Tim Cobb
Pre-Flight
What is the big fear about flying in small airplanes? Seems like at least 1/2 the people I know won't even consider flying in one.
Why are so many people afraid to fly in small airplanes?
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wabower
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Wayne
They think they will die. Based on our GA accident rate, it's not an unreasonable assumption.
Ghery
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Ghery Pettit
One of our company shuttles is a B-1900 and people comment on how small it is. I laugh and comment that there's nothing that big in my log book. It's all a matter of perspective.
I think their fear is based on Hollywood. Ever noticed how as soon as the engine quits in a movie or on TV the plane goes into a spin, straight into the ground? We know better, but to many in the public, movies are reality. Sad, but true.
I think their fear is based on Hollywood. Ever noticed how as soon as the engine quits in a movie or on TV the plane goes into a spin, straight into the ground? We know better, but to many in the public, movies are reality. Sad, but true.
Trapper John
Ejection Handle Pulled
Because we perform stupid pilot tricks that result in newsworthy ways to die. It's part of what makes us special...
EppyGA
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Teller1900
En-Route
I fly a plane that is 107 feet wide, 97 feet long, stands 27.5 feet at its tail, and uses two 13 foot diameter propellers. All I hear, every day, is how tiny my plane is and how antiquated it must be since it has propellers. Never mind it's 150% bigger than the Regional Junk...err....Jet that also flies the route, the oldest one we have is from late 2008, and it's far and away the biggest damn thing in my logbook! Then again, I heard someone say "damnit, it's one of these 'tiny' jets" as they got onto a...wait for it...757-300. My conclusion: the general public knows nothing at all and is completely irrational when it comes to aviation.
rpadula
En-Route
Bigger is better. At least according to one current thread in the SZ! 
rottydaddy
En-Route
Some people are also a little more afraid in smaller surface vehicles, for slightly more logical reasons... but here's how I see the majority of the "airliner: safe/light airplane:deathtrap" crowd...
They associate flying with exposing yourself to a situation where you might find yourself plummeting to your doom, flailing about the cabin for several minutes as the plane disintegrates, and being forced to die holding hands and screaming with someone you don't even know.
It's a helplessness thing, coupled with a lack of understanding about what holds airplanes up and makes them go.
They'd have no more control, as a pax, aboard a bus, train, or ship, but airplanes are feared most.
So why do the calmly board an airliner? simple; they need or want to cover a long distance very quickly, and since the human brain's ability to rationalize away reality is pretty much unlimited, they convince themselves it's safer, by comparison to a "little prop plane", or even a small commuter-type airliner, because it's big.
Of course, not all airline pax who appear calm are unafraid. Many people who fly with the airlines regularly are not thrilled about it. They pray, they carry "lucky" objects; they pick seats, departure times and dates, etc according to some system of "lucky" numbers, etc. With them, the vision of the horrible death that awaits them, courtesy of
Hollywood, is too strong.
Personally, I'm a little uneasy boarding airliners, or any large conveyance... there's a lot more that can go wrong with any large, complicated machine, and as a pax, I can do little when something goes wrong .
They associate flying with exposing yourself to a situation where you might find yourself plummeting to your doom, flailing about the cabin for several minutes as the plane disintegrates, and being forced to die holding hands and screaming with someone you don't even know.
It's a helplessness thing, coupled with a lack of understanding about what holds airplanes up and makes them go.
They'd have no more control, as a pax, aboard a bus, train, or ship, but airplanes are feared most.
So why do the calmly board an airliner? simple; they need or want to cover a long distance very quickly, and since the human brain's ability to rationalize away reality is pretty much unlimited, they convince themselves it's safer, by comparison to a "little prop plane", or even a small commuter-type airliner, because it's big.
Of course, not all airline pax who appear calm are unafraid. Many people who fly with the airlines regularly are not thrilled about it. They pray, they carry "lucky" objects; they pick seats, departure times and dates, etc according to some system of "lucky" numbers, etc. With them, the vision of the horrible death that awaits them, courtesy of
Hollywood, is too strong.
Personally, I'm a little uneasy boarding airliners, or any large conveyance... there's a lot more that can go wrong with any large, complicated machine, and as a pax, I can do little when something goes wrong .
Steve
En-Route
Sometimes it's not the plane they fear.
The number of pilots who manage to do that maneuver in the pattern with a perfectly good running engine every year makes me wonder whether the hollywood depiction is that far off.
steingar
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GA aircraft are completely unfamiliar to the majority of the non-flying public. People are naturally afraid of the unfamiliar. The media could be of help, but the only thing they get from the media is that small aircraft crash all the time. So something utterly unfamiliar that crashes all the time. Ought to be a law against it.
dmccormack
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Dan Mc
It's small.
And it's in the air.
Hanging on....?
Perfectly understandable.
And it's in the air.
Hanging on....?
Perfectly understandable.
skidoo
Line Up and Wait
brcase
En-Route
Compared to what.
Cars?
Motorcycles?
Jet Ski's?
ATV?
Snowmobiles?
crosswalks?
bathtubs?
Office chairs?
Thanks to the NTSB, flying is one of the few activies where you can see on an almost weekly bases how many serious accidents occur? Even there I think you can see that less then 20% of them involve fatalities.
Flying is safe enough they can count them, for many of activities above, accidents are so common place the usually often don't even make the local newspaper.
Brian
steingar
Taxi to Parking
I'm sorry, this is somewhat disingenuous. Flying is dangerous, there is no doubt about that. Perhaps not so much compared to motorcycles, but the largest accident cause in bikes is alcohol, which is much rarer in aircraft.
On the other hand, take out obvious pilot mistakes like VFR into IMC and running out of gas, and GA becomes far safer. Unfortunately, year after year pilots fly into IMC and run out of gas. So it's dangerous. Even if you're packing heat.
wabower
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Doesn't matter what it's compared to, the GA accident rate is unacceptably high, and unfortunately much higher than cars. Even more unfortunate is that a very high percentage are due to pilot stupidity.
ron22
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The issue is every time there is a plane crash no mater the size it is on the local news. Just how many car accidents are there a day unless it is something major you will not here about it on the news.
dmccormack
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Anthony
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I just got back flying from commuting to my job. Had the plane up there all week. Several people had commented that when I brought the plane up they couldn't wait to go. When it was there? No takers.
The unknown, the media, or maybe they don't want to fly with me. Who knows? All I know is 1.5 hours in the air vs. 5 hours on the ground is a good thing. Think I'll do it again.
Strafing run on Communist positions in New York and New Jersey. Priceless.
The unknown, the media, or maybe they don't want to fly with me. Who knows? All I know is 1.5 hours in the air vs. 5 hours on the ground is a good thing. Think I'll do it again.
Strafing run on Communist positions in New York and New Jersey. Priceless.
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timwinters
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Yeah, that!
But unfortunately being a moron and being a pilot are not mutually exclusive.
sba55
En-Route
I really doubt that the GA accident rate is higher than it is for cars. Very very much doubt it. I bet that you can almost double the reported accident rate for cars for smaller accidents that don't get reported to the police. I don't think you can do the same for planes.
Anyways, it's virtually impossible to get comparable data for those two cases, and it's equally impossible to make such statements about them.
-Felix
sba55
En-Route
Exactly. I'd much rather be involved in an activity that is very dangerous if you make a mistake you can easily avoid vs. an activity that is somewhat dangerous no matter what you do.
-Felix
wabower
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If you are correct, shouldn't there be at least one credible reporting agency whose published data supports your theory? When even the most staunch GA supporters agree that our safety record is a POS, who else is in our corner?
steingar
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The accident rate is so much higher for aircraft than cars that it is utterly ridiculous. As a group we are unsafe, no doubts there. If there were more of us, airplane crashes wouldn't be newsworthy because there'd be so many of them. Then again, if there were more of us some idiot would have plowed into a school full of kids or something equally tragic and we'd all be legislated out of business.
Dan Thomas
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A little airplane, flown by a PPL, is about four times more dangerous than riding in a car. Flown by a Commercial pilot, that same airplane is about as safe as the car. That says that training has something to do with safety, but so does attitude. Commercial training has considerable human factors content, and it serves to highlight the more common ways to kill yourself. Sobers one, or at least it should.
In fact, I think attitude is key here. Many PPLS are totally unaware of how little they know and fancy themselves to be hotshot pilots, and they regularly break airplanes because of their inflated opinion of their skills and knowledge. And it's not just pilots; when it comes to the things we do, most of us don't know how much we don't know until we get some education on the subject, whatever it is. Incompetence tends to fail to recognize itself.
Car drivers, of course, are mostly unaware of the appalling hazards they face every day. Passing within six feet (or less) of another car going the other way at a combined speed of 120 mph. Being followed by a gasoline tanker driven by a guy who hasn't slept in 24 hours and has just had a scrap with his wife over the cellphone. Maybe he's still on that cellphone. Impaired drivers everywhere, especially late at night. Texting teenagers. Unsafe vehicles with bald tires and bad brakes tailgating you. It all starts to make GA look like a walk in the park. Car accidents are so common they don't make the news, but little airplanes are rather rare by comparison so an accident is something rare, too, and therefore newsworthy. Never mind that very often the injuries, if any, are minor.
If anything is hyped by the media, most will believe it. Critical thinking isn't taught anymore.
Dan
geneseib
Line Up and Wait
They are mind numbed robots that watch too much TV. If each one that crashes gets sensational pictures plastered all over the screen and the thousands that don't crash aren't even mentioned, the brain has a problem keeping things in perspective. Reality and TV are mutually exclusive.
sba55
En-Route
I agree with you that this is the perception, but I'm not sure what it is based on. I can't say that GA's overall safety record is better than cars, nor can I say that it's worse. First of all, there's very little useful data. Secondly, all those statistics are based on a bunch of assumptions and data that isn't directly comparable. Are we comparing accidents per passenger per mile? Or number of accidents? Or something else entirely? Are we talking about GA (which doesn't seem to be fair when making comparisons to casual driving, since GA includes all sorts of inherently risky activities)?
I just don't see how these two modes of transportation can be compared in a useful way, especially since the sample size for GA is so tiny compared to that of cars. _One_ accident for GA can change the entire dynamic.
-Felix
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Why? Because many people are stupid. End of story.
chucky
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One thing that I haven't seen anyone mention yet, with reference to the original question, is that the experience of being in a small aircraft is quite different from a large aircraft. Small aircraft get bounced around a lot more, bank more steeply, are much closer to the ground (typically) and so feel like they're going faster. Before last summer, I had never been in anything smaller than a Dash-8. I'm not inclined to be frightened of aircraft of any size, but the experience of being in a Warrior took some getting used to.
I think many people aren't particularly afraid for their safety, they're just afraid to have an experience they'll find uncomfortable. For those people, in general, the bigger the better really is rational.
I think many people aren't particularly afraid for their safety, they're just afraid to have an experience they'll find uncomfortable. For those people, in general, the bigger the better really is rational.
skidoo
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When I was learning back in the 70's, I had no clue what the safety record was. I just relied that who I flew with (CFI) was well trained and would train be well as well. Well, fast forward 35 years of no flying, I decide to get back into it. One of the first things I studied was the NTSB site. I was shocked at how many accidents occurred. But, then, I also checked back what it was back in the 70's. Apparently, back then the accident rate was more than twice as high.
Sure, there are many ways to look at the data. It all depends on how you want to look at it. For me, I chose to look at the fatality rate and to put it in perspective, on average, if I were to make it to the 1,000 hour flying time mark, then I would have a 1 in 100 probability of a fatal accident.
Or, put another way, if 100 of us pilots were to fly to the 1000 hour level, then on average, one of us will have a fatal accident. To me, that seems a steep risk level. So, myself, like many other pilots assume that we will perform better than average and make fewer mistakes...
There is a lot of data on the NTSB site.
Exocetid
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Unnatural, totally unnatural. Very much the same reason that not many people scuba dive. Land vehicles and boats are different--they too are unnatural, but they move in 2-D. Once you get free into 3-D it is just too unnatural.
Of course, then there is the fear. The fear of dying is strong in some and all the accidents where the NTSB declares "pilot error" do not help matters.
sba55
En-Route
I don't doubt all this. First, I don't know how this could be compared to driving, which I think is more relevant to the original question.
But secondly, I don't see the validity of any argument based on averages with regard to aviation. I already mentioned the problem with the sample size. Then there's pilots of wildly varying skill and certification levels (IR being one of the most important IMO). That's not true for drivers, which are rather homogenous. Furthermore, these statistics generally include a wide variety of activities under the GA umbrella while car stats generally only include one kind of activity (non-commercial street passenger cars).
To me, the more relevant factor in these safety discussions comes down to the level of control I have over my own safety. In aviation, that level is almost 100%. On the highway, it's maybe 10%? That's scary.
-Felix
wabower
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Industry analysts have been trying to make our case for as long as I can remember (and that's a long time) most by employing your strategy of discrediting the methodology and measuring sticks. They've never found a way to do it.
There's clearly a lack of information, but enough to convince even those who would benefit from better statistics that they just can't get there from here. Avemco reported that less than half the claims they paid over a recent five-year period were included in the NTSB accident or incident files, so it's clear that the accident data-bases are incomplete.
From a personal (and obviously anecdotal) standpoint, of all the people I've known over the past 40-odd years, two have been killed in car wrecks while six from my hangar row (at two separate airports) have died in plane crashes, including my partner and his wife.
But if you're going to challenge the numbers, you need to accumulate and publish your data, rather than offering opinions and conjecture about stuff that has been pored over by the best number-crunchers the industry can find. If you can, they will beat a path to your door. If you can't, they are going to keep reporting the same stuff.
There's clearly a lack of information, but enough to convince even those who would benefit from better statistics that they just can't get there from here. Avemco reported that less than half the claims they paid over a recent five-year period were included in the NTSB accident or incident files, so it's clear that the accident data-bases are incomplete.
From a personal (and obviously anecdotal) standpoint, of all the people I've known over the past 40-odd years, two have been killed in car wrecks while six from my hangar row (at two separate airports) have died in plane crashes, including my partner and his wife.
But if you're going to challenge the numbers, you need to accumulate and publish your data, rather than offering opinions and conjecture about stuff that has been pored over by the best number-crunchers the industry can find. If you can, they will beat a path to your door. If you can't, they are going to keep reporting the same stuff.
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sba55
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Yes, exactly. Which is why I'm not interested in challenging any numbers. I'm simply pointing out that there isn't enough data that is relevant to this discussion.
skidoo
Line Up and Wait
I don't see why it couldn't be compared to driving. On the NHTSA site, it shows that most states statistics have from 1 to 2 fatalities per 100 million miles traveled. So, taken on the high end (2 per 100mil), and assume an average of 60 miles per hour traveled, then that would be only 2 fatalities per 1.6 million hours of travel, or 0.125 fatalities per 100,000 hours. For 2009, the GA statistics were 474 fatalities out of 20,456,000 hours, or 2.3 fatalities per 100,000 hours. If this is accurate, it looks like a 18.4 times greater probability of a fatality in GA vs Auto.
For Airlines, in 2009 there were 49 fatalities in one accident in 17,470,000 hours. So, this is a 0.28 fatalities per 100,000 hours. This is almost 10 times better than GA, but still worse than Auto for 2009.
This drives home point that I want to make as few mistakes or enter higher risk situations while flying as possible.
Back to the OP question. My daughters boyfriend will not fly in a little airplane under any circumstances. No explanation, just NO! My wife, first time up used 3 barf bags (in the back seat) before I realized she had a problem. She didn't say anything, but just smiled when I looked back. She will go again, but is hesitant...
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rottydaddy
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This is particularly true of "reality TV"... but I digress.
Palmpilot
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Mantakos has data on his Web site about the safety of flying vs. driving.
http://www.meretrix.com/~harry/flying/notes/safetyvsdriving.html
http://www.meretrix.com/~harry/flying/notes/safetyvsdriving.html
Everskyward
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There's plenty of relevant data, just none that fits your perception of the situation.