Originally Posted by
IO540
Worth mentioning that the claim of there having been just one fatal accident involving a pilot exercising the privileges of the IMCR came from the then head of licensing of the CAA, at a CAA/EASA conference c. 1/2008 where I was present and was taking detailed notes.
Originally Posted by Fuji Abound
Fuji, you damage your cause with bogus statistics
The claim is frequently made that the IMC rating is unsafe. Ultimately what do we base our asessment of safety on? Accidents and incidents? The accident record speaks for itself so is worth repeating. The incident record is not known so we cant report on the record. How else would you prefer to confront the accusation that the rating is unsafe?
Given IO's comment I understand why you keep repeating the statement. HOWEVER, check some facts as the CAA man was wrong - the accident record does not speak for itself - an assertion devoid of fact is being made.
From the latest 10 year safety analysis published by the CAA.
AAIB Bulletin No: 4/2002 Ref: EW/C2001/2/5 Category: 1.3
Aircraft Type and Registration: Rockwell Commander 114, G-LIMA
current IMC rated pilot in the UK, the aircraft was seen diving out of the bottom of a snow cloud, pulled up and its wing fell off
AAIB Bulletin No: 1/2000 Ref: EW/C99/4/3 Category: 1.3
Aircraft Type and Registration: Mooney M20J, G-BIWP
Current IMC rated pilot in the UK. After suffering an engine failure enroute, the aircraft lost control and spun out of the bottom of the clouds.
AAIB Bulletin No: 9/99 Ref: EW/C99/2/3 Category: 1.3
Aircraft Type and Cessna 172M, G-BXLJ
The pilot IMC current (not flown in 4 weeks so flying with CPL AFI - no IR), CFIT in IMC conditions in the UK.
So there are three fatal accidents in the last 10 years with IMCr pilots, in the UK, with the rating current, reasonably in IMC conditions - 2 of these are basic accidents - 1 of had the engine failure contribute (which in detail appears to have resulted in a slow decay in airspeed, the trim running to hold altitude until the aircraft spun in)
So the recent fatal rate is either 2 or 3 /10 years. Which is
8-12x Higher than you are claiming Fuji.
You are just giving the anti- IMCr argument on opportunity to discredit your safety argument by showing you are grossly wrong on the fact (1 in 40 years is clearly not true).
A much stronger argument is - there are no approach accidents involving IMCr holders (there is only one approach accident in the entire 10 year period within the UK -that was a CPL/IR continuing descent into the water ).
An even more relevant argument is there are lots of CFIT/LOC accidents that kill people who only have a standard PPLs after inadvertent encounters with IMC and the IMCr seems to make this rate much lower in the UK than the rest of Europe. I am not against the IMCr (I think it is a sensible answer for the UK), just don't build an argument on demonstrably false numbers.