Flying by private-pilots isn’t getting any safer (better?).
According to Bloomberg News (Deadly Private-Plane Crashes Prompt U.S. Call For
Basics, June 19,2012), the crash rate on private-pilots is up 20 percent since
2000, contrasting with an 85% drop in accidents of commercial jet liners (good).
Looks as if private-pilots need to do a lot better, and here goes more
supporting data. The accident rate for all GA (General Aviation) is 7/100,000
from 2007-2010. Private pilots, mostly small single engine a/c, averaged
12/100,000 crashes. They go onto say: over 12 times higher than the average
rate for other types of GA flying. And to continue, even worse news: the rate
of deadly wrecks in private flying has grown faster than the accident rate as a
whole, up 25% since 2000. Do you wonder why insurance premiums have risen?
The article continues: many GA accidents resulted from
inattention to basics. (Reminds me of my article suggesting that pilots are
distracted by things in the cockpit like cell phones, tablets etc.). Pilots
have overloaded planes, failed to check the weather, and made errors that
caused the planes to lose lift and/or going out of control. This latter cause
was found to be the case in most accidents by the FAA and the GA Joint Steering
Committee. Not very encouraging data is it? Pilots you can do better! Start by
going back to basics. Pay attention to attitude, airspeed and the weather for
starters, rather than staring at the GPS screen instead of the glideslope and
localizer (when IFR).
Finally, I want to report and offer suggestions how to avoid
the most frequent type of airline accident, the runway overrun after a botched
approach. This was reported in the WSJ on 12/19/12. Hey fellow pilots, it
pertains to all of GA as well, even though I don’t have the stats particularly
for private-pilots.
Of all the GA overrun accidents I have read about on the NTSB
website, this one stands out in my memory. A Cirrus landing in VFR weather, on
a reasonable length paved runway, just couldn’t put the plane down on the
tarmac and tried to force it with resulting “wheel barrowing”. The plane still
had enough airspeed (energy) to want to keep on flying, which it did, into a
building. All were killed. It is so important to pay attention to airspeed and
attitude on final. Too fast, steep or shallow an approach can end up as they
did, unless you recognize your error and if you can’t correct things in time, add
power and go around. The other consideration is where you touch down on the
runway. Somewhere in the first 25% of the runway makes good sense. In good VFR,
shoot for the runway numbers. I used to do that even in my twins. That should
insure that you have plenty of runway left to decide whether you can stop or
not. Remember that small planes don’t have the greatest braking capability. So
PLAN AHEAD!
A topic I want to tackle in the future is limits pilots
should adhere to in single engine IFR flight conditions. Another is looking
into reasons for engine failures in light planes, as there seems to be so many reported on the FAA accident website.
That’s it for now. Have a good holiday and watch out for Santa’s
sleigh. See you next year.
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