Originally Posted by
Jetblu
Statistics suggest that all the best pre flight inspections in the world will not significantly reduce EFATO as they are all generally mechanically based.
I think if you ask most GA pilots their opinion on this matter, that is the answer you get. Certainly that is what is generally being taught in flight schools.
Unfortunately it is simply not true. If you do not believe me just go and review the last 5 years worth of AAIB or NTSB accident summaries. If you do that you will find lots of fuel exhaustion/fuel mismangement/fuel contamination/engine mismangement/carb ice caused accidents but not very many where the engine failed due to a mechanical failure of the engine itself or an engine accessory. And even those often involved flying an engine with a known fault.
I will add a caveat. As I mentioned earlier I am talking about simple Lycoming or Continental engines, or the engines I believe most of the readers of this forum are flying behind. Older 2 stroke microlight engines and some of the weirder car engine conversions ( not the good VW conversions) as well as various pre WW 2 early aero engine designs have a horrendous record of inflight failures due to mechanical failures and so obviously the 80 % pilot caused number does not apply to those.
Personally I think it is much more palatable to us pilots to believe the myth that most forced approaches are the result of a mechanical failure that the pilot could not reasonably have foreseen. It is a lot more uncomfortable to think about the fact that a lot of airplanes are needlessly wrecked because the pilot failed to adequately pay attention to the basics, like making sure there was enough uncontaminated fuel with the fuel selector correctly set, or not allowing carburetor ice to develop to such an extent that the engine stopped.
The first step in reducing the number of crashed aircraft is to understand where the problem is, and it is not perfectly good engines suddenly stopping because of mechanical failures. Unfortunately that is almost always the starting point of the discussion, training, and practicing of the engine failure scenario.
If one person reads this and realizes that maybe they were a little lax on some of the cockpit good house keeping and makes a permanent change in how they are operating their aircraft, I will be happy as there will be at least one pilot who will be less likely to cause an aircraft to be needlessly bent.