As far as the accidents go, simply pointing at statistics and calling
the plane a death trap and saying that they are "falling out of the
sky" isn't supportable by the facts. Of the eight fatal accidents
(not counting the flight test accident) five (and possibly a sixth,
though there isn't much data on the crash in Spain) were CFIT. Hard
to blame these on the plane per se.


"per se"?

Accusing those of us who think the statistics are relevant of hyperbole will
not save any lives, nor win the argument. The fatalities per 100,000 flight
hours stat is a very valid and fair stat.

Once again, you can't take out the "stupidity factor" from one
manufacturer's stats, and not the others.



Ultimately it comes down to whether people do more stupid things in
Cirrus aircraft than in other brands. Statistically it's too early to
tell, and the time-in-type average is very low. Basically, you can
cook the numbers to support your position, regardless. I think it's
probably true that someone who is going to be stupid enough to scud
run at night or in mountainous terrain is probably more likely to die
in a Cirrus than a Cessna because of the speed. It may well be that
pilots feel safer in a Cirrus than in a 25 year old 172 (I know I do,
and it's arguably true, particularly IFR) and perhaps that leads the
marginal ones to take bigger risks. But there is no shortage of
pilots doing dumb things in all manner of aircraft, and dying on a
regular basis. Time will tell.

I believe they are over a million fleet hours, and I am told that is
generally considered the time at which the numbers become valid. It often
seems reasonable that if a design appeals to risk takers, or somehow
promotes risk taking, then we can dismiss the results. In reality, this is
a terrible mistake.

There are so many ways to approach this argument.

One would be that its the fatalities that matter, and if you cannot change
them, then the cause is not important.

Another would be that everyone of us is likely to decide that we are not one
of those idiots. In fact, the ones that are dead likely thought that.

The idea that the feeling of safety causes risk taking is meaningless in the
end. Either the design is safe or it is not. There is almost no practical
way to prove the cause without changing the results. Therefore, the design
is bad until it is found to be performing more safely. If Cirrus implements
a change, and then gets different results, then we can talk again. (the
parachute fix seems to have helped).

If the problem is indeed personality, perhaps they are selling the planes to
the wrong people. I would not necessarily disagree that this is the case
except to point out that they are not changing their sales practices and
other than looking at experience levels what are you going to do anyway.

Cirrus could get some good PR by simply dropping the SRV idea, and requiring
a high level of hours to buy their SR20 and SR22. I don't see this
happening, so I guess we will have a bunch more Thurman Munson Jr.'s.