The-Flying-Lawyer
New member
Original post (on Twitter) here, but I would guess a lot of you may not see it there and am curious what you think.
The final version of the 2018 Nall Report is out (here). One particular set of stats really caught my eye:
These are isolated from the pilot-related causes, so there shouldn't be any obvious ADM accidents (VFR into IMC, failure to account for density altitude on takeoff, etc.) in these data. What surprised me was the apparent correlation between more advanced training & experience (with certs as a proxy for those) and lethality. Why is that?
The "they're flying more complicated aircraft on more complicated missions" explanation doesn't seem to hold water. First, none of the fatalities involved IMC. Second, the vast majority of these accidents (117 out of 186) and roughly half of the fatalities (5 of 11) were engine-outs. You'd think an engine-out would be at least as bad for more frequently low & slow Private/Sport/Student pilots as for more frequently high & fast ATP/Commercial pilots. Third, there were zero mechanical-failure fatalities in the commercial fixed wing data, which you would think would be disproportionately high, fast, etc. and is exclusively ATP/Commercial pilots. That lines up with the fact that there were zero fatalities related to the 39 gear malfunctions on the noncommercial side.
Other observations: the CFIs on board do not appear to have been giving instruction to Private/Sport/Student pilots at the time of the accident in at least 2 out of their 5 fatalities. The Embry-Riddle Arrow breakup doesn't explain this overall gap: that was an ATP and a Private pilot. There was only one other fatality from an airframe failure (3 total).
So...what gives? Are more Private/Sport/Student pilots flatlanders and more ATP/Commercial pilots mountaineers? Are CAPS deployments disproportionately represented among the Private and Sport pilots? What am I missing?
The final version of the 2018 Nall Report is out (here). One particular set of stats really caught my eye:
These are isolated from the pilot-related causes, so there shouldn't be any obvious ADM accidents (VFR into IMC, failure to account for density altitude on takeoff, etc.) in these data. What surprised me was the apparent correlation between more advanced training & experience (with certs as a proxy for those) and lethality. Why is that?
The "they're flying more complicated aircraft on more complicated missions" explanation doesn't seem to hold water. First, none of the fatalities involved IMC. Second, the vast majority of these accidents (117 out of 186) and roughly half of the fatalities (5 of 11) were engine-outs. You'd think an engine-out would be at least as bad for more frequently low & slow Private/Sport/Student pilots as for more frequently high & fast ATP/Commercial pilots. Third, there were zero mechanical-failure fatalities in the commercial fixed wing data, which you would think would be disproportionately high, fast, etc. and is exclusively ATP/Commercial pilots. That lines up with the fact that there were zero fatalities related to the 39 gear malfunctions on the noncommercial side.
Other observations: the CFIs on board do not appear to have been giving instruction to Private/Sport/Student pilots at the time of the accident in at least 2 out of their 5 fatalities. The Embry-Riddle Arrow breakup doesn't explain this overall gap: that was an ATP and a Private pilot. There was only one other fatality from an airframe failure (3 total).
So...what gives? Are more Private/Sport/Student pilots flatlanders and more ATP/Commercial pilots mountaineers? Are CAPS deployments disproportionately represented among the Private and Sport pilots? What am I missing?
