The Dangers Of Private Planes

By all means, we must do nothing in our boring lives as drones that carries ANY risk. People who take risks are not complacent enough to control.
 
I was just about to post this.


What an uninformed tool.
 
Is this not the same guy who wrote the last GA hit piece in the nyt?


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I was gathering my thoughts to send this guy an email telling him how overly regulated we already are, how most of already carry insurance, how much time/effort/money the GA community puts into safety..... then I see he's selling that book.


He's got to already know....and he wrote that anyway.
 
Ok, I'll be the odd man out here.

It never even occurred to me that I was not required to carry insurance on my plane until a small plane crashed into a house a few miles north of here. It destroyed the house and injured the residents. I don't remember if anyone was killed, but the plane was not insured and the people got nothing except a burned out house.

I think pilots should be required to carry at least liability insurance.
 
JOhnH said:
Ok, I'll be the odd man out here.

It never even occurred to me that I was not required to carry insurance on my plane until a small plane crashed into a house a few miles north of here. It destroyed the house and injured the residents. I don't remember if anyone was killed, but the plane was not insured and the people got nothing except a burned out house.

I think pilots should be required to carry at least liability insurance.
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No homeowners insurance? No lawsuit?

I carry insurance and I admit I think it's crazy not to. But we have so many rules to comply with as-is and I really don't want yet another required document(potential ramp check gotcha) to have to carry in the airplane.
 
Except for the last paragraph (my insurance company didn't require anything extra beyond FAA-mandated training to insure me) I have a hard time decrying the piece. I don't agree with the slant, but the facts are essentially correct. Most airplane crashes come from the private sector, fatalities in commercial aircraft are vanishingly rare. Many are pilot miscontrol and many have weather as at least being a factor. The author is factually correct.

I think it would be more accurate to say that GA is a risky activity, and that GA pilots should do more to manage that risk. As it is we do a really lousy job.
 
Problem is, as a "public" problem, it is vanishingly small. The vast majority of aircraft owners carry insurance, and nearly all victims of aircraft accidents are the participants themselves.

If this tool cares about protecting the public from harm, there are much better opportunities for good than general aviation.

He is just (1) selling books, and (2) grieving; I feel sorry for his losses, but he is out of line.
 
The dude who wrote that "article" is

1. Not a pilot
2. Trying to sell a book on a GA plane crash
3. Not what I would call a fair or balanced writer.

I'll post what I put on the other thread about this

How about google car crash

Or

CHF, COPD, MI, diabetes, etc

If they really want to play statics and be the safety police.

Let's make a federal law where we round up all the fatties and lock them in exercise camps, they are put on a liquid diet and not released until they reach target BMI, then they have to check in at the police station for weigh ins and BMI checks, bust it and back to fat camp.

Heck being fat causes FAR more deaths then our lil non-121 airplanes.

Pass that law and I bet the NY Times would have a chit fit!
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IMO I can't / shouldn't be forced to buy any product. If you're worried buy insurance, if not don't, I don't need "officials" to tell me what I should and shouldn't buy, I'll leave that up to my adult self, aaand and maybe consumer reports :wink2:
 
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Anyone else's insurance company require any weather training, either initially or recurring? Not mine.
 
I think its irresponsible to fly without liability insurance. Just like driving a car without insurance.
 
The author seems to be directing his advice to would be GA passengers.

I occasionally hear the cautions of several of us here on these forums saying something to the effect that "I would never fly with so-and-so again because of their unsafe practices or general concern for airworthiness of the aircraft." To the generally unaware public who has no basis for judgement, it isn't so bad for the average Joe to ask those simple questions about weather and insurance if they feel compelled to go for a ride with the guy down the street. I guess the problem is whether the would be passenger would even know how to make sense of a weather report anyway, but at least they can understand "sever clear and a perfect day to fly."
 
My insurance didn't require anything beyond the FAA requirements. I think when you get into aircraft requiring endorsements or ratings above and beyond a basic PPL they do ask for more.

I actually think we do a pretty good job as a whole. Or to put it another way, 99% of us do a good job 99% of the time. But oh boy do things go bad inside that last 1%

We know the big factors that cause accidents. We study them, we have seminars, case studies, hearty discussions. We know how to avoid most of them with simple pre-flight planning and the willingness to cancel a flight. We know this stuff, it's taught to every pilot in his training but we still have VFR into IMC accidents, we still run out of fuel. What we are really running up against here is the inherent limitations of the mark I human being in a schedule driven high pressure society. Humans can do a really good job.....99% of the time.

We're going to keep trying our best but we know these 1% flights are going to happen and many of them won't end well. So at the end it really becomes will you take the risk or will you just not fly.

Something I keep perceiving... and perhaps I'm wrong about this, maybe some of the older generation can say with more authority.... is that as a society we are less and less tolerant of risk. The idea of doing a dangerous thing or even taking responsibility for your safety is something it feels like this generation is just unwilling to do. There are liability suits and insurance for everything, laws to protect you from yourself everywhere, and everyone seems to want more protection and regulation. I'm not saying safety and a little oversight are necessarily bad, but when they prevent us from living and doing things the way we want it would seem to have gone too far.

Is it because we're a wealthier more educated society and we can afford to? Is it because we live longer and value our long lives more? I have no idea, just grasping at straws.
 
JOhnH said:
Ok, I'll be the odd man out here.

It never even occurred to me that I was not required to carry insurance on my plane until a small plane crashed into a house a few miles north of here. It destroyed the house and injured the residents. I don't remember if anyone was killed, but the plane was not insured and the people got nothing except a burned out house.

I think pilots should be required to carry at least liability insurance.
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cowman said:
No homeowners insurance? No lawsuit?

I carry insurance and I admit I think it's crazy not to. But we have so many rules to comply with as-is and I really don't want yet another required document(potential ramp check gotcha) to have to carry in the airplane.
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Home owners insurance would have covered the accident. They didn't have home owners insurance? That should be illegal! :rolleyes:
 
Geico266 said:
Home owners insurance would have covered the accident. They didn't have home owners insurance? That should be illegal! :rolleyes:
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Why should the onus be on the victim?
Any responsible pilot should at least carry liability. If it is YOUR fault, you need to pay. And how many of us could scoop up a few million to settle a law suit.
 
I left a comment:

This is just another scare mongering money making ploy to sell a book. The insurance point is a non issue. People carry insurance on their planes because of high values, and you can't buy hull insurance without buying liability. GA is a small fraction of the population, those pilots who operate 'naked' are a small fraction of that small fraction. Those that have accidents are a small fraction of that small fraction, those accidents where an outside party sustains a loss is a TINY fraction of that small fraction.

So what is being suggested here is to spend millions of dollars and more importantly, thousands of hours of legislative and tens of thousands of hours of bureaucratic time to address an issue that is at the farthest reaches of outlier causes of causing a loss.

We constantly complain about the cost of government, here's an example of the kind of waste we ask for, no wonder it's too expensive. We don't need to waste time or money on this.
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Well if it is in the Times someone paid(or traded) to have it there. Maybe there is an attack on GA. I figured no one cared, oh well AOPA will save us.:lol:
 
Geico266 said:
Home owners insurance would have covered the accident. They didn't have home owners insurance? That should be illegal! :rolleyes:
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+1

We should just have tax payers foot the bill. In fact, I think maintenance fees to keep my plane airworthy should be a government responsibility as it is in the best interest of the public to do so! In fact they might as well pay for my 2020 mandate requirements and a new glass panel - situational awareness and all. <frothing with sarcasm>
 
I just paid Avemco, so I guess I'm good to fall screaming out of the sky in a 50 year old, poorly designed plane that is patched together with counterfeit\defective parts.
Did I miss any important parts?
 
Shepherd said:
I just paid Avemco, so I guess I'm good to fall screaming out of the sky in a 50 year old, poorly designed plane that is patched together with counterfeit\defective parts.
Did I miss any important parts?
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Your right! A lot of what's flying is indeed old, poorly maintained and should have been scrapped long ago.
 
Jimmy cooper said:
Your right! A lot of what's flying is indeed old, poorly maintained and should have been scrapped long ago.
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A lot of our laws are also old, poorly maintained and should have been scrapped long ago :wink2:
 
Yeah Shepherd, you didn't file a flight plan.

Now guys it is easy to feel righteous and cynical about people like the author - but you forget (at your peril) that it has nothing to do with common sense, or rights, or statistics that uninsured pilots are the smallest problem this country has, or any of that stuff. It is only what some politician thinks will play in Peoria.
And if he thinks there is mileage, political or monetary, in putting up a bill adding more requirements/restrictions/laws to those dangerous airplanes and the nuts who fly them, there will be a bill introduced.
 
tmyers said:
"That's right Ice Man, I am dangerous"
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fry-I-see-what-you-did-there.jpg
 
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