The NTSB this week issued five GA Safety Alerts aimed at preventing the most common fatal general aviation accidents. The big question centers on whether the Board’s action will have any discernable impact in moving the safety needle. My guess is no, it won't.
Here's the reason: The vast majority of GA pilots won’t take the time to read the Safety Alerts, if they’re even aware that they exist in the first place. Maybe it’s a consequence of the fast-paced world in which we live. Who has time to read through a bunch of dry safety material? My personal view is even a little more cynical than that: Most pilots won’t read the NTSB’s Safety Alerts because they believe they know it all already. That safety stuff is for the other guy, they think.
But let’s be honest. As the NTSB rightly points out, GA pilots keep making the same mistakes over and over again. If the types of accidents that were killing pilots 30 years ago were replaced by entirely new categories of accidents today, that would be one thing. But the simple truth is we’re not learning from the mistakes of the past. We just keep doing the same dumb things in exactly the same dumb ways.
Why is that? I think it all comes down to how we’re being trained and, maybe more to the point, what we’re focusing on during our periodic flight reviews. Flight instructors everywhere ought to review the NTSB’s GA Safety Alerts and figure out how to incorporate the lessons they contain into their training curricula. That means placing a much bigger emphasis during initial and recurrent training on the potential dangers of low-level maneuvering flight, continued VFR into reduced visibility conditions, mechanical emergencies and the flight risks we face everytime we turn the key and start the engine.
Rather than merely ticking the boxes so the student can pass the practical test or the private pilot can get through his flight review, the focus should be on ensuring that pilots new and old truly understand the risk factors the NTSB has identified and won’t go out and make those same mistakes in the airplane.
Each year, safety investigators in the United States travel to the scenes of around 1,500 aircraft crash sites involving about 400 fatalities. Frankly, they’re sick and tired of doing it. While it’s true no safety initiative is likely to prevent every accident, the current average of four crashes a day is unacceptable.
We can do better. We have to do better. The question is, will we? That's entirely up to us.
All Comments
After many years in the aviation community I am constantly amazed at the two areas of knowledge that seem to be perpetually minimized or at the most marginally studied. That is aerodynamics and meteorology. That is not to say the subjects are ignored but they are not studied beyond what is minimally necessary to pass exams. Yet these are the two subjects affect every flight and can be the most important topics pilots need to thoroughly understand.
One recommendation is to promote the idea that every pilot at some point in their training get at least one hour in gliders to better understand why the aircraft flies and high angle banking is nothing to be afraid of. Also, if weather permits experience why glider drivers routinely look for and fly in weather power pilots try to avoid. This is not a comment against power-pilots but, how many ever fly in formation or for that matter fly while attached to another aircraft with a rope? Also learn that turbulence is only telling the pilot what is happening in the fluid we all fly in. Just like a sea captain can read the ocean a good pilot can read the atmosphere. That's what glider drivers do. We see turbulence not as turbulence but as signs telling us how to most efficiently drive the aircraft through the atmosphere using the weather as a means to get from one point to another. We see aerodynamics and meteorology much differently than power-pilots because we have to. The soaring community may have lots to offer the power community in terms of safety just by the nature of the required knowledge in aerodynamics and meteorology in order to be efficient pilots. The safety record of the soaring community speaks to the skill of the average glider driver. That and the fact that both the Air Force and Navy test pilot schools start their pilots in gliders for exactly the same reasons as mentioned above. Just a thought for consideration.
Yep - a safe pilot with accolades from fellow pilots, instructors and studies in accident investigation. I was diagnosed with rare disorder, still medically able to fly but unknown progression of the disorder. I grounded myself - a totally heart wrenching thing to do and yes I miss flying like hell. But I can sit here knowing that others are safe in the air and on the ground.
What is missing is GA pilots negating the basics of flying and some revision to ensure there are no gaps in their ability to safely fly. Many airline pilots need this too as when the automaton fails some accidents have been preventable .
Without prejudice Boeing has to be commended by retaining the control column with programmed feedback. The sidestick is fine to control a fully automated aircraft except when the proverbial hits the fan (AF Flight 447 comes to mind) and it does.
I agree with the author. However more to the point is that although more training may help, we need to understand that it is not really a lack of training. Every pilot which flys an engine powered aircraft knows that engine requires some type of fuel. Yet, every year pilots run the tanks dry and crash without fuel in these tanks. Why? Lack of understanding that the engine needs fuel to run? Nope! It is a human factor. We are humans and some times we make bad decisions. Unfortunately just like in a car, these bad decisions in an airplane can KILL us! Worse is that pilots sometimes take the life of other innocent people with them.
What can we do about this. Not much... Humans will always be humans. We can't change the reasoning of the human mind. But, maybe we can make a small dent in the number of accidents by focusing more during those first few hours that a student is learning on ADM (Aeronautical Decision Making). Most all of us have heard of this phrase. I even taught about it as a Master and Gold Seal CFI. However it really didn't hit home with me until my brother spun our STOL aircraft around a tree on landing. Fortunately he wasn't hurt but the aircraft required a lot of repairs and is now back flying again. After this event I though a lot about what cause this accident. I finally realized it was just bad decision making on his part to continue to try and land even though he had gone beyond the edges of the defined runway and still had power and airspeed to avoid the small tree.
So then I asked myself why he made this kind of a decision and I came up with what I feel is the answer. During our first few flights as student pilots our instructors allow us to not be on speed and not on target perfectly just so we can get close enough to the runway so we can learn how to land. I'm not saying us instructors are all at fault. In a way we have to do this. But I think for myself and many of my fellow I structors, we should focus on the "Go around" more during those first few lessons to truly hit home with the student that they have to be properly set up on base and final to conduct a proper landing and if they are not set up correctly at 500 feet, then "Go Around!"
Maybe we can do the same thing for the fuel so pilots stop trying to run an airplane on fumes.
Danny Creech
Im a pretty fresh in the aviation so I do not have much experience or knowledge but I do think that training is a pretty big part of it. The are thus schools who offer you a private pilot course in a month , 1 week and you get instrument rated and so on..that might be part of the problem, the pilot factories, that only give the pilot the knowledge to pass his written and practical test without paying attention to far more important things then getting your pilot license as fast as possible.
So my advice for anyone who want to begin his pilots training , or advance in his rating's , first off all choose a school who doesn't promise your to get you certificate in the min' amount of time , rather choose a school who speaks rationally, because each pilot for the future has is own pahse and most important is to know what u do , and do it safely, not run as fast as u can thru the syllabus or whatever..and if your good so anyway itll come fast , but a month? common...
