Exposing loved ones to the risks associated with GA

[CC268]

I am sure this conversation will stir up all sorts of gnashing of teeth, but I still <3 PoA.

Recently I have been flying by myself since I get up at the crack of dawn to fly before it gets hot. I have to admit some of the recent aircraft crashes I've seen (engaged couple in Big Bear, Bonanza in Utah, one of my own friends here at KDVT that just had a horrific crash with a friend on board) has had me thinking about the inherent risks of taking loved ones up. Reality is that GA has its risks and is many times more dangerous than driving (even though there are a ton of people who die every day in car wrecks). Sometimes I wonder if it is responsible to put others in harms way like that. It's like calling up your friend and saying, "hey man wanna come fly with me? It's about 10x riskier than driving, but we will likely beat the odds this time and not end up in a fiery ball of aluminum. You down?" Maybe I'm exaggerating but you get the point.

How do you guys handle the possible risk and responsibility of taking your own loved ones up (kids, friends, wife, etc)? Do you ever feel guilty about the risk you might be exposing them to?

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

What is interesting to me is the 85% due to pilot error number. That is a just a bit more than 5/6. So if we take the chances of dying per mile travelled in GA being about 6X that if driving a car (roughly correct I believe) that means that if the pilot doesn't make errors, the chances of dying per mile are about the same.

Of course, the chances of being in an accident in GA are about 1/6 that of driving, but about 36X more likely to be fatal.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

It's much higher than 10x, more like 20x. https://www.quora.com/How-safe-is-general-aviation-versus-car-travel

Just to clarify a bit further. It depends on how you make the comparison when saying "more risky". That comparison is on a per hour basis. If one figures GA planes travel faster than cars, then it drops down to about 6X more fatalities per mile traveled.

The underlying numbers might be accurate to within 25% or so since there is uncertainty in things like the number of total hours flown in the GA fleet.