Genghis wrote:
A reasonally usy PPL, flying about 35 hours per year, has therefore about a 1 in 2,000 chance of being in a fatal accident, in any one year.
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So, in a 20-year period, you have a one in 100 chance of death in an aircraft.
So most flying clubs should expect a death a decade for very 100 members. Strangely, after flying for 20 years, it doesn't feel that way. (although I suppose four people killed in one accident gives the club a 40 year break?)
At our airfield, in existence for 50-odd years, but pretty quiet for most of them, there was one fatal in the early 70s after a cable break on a glider winch launch.
Perhaps we are due another death. Hopefully we will cheat the odds.
The scary one is being a microlight instructor. Usually a death per year (on the ground away from an airfield and in the air, with a couple of ground deaths by suicide so was the root problem aviation - ie being able to make a decent living - or not?) - and with just over 100 active instructors in the Uk, that gives you a one in ten chance of not surviving a decade.
After 20 years in the saddle I am now on a one in five!