Diamond DA40 the best Aircraft for safety?

[mrjones30]

Hello to all!

I was talking to a CFI today and he wants me to go to his school. I asked him: "Why do you consider your school better than the rest?" He said: "We fly new Diamond DA40's these airplanes are the most reliable, safest airplane you can fly" (As you folks already know safety is one of my main concerns with starting to learn how to fly, that is the main reason why I'm reading the books first before taking the classes.) Is the instructor correct with that assesment?

The instructor also said that "Cirrus aircraft fall out of the sky way more than any single engine aircraft on the market today" Is that also true?

Thank you

 

[Jim Logajan]

The instructor also said that "Cirrus aircraft fall out of the sky way more than any single engine aircraft on the market today" Is that also true?

Blatantly false.

The January 2012 issue of "The Aviation Consumer" has an article "Cirrus Safety" in which they report their findings about the safety of those airplanes. If you don't wish to spend the money on reading the details, they summarized their findings thusly:

• "~ Cirrus accident rate is better than the GA average, but middle of the pack for peers."
• "+ CAPS works when optimally deployed, but less impressive in marginal cases."
• "- Nearly half of Cirrus fatals might have been prevented by CAPS deployments that pilots didn't perform."

 

[Jim Logajan]

the incidence of a post crash fire is frighteningly high.

You have any supporting numbers?

 

[Jim Logajan]

3 of the 7 fatal SR22 crashes in the US have had a post crash fire mentioned in the NTSB report. One of them crashed into a swamp so that one would have had a lower likelyhood for fire.

Aviation Consumer magazine did its own statistical analysis of the NTSB records and compared Cirrus with other aircraft. Its analysis is quite different from yours. It found:

• SR22: 16% of accidents had post-crash fires.
• Columbia: 14% of accidents had post-crash fires.
• SR20, Cessna 182, Mooneys: between 11% and 12% had post-crash fires.
• DA40: 0% of accidents had post-crash fires. (Diamond told Aviation Consumer that one accident that did not appear in the NTSB database did have a post-crash fire.)

So the Cirrus SR20 had no more post-crash fires than the metal Cessna 182 and Mooneys! Only the SR22 faired poorly, but only a 5% absolute difference.

So the DA40 is definitely safer with respect to post-crash fires.

The Cirrus models, on the other hand, do not appear to be terribly worse than most of their peers when it comes to post-crash fires.