The Safety guy has a point.....by risk analysis his numbers are correct...they are at the number of hours where an accident should be expected. The training guy and CP say they have met all the requirements, engineering says nothing is amiss in his shop. Yet the forecast remains.
Interesting thread this. Especially since from a personal perspective, being at near 300 hours TT I'm pretty well smack bang in the 'killing zone'.
A couple statistics however direct from the police driver's handbook which give pause for thought:
*if you have had an accident in one three-year period you are twice as likely to have another accident in the next three years
*if you have had an accident for which you could be held at least partly responsible, you are four times more likely to have a similar accident in the next year
... Drivers tend to repeat the type of accidents they have. if you have hit another vehicle from behind you are twice as likely as the average driver to do so again
I can only hazard a guess but I think it's likely that the same is true for aviation, do a small number of pilots account for a significantly larger number of accidents? Perhaps pilots who're happy accepting higher levels of risk, or pilots who don't learn from their mistakes? If so, conversely if you've gone a long period without having an accident it's likely you and others (eg engineering) are getting things right.
Also... yeah your Safety Officer could do with a lesson in basic stats; excluding factors such as complacency through familiarity, the probability of you having a fatal accident on your next flight is likely very similar to the probability of you having a fatal accident on the last few... since you've obviously survived this long I wouldn't lose too much sleep over it!!
