GA _is_ safer than some modes of transport. Was: Tragedy

"Skylune" wrote:
Statistically, GA is the most dangerous of all
forms of transportation. There is no (reasonable) debate on this
point.

Reasonable debate!? You obviously haven't seen _any_ debate, reasonable
or otherwise, to spout such sweeping and easily refuted nonsense.

According to cross modal studies in the U.S.[1] _and_ Australia[2],
motorcycling is, by distance traveled measures, more dangerous than GA:

In the U.S. in 2000, according to reference 1, there were ~27 fatalities
per 100 million vehicle miles for motorcyclists. In that same year there
were ~2 fatalities per 100,000 hours flown for GA. Assuming a modest
average airspeed of ~100 mph and only 1 person in each aircraft, that
works out to ~20 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles for aircraft.

In Australia in 1999, one study (table 3 in reference 2) showed there
were ~17.5 fatalities per 100 million vehicle kilometers for
motorcyclists. In that same year there were ~8.5 fatalities per 100
million vehicle kilometers for aircraft.

In fact the Australian study shows motorcycling to be more hazardous than
GA by several common measures.

What is fascinating about the Australian study are some of the normalized
numbers in Appendix A showing that even bicyclists and pedestrians are
are greater risk by some measures than GA flyers:

Table 5:
Fatalities/100,000 vehicle hours travelled
------------------------------------------
Bicyclists 5.27
General Aviation (fixed wing) 5.15

Fatalities/100 million passenger kilometres
------------------------------------------
Pedestrians 15.36
General Aviation (fixed wing) 6.22

Is it safe? Depends on your risk threshold.

If you are willing to risk walking across a road, you should have no
qualms about taking a general aviation flight.


[1] "Fatality Rates for Selected Modes"
http://www.bts.gov/publications/tran...re_01_145.html

[2] "Cross Modal Safety Comparisons"
http://www.atsb.gov.au/aviation/rese...ross_modal.cfm