71% of accidents caused by pilot error

[Challenged]

I have been wondering lately about the mechanical safety of general aviation, so I decided to pull some numbers from the NTSB(*edit*, originally posted as FAA) and figure out the percentage of accidents that are not due to pilot error.

The data I used from the NTSB is attached, for the curious. Of the 3,103 GA accidents between 2007 and 2009, 904 of them were not due to pilot error: 29%. That number isn't completely correct, however, as I lumped the "Other" and "Unknown" categories into the "Not Pilot Error" numbers, which isn't going to be accurate.

If we were all perfect pilots and never made an error, I would guess that flying GA would be far safer than driving? By how much?

 

[Jim Logajan]

If we were all perfect pilots and never made an error, I would guess that flying GA would be far safer than driving? By how much?

As Tim Winters points out, most auto accidents are due to driving errors, so you would be comparing perfect piloting with imperfect driving.

The following is an older Australian paper that examines cross-modal accident rates:
http://www.atsb.gov.au/media/36229/cross_modal_safety_comparisons.pdf

For GA to have the same rate as ground vehicles, the GA rate to ground rate would need to be less than 1/(1-.71) = 3.45. As you can see in that study, the estimated rates vary, depending on the normalization and methodology used. The lowest rate relative to autos appears to be 4.15.

So even with perfect piloting the accidents caused by mechanical problems would appear to keep GA more dangerous than imperfect road drivers.

 

[Jim Logajan]

Running out of gas doesn't kill nearly as many people as runway incursions, as others have noted.

Runway incursions are a stupid pilot trick that let you kill people in OTHER airplanes as well as your own, so I can see why the FAA has a focus on this.

Please review the chart posted in the very first post.

Then tell me what the numbers are and their source that supports the assertion runway incursions killed more people in any year or span of years in the last 30 years than were killed by running out of gas. It may be true (I doubt it though) but everyone seems to be a little shy on numbers and heavy on assertion.

Tenerife happened 35 years ago. It killed 583 people. By comparison the posted chart claims 250 fatalities due loss of control in flight over a 3 year period. At that rate that would yield over 2900 fatalities from that cause alone over a 35 year period. Add in VFR into VMC and CFIT and your looking at over 4300 fatalities.

A likely solution to poor airmanship is more practice. More practice costs money. Private pilots are buying all the practice they think they can afford. Therefore no amount of NTSB or FAA preaching or studies or regulations will ever be as valuable to safety as reducing the cost of aviating. So say I.

The NTSB and FAA are searching for solutions to GA safety under the street lamp where the light is better rather than going into the dark alley where the solution really lies because they already know they don't like the answer.

 

[Jim Logajan]

P.S... no, it isn't.

The OP's figure is from this NTSB document (not FAA):

http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/reports/2011/ara1101.pdf

According to it turbulence encounters were the most common accident events for Part 121 ops. Here is what it says about ground collisions (note the number of actual runway incursions):
The next most frequent event, particularly for narrow body and small jet aircraft, were ground collisions between aircraft or between aircraft and ground vehicles, such as tugs and baggage carts. There were eight ground collision accidents involving 12 Part 121 aircraft. Only 5 of the 12 aircraft involved in ground collisions were moving under their own power, 2 were standing and 5 were being pushed or towed by tugs. Only one of these accidents resulted in a serious personal injury, but 10 of the 12 aircraft were substantially damaged. Instrument meteorological conditions were reported for only one of the ground collision accidents.

 

[Jim Logajan]

Oh - some examples:
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20120812X03834&key=1
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20120609X71211&key=1
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20120531X11644&key=1

Or pretty much any example of a plane encountering an unexpected wind gust of any severity RIGHT at the moment of touchdown. Not much can be done, but god forbid the NTSB properly classify anything as an unavoidable accident.

While I'm inclined to agree that the NTSB has a bias toward finding PIC as the probable cause when other causes seem more reasonable, when I entered only the word "deer" in the keyword search field, the random samples I found of collisions with deer didn't blame the pilot.

 

[Jim Logajan]

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20070313X00285&key=1

No mention of squirrel.