PPL accident stats

[kevmusic]

I'm re-starting (and hopefully completing) my PPL next August; and my wife, who happily admits to being GA-ignorant, is worried over my safety. I have tried to allay her fears by explaining that for every light single she sees over our neck of the woods there may be another hundred or so (complete guess!) in other parts of the UK bumbling around not crashing. This does not help. :rolleyes:

It strikes me that an official sort of 'probability' statistic might do the trick. Anyone know where I can get hold of a "1 injury per X-thousand PPL flights" kind of figure?

TIA,

Kev. :)

['India-Mike]

See last diagram in


http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?categoryid=978&pagetype=90&pageid=6277

Fatals only, but running at about 15 per million hours.

[Lister Noble]

See last diagram in
http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?categoryid=978&pagetype=90&pageid=6277
Fatals only, but running at about 15 per million hours.


It would be interesting to see how it relates with road deaths, I would expect a significant increase compared with air traffic.
I know that commercial air travel is reckoned to be the safest form of transport when compared using passenger air miles.
Lister:)

[Fuji Abound]

You might also want to factor in how safe it can be compared with how safe it is.

You could argue running out of fuel and killing yourself in a botched landing is part of the statistical risk - but you could also argue running out of fuel is just b%43" stupid.

How far you take that argument is up to you :D .

Lies, damn lies and .. .. ..

[cjhants]

there have been many discussions on various forums, and like most statistics you can put whatever spin on them to support your argument. but the best example i have seen is its about as safe a riding a motorcycle. if i get time later on i will try to find the relevant thread.

[kevmusic]

about as safe a riding a motorcycle.

:eek::eek: :sad:

[Gertrude the Wombat]

"As safe as riding a motorcycle" is the usual one ...

... except that most motorcyclists are killed by other people outside their control, whilst many pilots kill themselves ...

... so you explain to her that you load the dice in your favour by

(1) obsessively reading the accident reports

(2) making sure you personally don't do any of the dafter things mentioned in them.

Thus, whilst the overall average death rate for pilots remains similar to that for motorcyclists, your personal chances are rather better than that. Press this home by cancelling the occasional trip because the weather is iffy or because you're feeling a bit tired or something.

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

there have been many discussions on various forums, and like most statistics you can put whatever spin on them to support your argument. but the best example i have seen is its about as safe a riding a motorcycle. if i get time later on i will try to find the relevant thread.

It's a lot safer than that. On a bike, others can take you out despite your best efforts. In an aeroplane, your fate is largely inyour own hands.

I've been flying single engine aeroplanes for nearly 30 years, in and out of small strips, all VFR, including a fair slice of aeros. So far so good, touch wood.

I've been riding motorcycles for 5 years, and last month a dozy car driver hit my bike FROM BEHIND (so i didn't see him coming), knocking me off and injuring me (not badly, but enough!). There's no equivalent of the dozy car driver in the air.

SSD

[DBo]

When public transport flights in Hot-air Balloons were being approved (late 80's) the baseline figure for risk used in the risk assesment was the risk of violent death in the UK - about 1 in a million per day. Taking a flight in a balloon gives a risk of death of about 1 per million flights - so doubling your risk of violent death for the day. I recall the risk of GA being a few times higher.

Violent death = car crash, falling down stairs etc etc

Dave

[cjhants]

oh dear, seem to have opened a can of worms. as i said earlier, you can make the stats say what you want to believe, but if you want to give a reasonably accurate and understandable answer to a non-flyer, the bike thing is as good as any IMHO (thats what i told my wife anyway).

[englishal]

FAA stats show that you will be involved in a non-fatal accident about once every 15,000 hours, and you will be killed once every 100,000 flight hours ;)

I duuno how many hours you will do per year, but 15,000 hours over 35 years is about 23 per month.....!

[aluminium persuader]

Allegedly, in an average year more people are kicked to death by donkeys than die in air accidents.

:\

[IO540]

If you strip out the stupid things that pilots do (like running out of fuel) then the risk is much lower than the "motorbike" figure. Probably an order of magnitude lower.

The real question is: how do you avoid doing stupid things like running out of juice? The fuel management practices in many flying schools leave a lot to be desired. You have to be really conservative in the way you do things.

I've done many thousands of miles on motorbikes and would not go on them today - too many half blind drivers on the roads. In flying, it's down to you - except when you are given a badly serviced plane and something falls off, and that's very rare. You can greatly improve the chances of that one too, by refusing to fly something that is too knackered. You may have to pay a somewhat higher hourly rate though :)

[Rod1]

According to a recent safety evening the fatal accident rate in the uk for fixed wing aircraft is 1 in 70,000 hours. For Gyro’s it is 1 in 1500 hours. This includes all the stupid ones so for the ½ competent pilot who stays current you are going to be looking at well over 1 in 100,000.

Rod1

[IO540]

There are not two but three kinds of statistics:

Real ones.
Fake ones.
CAA ones.

For an example of really sloppy analysis (too strong a word to use) see the CAA Ontrack report on CAS busts.

To get any meaningful grip on GA safety one would need a more detailed breakdown than I have ever seen. The problem is the vast spectrum of pilot skills, and the vast spectrum of aircraft ages, maintenance practices, and also a pretty wide spectrum of maintenance engineering skills.

There are lots of planes flying whose reliability is far below average - due to engine types, or simply sheer age.

There are also pilots flying who do zero flight planning. They don't get any weather data, and occassionally get badly caught out.

Unless one strips these out into separate categories, it's all a bit like saying the average of 0 and 10 is 5, which is true but the standard deviation shows the mockery of it :)

[wbryce]

I hope Genghis the Engineer won't mind me quoting one of his exellent replies in a thread which I seem to remember covering this. See Below:

In such cases, it's often best to actually play with some known statistics.


Let's start with motoring. There are, roughly, 3,500 deaths on British roads in a year. Out of a population of 60m Brits, it would probably be fair to say that everybody travels by car at-least once per year.

So, divide one by the other and we get a roughly 1 in 17,000 chance of any of us being killed in a road accident per year.



Now flying, we know that the average rate of fatal accidents in certified light aircraft is about 1 per 70,000 hours. I seem to recall reading somewhere that the average light aircraft pilot flies about 15 hours per year. So, again, divide one by the other, and a light aircraft pilot has a chance of being killed flying of about 1 in 4,700.


So, that means you have, on average, about 3½ times the chance of being killed during the flight as you do of being killed on the roads between flights.



However, based upon the same stats, let's say we all go near a road every other day on average - so the risk of being killed on that day comes out at about 1 in 313,000.

And again, the risk of dying on that day in which you chose to go flying (1 in 15) is about 1 in 70,000.

So, the risk of being killed on the way to or from the airport is about 4½ times less than it is of being killed during the flight - but clearly both risks are pretty darned low.

So there you go, lies, damned lies, and statistics.

G


Probably the best time to tell her you wish to buy a motorbike too! :E

[Saab Dastard]

And don't forget you are adding to the risk by driving to the airport!! ;)

Padded cell, anyone?

SD

[stickandrudderman]

If I was trying to convince someone as to the relative safety of GA, the LAST thing I would want to compare it to would be motorcycling, regardless of whether the statistics are accurate or not.
I have ridden bikes for 25 years, and have today sold my bike, helmet jacket, boots, the whole shebang, because I KNOW that after all the miles I've done, and all the accidents I've had, I'm on borrowed time.
Like all good politicians, I would be tempted to find some statistic that SUPPORTS my argument and then massage it accordingly!;)

[Saab Dastard]

How about a bit of cunning psychology:

Tell her you are going to get a motorbike! Then when she rightly points out the dangers, say OK, no motorbike, flying instead.

Job done!

:p

SD

[J.A.F.O.]

you will be killed once every 100,000 flight hours ;)

Or just tell her that you'll give up after 99,999 hours (and stay away from donkeys).

[Andy_RR]

Here's (http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/2004/Fatal_accidents_how_happen.aspx) a very interesting report on the statistical analysis of GA fatal accidents in Australia. Definitely worth a read.

[Andy_RR]

Ignorance is a bliss, so please don't convince me otherwise.;)

Ignorance will kill you. Better to understand why these people have fallen out of the sky, I reckon!

[Andy_RR]

...there's not much left that I can do to mitigate against the risks I take without detracting considerably from my personal enjoyment.

I agree with your sentiment. I think this is too often forgotten in today's world of risk aversion. It's not about eliminating risk, but managing it to an acceptable level.

[Dark Star]

If You stay away from:-

Bad weather, Overcrowded airspace, Water and Get-Home-Itis

and

Have regular check flights rather than trying to do minimum hours

Then renting a typcal light single from a club with a good reputation is about as good as it gets.

And don't forget that you will have a motive to stay fit to pass that medical which in turn might pick up the heart condition or high blood pressure which would have got you anyway. Who knows you could even be better off !.

DS

[possel]

I've been riding motorcycles for 5 years, and last month a dozy car driver hit my bike FROM BEHIND (so i didn't see him coming), knocking me off and injuring me (not badly, but enough!). There's no equivalent of the dozy car driver in the air. SSD

There have been a few mid-airs which suggest that there is an equivalent...

There is also a quote above from Genghis the Engineer which says that the average private pilot flies about 15 hours per year, which I find surprising - 15 is not enough to feel competent and current. We fly so little that in fact flying 30 hours a year would make you LESS likely to have an accident, not twice as much, whereas I would suggest that doing 20,000 miles on a motorbike rather than 10,000 would expose you to twice the risk.

[IO540]

Bad weather,

This means: get more training on weather appreciation. The PPL training establishment doesn't deal with this bit too well.

Overcrowded airspace,

Not sure what this means. The mid-air stats are negligible, especially away from circuits at uncontrolled airports

Water and

Ditching incident stats are distorted because few carry rafts, and a lot don't have transponders, and most don't carry locator beacons.

Get-Home-Itis

No such thing. Everything we do, from the moment we wake up, is done because we feel pressured to do so. If you didn't feel under pressure to have a wee, you would not go to the loo. This is just a stupid "CAA safety presentation" expression which might be there to excuse poor training and poor currency. A pilot should be taught to make a competent decision on the technical data before him: weather, aircraft performance, etc. Like going for a wee, every flight is done under pressure - especially if there are passengers present.

[rustle]

Get-Home-Itis

No such thing. Everything we do, from the moment we wake up, is done because we feel pressured to do so. If you didn't feel under pressure to have a wee, you would not go to the loo. This is just a stupid "CAA safety presentation" expression which might be there to excuse poor training and poor currency. A pilot should be taught to make a competent decision on the technical data before him: weather, aircraft performance, etc. Like going for a wee, every flight is done under pressure - especially if there are passengers present.

What a bizarre interpretation of what press-on-itis means.

Think continuing to Elstree instead of diverting into Luton for a good example.

The desire to have your aircraft back where your car is parked is a strong one and you need to consciously decide to avoid it: Needing to take a piss isn't a conscious decision, where you decide to do it is.

[mm_flynn]

Get-Home-Itis[/I]

No such thing. Everything we do, ...

While I agree with the bulk of your comment, there are well documented studies which show that poor decision making is more likely on the return leg than the outbound leg and that the further you are into the flight the more likely you are to make a bad decision.

I seem to remember to the shrinks these are two different issues but are generally lumped together as get-home-itis. My memory is these are US and Australian studies and the decisions were generally weather related.

[airborne_artist]

Some top line stats on fatalities, however caused, here:

http://www.rospa.com/factsheets/accidents_overview.pdf

My guess is that water is the major killer in the leisure sector with over 400 drownings reported in one year. Perhaps not fair to compare motorbikes with leisure GA, unless the stats for bikes only include leisure use.

[IO540]

OK, I am being overly pedantic but as you all know I like doing that, because I don't like the use of sloppy language and sloppy terminology used to cover up what IMHO starts with poor and outdated training of pilots and then continues through poor currency of those who do hang in there.

We all have a tendency, no matter how small, to chance flying in weather conditions to get home that we may decline if we were departing from our home base. It's real alright!

This is very true, but one has basically two choices:

(1) Ban all flights returning to one's base, unless the weather is CAVOK, or

(2) Try to analyse how decision making is affected by various psychological factors, and address that with appropriate training. One may find that the airlines got there first, however ;)

Today, I had to get back home (as is usually the case on a Friday) so I did a flight in what most would call atrocious weather, and it was timed to use a gap between a trough and a cold front. The forecast for the destination was a possible 25kt crosswind component, right on the limit. I had 5hrs' fuel reserve, enough to get to Biarritz with FAA legal IFR reserves. The flight, 55kt headwind, and the landing (36kt more or less down the runway, windshear only about 10kt when I was expecting 20+) were in the end a complete non-event, with the benefit of the summer's bugs having got washed off. The place was like a graveyard, nobody was flying. I don't see anything wrong with their decisions, or with mine, but the point is that I looked at the data (including weather radar images) and made a decision to go based on the data, and (crucially) had an escape route in having enough reserve to go somewhere completely different. I think that training pilots to work it out like this is better than patronisingly telling them that it is better to be down here wishing they were up there than the other way round, etc, etc, etc.

[kevmusic]

Thanks for your replies, one and all!! :ok: By all means do carry on the discussion but I shall make a distillation of all of the above and let you all know how I get on! (I may leave out the motor cycling bit.......)

Kev.

[jayemm]

I read ages ago that Horse-Riding is the most dangerous leisure activity in the UK. I couldn't find the stats to quote, but according to the British Horse Society website there is a riding accident for every hour of daylight throughout the year in the uk! I'd rather be in the PA28 with the single donkey in front.

[Human Factor]

Another way to look at it. If you think you're taking a bit of a chance, you probably are.

"I'll just press on for another couple of minutes"

"It's only a small cloud"

"I'll nip through that gap"

"I've got enough fuel to push through this headwind".

A lot of people have stopped growing old that way.

[IO540]

"I'll just press on for another couple of minutes"

"It's only a small cloud"

"I'll nip through that gap"

"I've got enough fuel to push through this headwind".

[A lot of people have stopped growing old that way.]



Funny that, I do all of the above, routinely. I should be long dead, evidently.

That's right, that's how PPL training works in the UK. Train pilots to know close to s0d-all about flight planning, close to s0d-all about instrument flight and radio navigation, take £8000 off them for the job "done", and then give them a handout with all these wonderful ex-WW1 aviation sayings. Might as well give them a leather cap and goggles but that would cost far too much.