Preventing accidents

[Big Pistons Forever]

I have been following the Cirrus thread with interest. It has drifted a bit now and the latest posts talk about the desirability of the regular practicing of emergency manoevers, PFLs being one that was raised by several posters. I started a reply on that thread but thought it would be better to open a new thread.

I am all for skills maintenance but an equally important and rarely discussed element is the attention to the detail of preflight and inflight calculation/monitoring that prevents the bad thing from happening in the first place......and there would be one less pranged Pa 28 on the UK register.

I very glad that the pilot of the accident aircraft that started this thread used the CAP's to increase the probability of saving himself and his passegers but the reason the engine failed is because he ran out of gas, the most preventable cause of engine failures there is.

A few months ago there was an accident summary of a Pa 28 engine failure. The pilot executed a forced approach under difficult circumstances which resulted in a heavily damaged aircraft but no injuries. The pilot was quoted as saying that the fact that he frequently practiced forced approaches contributed to the successful outcome. The only problem was the probably cause of the engine failure was carburetor icing. So I have to think that if he had spent more time learning about carb icing and monitoring he engine inflight so that he detected the build up of ice before the engine stopped, there would have been no need to use all that PFL practice skills in the first place.

There is a place for all the "hero pilot" stick and rudder skills that Pace is always talking about but this IMO is not one of them. So in the context the Pa 28 accident, making a personal commitment to paying attention to the atmospheric condition and making a mental not that today's conditions are particularly conductive to carb icing and then dilligently monitoring the engine for the first signs of carb ice isn't as sexy as practicing forced approaches but is IMO an equally important part of maintaining safe flying skills. Yes by all means practice the forced approach but also ask yourself am I doing the best I can to reduce the risks of having the engine fail ?

The bottom line is simple. If nobody let the engine fail due to undetected carb ice or fuel exhaustion/mis-selection/contamination the majority of engine failures would be prevented.

Most airplanes get bent on landing accidents. If every pilot practiced landings enough so that they were always touching down in the landing attitude, at the selected touch down point, pointed straight down the runway and at the correct speed, the majority of accidents that bend GA airplanes would also be prevented.

Not very sexy or revolutionary but the accident record clearly shows where pilots are getting it wrong.......