut the risk.
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Not really a worthy nit, but I assume you mean "don't fly in IMC". I file IFR now whenever I go across Canada because it simplifies things, but I only do it when I can approach in VMC =)
 
ChrisK said:
Not really a worthy nit, but I assume you mean "don't fly in IMC". I file IFR now whenever I go across Canada because it simplifies things, but I only do it when I can approach in VMC =)
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Correct.
 
evapilotaz said:
How do you explain the safety of GA flying to your non flying friends and family?

I have trouble in this area:dunno:

What are your comments when asked this question?
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My friends know I'm nuts, flying doesn't pose any congruity of character issues in my case.
 
Henning said:
My friends know I'm nuts, flying doesn't pose any congruity of character issues in my case.
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Exactly. He needs to let it be known his thrills trump any danger. Otherwise the coward crabs will drag him back to the bottom of the bucket. Now if he needs to convince himself he is out of luck.
 
Comparisons to driving a car are a little ridiculous, if you're talking per-100K-hours. GA flying is absolutely more likely to result in a fatal crash.

To me, the difference is many driving risks are largely out of your control. Aviation protocols are all designed to keep you well distant from other aircraft, while on the road you're only a little less vulnerable than a driver in a figure-8 race at the fair.

I've also seen enough of both drivers and pilots with multiple accidents, and many drivers and pilots who go many years with none. That leads me to suspect there's an 80/20 rule here, with 20 percent of the pilots causing 80 percent of the incidents and accidents. The science of staying in the safer 80 percent is clear. We just need to heed it.
 
In the past 20 or so years I've known quite a few friends and acquaintances whom were killed in one way or another.

None died in an airplane. MOST died in car crashes, a few on snowmobiles.
 
The average g.a. aircraft is probably 40 or 50 years old. If small airplanes crashed all the time, how have they lasted so long?
 
DFH65 said:
If you ever read the NTSB reports seems to me if you don't fly IFR, don't fly at night, don't fly in bad weather, don't run out of gas, don't overload the plane, don't buzz people or things then you would significantly cut the risk. Might not have as much fun but would cut the risk.
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Aviation is all about mitigating risk. Training and currency are some of the ways we mitigate risks.

This week I flew a single engine airplane 2,500NM. The conditions were day IFR, day VFR, night VFR, mountainous terrain during day VFR, and even managed to avoid icing during part of the flight.

The flight will always work out when you're prepared for it.
 
evapilotaz said:
How do you explain the safety of GA flying to your non flying friends and family?

I have trouble in this area:dunno:

What are your comments when asked this question?
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Safer than boating on a lake full of drunks.
 
I am flying around in a 1968 airplane :).

The primary things are worry about when flying are a mid-air and the airplane catching on fire. I try to mitigate those risks as much as possible. With an engine failure, you are (in my opinion) safer in a typical GA airplane than you are in an airliner. If you keep your wits about you, you can usually glide to a survivable landing. Don't pull stupid pilot tricks, and GA flying is pretty safe.
 
GA is pretty dangerous and I think it's disingenuous to pretend that it's safe.
It's also a fallacy to believe that because most accidents are attributed to pilot error, you're somehow immune to that (illusory superiority).

It goes without saying that you should do what you can to mitigate the risks and avoid bonehead moves, but don't kid yourself. If you fly a lot in light aircraft, there's a small but significant chance you'll ultimately die in one. If you can't accept that, the responsible thing to do is to quit flying, not to bull**** and stick your head in the sand, saying that you're more likely to die driving to the airport.

I think this is especially important when talking to potential passengers. You don't have to scare them, but IMO it is incredibly immoral to understate the risks.
 
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pericynthion said:
GA is pretty dangerous and I think it's disingenuous to pretend that it's safe.
It's also a fallacy to believe that because most accidents are attributed to pilot error, you're somehow immune to that (illusory superiority).

If you fly a lot in light aircraft, there's a small but significant chance you'll ultimately die in one. If you can't accept that, the responsible thing to do is to quit flying, not to bull**** and stick your head in the sand, saying that you're more likely to die driving to the airport. That goes double when you're trying to convince passengers to come with you.
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Thanks for that, all true. Unfortunately now they will swarm and call you a troll for not going along with the hive mind denial of reality.
 
0luke1 said:
There's one at 39n. Guy tried to put it onto a short grass strip. Everyone walked away, but the plane was a total loss.
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How many car crashes have you seen?:idea:
 
ClimbnSink said:
Thanks for that, all true. Unfortunately now they will swarm and call you a troll for not going along with the hive mind denial of reality.
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I don't 100% agree with him but... he knows how to get his point across without being a prick about it. Maybe you should take some lessons.
 
A lot of the activities we engage in have risks. Those who do the best job of risk management, have the highest probability of a safe outcome. When I take someone flying, I am not going to scare them by going into details of how dangerous it is. If I do, they would be foolish to get in the airplane :).
 
So you are saying that the 10 hours someone flies a month is more dangerous than the SWAG of 50 hours someone drives?


Common sense would indicate a ratio of 1 to 5 is not an accurate comparison. I would say you are 5 times more likely to be injured or killed in an automobile than an airplane. But, I don't have any numbers off hand to back that up either, so take it at interweb reliability.
 
pericynthion said:
GA is pretty dangerous and I think it's disingenuous to pretend that it's safe.
It's also a fallacy to believe that because most accidents are attributed to pilot error, you're somehow immune to that (illusory superiority).

It goes without saying that you should do what you can to mitigate the risks and avoid bonehead moves, but don't kid yourself. If you fly a lot in light aircraft, there's a small but significant chance you'll ultimately die in one. If you can't accept that, the responsible thing to do is to quit flying, not to bull**** and stick your head in the sand, saying that you're more likely to die driving to the airport.

I think this is especially important when talking to potential passengers. You don't have to scare them, but IMO it is incredibly immoral to understate the risks.
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I think it is also fairly common for some to overstate the risk to add to the mystique.
 
Of course, to you and me that risk is worth it. For our passengers, we should obtain informed consent.

My standard brief to passengers runs approximately like this:

"Flying with me in this plane is statistically about as safe as riding a motorcycle for the same duration. This plane was built by some guy in his garage in the '70s. I and several more knowledgable people have inspected it and believe it to be soundly built, and it is regularly inspected and maintained to the best of my ability in airworthy condition. The FAA has given me a private pilot certificate, which holds me to lower standards than a commercial pilot. I've flown about 800 hours without major incident, and do my best to make sensible decisions. If you're not comfortable with all that, we shouldn't fly."

I've given plenty of rides and told that to everyone from my mother-in-law to naked hippies at Burning Man. So far only one person has turned me down; people with a more nervous disposition don't tend to ask for rides in the first place. But accepting that risk should be their choice to make, not ours to make for them.
 
pericynthion said:
GA is pretty dangerous and I think it's disingenuous to pretend that it's safe.
It's also a fallacy to believe that because most accidents are attributed to pilot error, you're somehow immune to that (illusory superiority).
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I don't believe I'm immune to pilot error. I do, however, very firmly believe that I can easily and naturally avoid the cause of a great many pilot-induced crashes.

I recently spent a couple of hours looking at NTSB reports involving fatal (and then non-fatal) accidents involving a specific model of aircraft I am pursuing, to see what most often kills pilots and destroys airplanes. I came away with a list of rules:

1.) Don't do stupid things and fly into trees, hills and buildings.
2.) Don't fly so low to the ground you can drag a wingtip and crash.
3.) Don't attempt aerobatic maneuvers (the plane is not approve for aerobatics, BTW) low to the ground.
4.) Don't leave the control locks in place when you take off.
5.) Don't try to fly somewhere with no fuel in the tank(s).

There were others that I could see happening with more "usual" levels of carelessness, but most of the clearly evident causes were the kind that leave you shaking your head and saying, "Well, yeah, of course that ended badly". Then there were a rash of "pilot skill didn't match requirements" kind of errors that bent airplanes, but seemed to pretty much never kill people. Loss of control on the ground, usually -- they're taildraggers.

So, no, I'm absolutely not immune to pilot error. I've made my share of mistakes already, but none have risen the the level of outright pilot- and passenger-killing stupidity. And I do believe that I can avoid that kind of error.
 
asechrest said:
I would love for someone to tweak this analysis to consider only accidents resultant from a failure of the airplane, rather than a failure of the pilot.
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Why? Automobile accidents caused by mechanical failure rather than driver error are also very rare. You'd be creating a very misleading statistic. Not that any of them are not potentially misleading to begin with.

What I'd love to see is statistics for GA accidents not involving gross stupidity.
 
asechrest said:
I would love for someone to tweak this analysis to consider only accidents resultant from a failure of the airplane, rather than a failure of the pilot.
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Aside from the obvious problem with this (nobody is a perfect pilot), another aspect is that accident investigations can never be completely accurate in assigning cause (and often IMO blame the pilot when it could be argued that the problem was really in systems design). Fatality statistics OTOH are pretty unambiguous.
 
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