Cirrus... is it time for certification review?

Peter,

It does seem like the parachute, an occasional a celebrity, amd the
inconsistancy of small samples have simply increased the hype factor.


I'd say so. But mind you, saying so already made me an "apologist"
here. Which brings me to another reason for the increase, with regard
to the pilot community, not the media: the introduction of gasp
"something new" (tm).

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Peter Dohm wrote:
From this data, I don't think the Cirrus rate stands out excessively.


Dick Collins did the same analysis for new 182s and Cirrus. Same
result.



It does seem like the parachute, an occasional a celebrity, amd the
inconsistancy of small samples have simply increased the hype factor.

I'm sure that is the case. Then again, if a chute equipped airplane has
the same accident rate as a traditional design, I think one must
question the value of having the chute and its associated cost and weight.


Matt

Jose wrote:

Doing a little math:

And in the past year, the numbers have gotten worse.
Accidents and incidents (from theFAA and NTSB databases)
1998 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
SR20 1 0 2 3 0 1 2 7
SR22 - - 2 2 3 8 12 15

TOTAL 1 0 4 5 3 9 14 22
rate (%): 50 0 2 1 .3 .6 .7 1
fleet size: 2 7 206 514 902 1491 1949 2323
SR22 fleet 121 383 687 1180 1560 1848
SR20 fleet 2 7 85 131 215 311 389 475

So, each year a bit less than one percent of the fleet bites it. The
rate seems to be increasing slightly in the last few years, but the
sketchiness of this data precludes a conclusion based on that.

It is good to see some fairly complete data. I agree that the
statistics are such that you can't draw a lot of conclusions as yet, and
when the fleet size was less than 500 it is especially troublesome as a
couple of crashes has a large affect on the percentages. However, as
the fleet has grown beyond 1000 and the rate is increasing nearly
linearly, that is something to be concerned about, in my opinion.


Matt