How safe is it, really?

"Bob Fry" wrote in message
...
"Mike Rapoport" writes:

So the bottom line here is that the accident rate for personal flying is
about twice the figure that pilots like to start with!

OK, let's say that's true.

You still don't address our basic premise, which is that

1. A large fraction of the total Personal Flying accident rate is
composed of pilot-controllable causes: flying into marginal weather,
buzzing, etc.

2. The poster's hubby, if he's a careful fellow, can reduce that
fraction of accidents and thus be pretty safe--perhaps approaching
ground vehicle safety, perhaps not, but certainly reducing his
personal accident rate below the average rate, whatever it is.

I still would say that one's personal flying accident rate is probably
going to be higher than one's personal driving accident rate, but it
need not conform to average statistical rates, because flying
accidents are more preventable than driving accidents.


OK thats fair, I never objected that pilots don't have some control over the
risk. I object to the notion that they can reduce their accident risk by
90% or so and I object to the practice of using numbers that have much safer
flying included. The reality is that a *lot* of fatal personal flying
accidents are not marginal weather or stupid pilot tricks. Only 13% of
fatal accidents are attributed to weather and presumably VFR into IMC is
only a portion of this. Mechanical/maitenance is 14% and we an not talking
about lack of maitenance we are talking about maitenance errors. Only 6% of
the 70% pilot related accidents are attributed to fuel mis-management.
There are a *lot* of accidents that aren't avoided by prudence. We might as
well accept that.

Mike
MU-2

"Matt Barrow" wrote in message
...

"Dave Stadt" wrote in message
. com...


You are kidding yourself and have painted a safety picture of yourself
that
is not true.
If you fly personal GA you are much more likely to die in the airplane
than
the drive to the airport.

That does it!!! I'm turning in my license and buying a VW Microbus!!
--
Matt
---------------------
Matthew W. Barrow
Site-Fill Homes, LLC.
Montrose, CO

Buy a Corvair, they are much more fun to drive.

"Captain Wubba" wrote in message
om...
Actually Mike, I believe you are mistaken...or just looking at one
side of the equation. Let's take a look at some actual numbers,
gleaned from

http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/02nall.pdf
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/hs00/pdf/in3.pdf
http://www.car-accidents.com/pages/stats.html

I'm using 2000 or 2001 numbers, depending upon the source, so they are
pretty comparable. Numbers are rounded for convenience...you can
calculate using the exact numbers from these sources. And I am making
a few 'reasonable' assumptions (i.e. average car use is 12,000 miles
per year, average GA aircraft flys at 125 knots, converted into
statute miles for comparison) and I also realize that the numbers are
not perfect...but they do give us 'some' real information upon which
to judge risk.




Automobiles
----------------
Miles traveled - 1,584,000,000,000
Deaths - 43,000
Injuries - 3,200,000
Accidents - 6,300,000
Total casualties (deaths+injuries) - 3,243,000

GA Fixed Wing Aircraft
-----------------
Miles traveled - 4,183,125,000
Deaths - 521
Injuries - 2400 (assuming a [high] 1.5 injuries per acident)
Accidents - 1600
Total casualties (deaths+injuries) - 2921


Let's look at the 'miles per incident' rates for various events:

Event Automobile Plane
--------------------------------------------------------
Deaths 36,837,209 8,029,030
Injuries 495,000 1,742,969
Accidents 251,429 2,614,453
Total Casualties 488,437 1,432,087




Now, from these statistics, it is pretty clear that your chances of
dying in a GA plane are significantly higher (per mile) than in an
automobile. But they are both quite low.

But, your chances of being a 'casualty' (being injured *or* killed) is
*much* greater in a car than in an airplane. There is one casualty for
every 488,000 miles in a car...only one for every 1,432,000 miles in a
GA plane. Additionally, you are *10 times* as likely to be in a car
wreck (again per mile) than in a plane wreck. But again, they are
still pretty low.

And this isn't even factoring in the 'what if' that the poster
commented on (i.e. about 2/3rds of GA accidents being pilot
error)...that would reduce the danger even more.

To a great extent, it depends on how you define 'dangerous'. If the
question is "If you were to travel 1000 miles in either a car or a GA
airplane, in which vehicle would you be more likely to be injured or
killed? The answer is "You're significantly more likely to be injured
or killed in the automobile."

If 'safety' means the probability of arriving at your destination
without a scratch, then you will be 'safer' in a GA airplane than an
automobile, and certainly than on a motorcycle.

If 'safety' means the probability that you won't be killed before
arriving at your destination, then you will be 'safer' in an
automobile.

Why are you using the composite light GA numbers when personal flying has an
accident rate 50% higher?

Mike
MU-2

You started out arguing against this premise but in your last sentence
supported it.

Yes and No. (how's that for bipolar disorder)

I saw the preceeding discussion as having two premises that were being
comingled:

(1) Pilots get to choose their level of risk while motorcycle riders do not.

(2) Motorcycle riding is more dangerous than flying due to external factors
related to other vehicles.

I disagree with 1 and support 2.

"Bob Fry" wrote in message
...
"Mike Rapoport" writes:

Even if you eliminate weather, hostile terrain and "stupid pilot tricks"
you
don't eliminate over 99% of light GA fatal accidents.

Huh? You mean the above factors account for less than 1% of GA fatal
accidents?? Not a chance. What's causing all the fatalities then?

I phrased it poorly. I was trying to say that if you eliminate weather,
terrain and stupid pilot tricks you still have a large number of accidents
and you won't approach the airline safety rate which is less than 1% of the
light GA rate. Posters were saying that, if they were careful, they could
be as safe as the airlines.

Mike
MU-2

On Thu, 02 Dec 2004 15:27:44 GMT, "Mike Rapoport"
wrote in
. net::


"Bob Fry" wrote in message
...
"Mike Rapoport" writes:

Even if you eliminate weather, hostile terrain and "stupid pilot tricks"
you
don't eliminate over 99% of light GA fatal accidents.

Huh? You mean the above factors account for less than 1% of GA fatal
accidents?? Not a chance. What's causing all the fatalities then?

I phrased it poorly. I was trying to say that if you eliminate weather,
terrain and stupid pilot tricks you still have a large number of accidents
and you won't approach the airline safety rate which is less than 1% of the
light GA rate. Posters were saying that, if they were careful, they could
be as safe as the airlines.


I haven't been following this thread very closely, so please excuse me
if this point has already been raised. But when you say, "the airline
safety rate which is less than 1% of the light GA rate" are you
referring to the 'per mile,' 'per person,' 'per operation,' or 'per
hour' accident of fatality rate?

"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 02 Dec 2004 15:27:44 GMT, "Mike Rapoport"
wrote in
. net::


"Bob Fry" wrote in message
...
"Mike Rapoport" writes:

Even if you eliminate weather, hostile terrain and "stupid pilot
tricks"
you
don't eliminate over 99% of light GA fatal accidents.

Huh? You mean the above factors account for less than 1% of GA fatal
accidents?? Not a chance. What's causing all the fatalities then?

I phrased it poorly. I was trying to say that if you eliminate weather,
terrain and stupid pilot tricks you still have a large number of accidents
and you won't approach the airline safety rate which is less than 1% of
the
light GA rate. Posters were saying that, if they were careful, they could
be as safe as the airlines.


I haven't been following this thread very closely, so please excuse me
if this point has already been raised. But when you say, "the airline
safety rate which is less than 1% of the light GA rate" are you
referring to the 'per mile,' 'per person,' 'per operation,' or 'per
hour' accident of fatality rate?

Per accident, but the rate for most of the others is less than 1% too.

Mike
MU-2
Helio Courier

But Pintos are a blast.

Dave Stadt wrote:
"Matt Barrow" wrote in message
...

"Dave Stadt" wrote in message
y.com...


You are kidding yourself and have painted a safety picture of yourself

that

is not true.
If you fly personal GA you are much more likely to die in the airplane

than

the drive to the airport.

That does it!!! I'm turning in my license and buying a VW Microbus!!
--
Matt
---------------------
Matthew W. Barrow
Site-Fill Homes, LLC.
Montrose, CO


Buy a Corvair, they are much more fun to drive.

On Thu, 02 Dec 2004 16:33:04 GMT, "Mike Rapoport"
wrote in
.net::


"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
.. .
On Thu, 02 Dec 2004 15:27:44 GMT, "Mike Rapoport"
wrote in
. net::


"Bob Fry" wrote in message
.. .
"Mike Rapoport" writes:

Even if you eliminate weather, hostile terrain and "stupid pilot
tricks"
you
don't eliminate over 99% of light GA fatal accidents.

Huh? You mean the above factors account for less than 1% of GA fatal
accidents?? Not a chance. What's causing all the fatalities then?

I phrased it poorly. I was trying to say that if you eliminate weather,
terrain and stupid pilot tricks you still have a large number of accidents
and you won't approach the airline safety rate which is less than 1% of
the
light GA rate. Posters were saying that, if they were careful, they could
be as safe as the airlines.


I haven't been following this thread very closely, so please excuse me
if this point has already been raised. But when you say, "the airline
safety rate which is less than 1% of the light GA rate" are you
referring to the 'per mile,' 'per person,' 'per operation,' or 'per
hour' accident of [that should have been 'or'] fatality rate?



Per accident, but the rate for most of the others is less than 1% too.


The point I was trying to make was, that comparing an aircraft that
carries hundreds of passengers thousands of miles with a single
landing per trip against one that carries an average of two passengers
a hundred miles or so per trip unreasonably skews the 'per passenger
mile' accident rate to the point of irrelevance.

"Mike Rapoport" wrote
Last month, I invited a friend to fly to Moose Creek to go fishing. He
asked if flying in the Helio was "safe". I said: "Not really, we will be
flying a single engine airplane over mountains with nowhere to land if the
engine quits. We would probably survive the crash since the airplane is so
slow. Do you want to go or not?" He showed up at the hanger with camping
gear for a week which was an appropriate thing to do.

And I would have done the same (especially if I could get a little
stick time). You do what seems reasonable to reduce the risk, and if
after that it still seems worth it, then you do it.

I've been watching this thread with much the same reaction as you. In
fact, pretty mcuh the only reason I haven't contributed much to the
thread is that you've pretty much covered the ground I would have. I
have only one thing to add, and now I'm going to add it.

It seems to me like most pilots here are in denial about the true
risks of what they are doing. I also believe this is the primary
reason we have the product liability climate in GA that we do.

There have been lots of lawsuits against aircraft and component
manufacturers by grieving widows and orphans. A few have even been
successful. I'm not going to claim that the lawsuits were wholly
without basis. By modern standards, many of the aircraft and
components are poorly desinged, built, and maintained. There are all
sorts of reasons for this, but it's an undeniable fact. The GA
fatality rate due to mechanical problems alone is about the same as
the automobile fatality rate as a whole. This doesn't include all the
accidents that the NTSB categorizes as pure pilot error but which have
a lot to do with the sad reality that the aircraft are, in certain
circumstances, so difficult to operate that even the best of us can't
hope to get it right 100% of the time.

But here is the reality - the design flaws are no secret to anyone.
Anyone who flies a taildragger from the back seat knows you can't see
crap from there - but there are controls there anyway. Anyone who
flies a slippery complex airplane in IMC knows that flying it without
an AI can be difficult, and experienced pilots have screwed it up
fatally before, and AI's and vacuum pumps are failure prone - but
backup AI's with independent power sources are not required and are
mostly not present. We all know that engines fail. We all know that
weather forecasts are horoscopes with numbers. We know that our fuel
tanks and carburetors can leak, that our leaning procedures are not
terribly repeatable, and that our fuel gauges are largely inaccurate.
None of this is news.

So why do so many pilots minimize these risks, focus on relatively
small segments of the accident picture, and in general pretend that
private flying is safer than it is? I think it's because if they told
the truth, their wives would certainly never fly with them or allow
their kids to fly, and maybe stop them from flying entirely.

The problem happens when some of these pilots inevitably crash and
die. The thought process their families go through must be something
like this:

He was a very careful and safe pilot. Flying is safe. Therefore
someone else must have been at fault in his accident. Let's punish
that someone else so this never happens again.

Michael