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NTSB Issues GA Safety Alerts

Initiative aims to reduce the fatal accident rate.

The NTSB on Tuesday issued five Safety Alerts that it says focus on the most frequent types of general aviation accidents and how to prevent them.

“Because we investigate each of the 1,500 GA accidents that occur in the United States every year, we see the same types of accidents over and over again,” said NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman. “What’s especially tragic is that so many of these accidents are entirely preventable.”

The NTSB noted that each year about 475 pilots and passengers are killed and hundreds more are seriously injured in GA accidents in the United States, prompting the board to put GA Safety on its annual Most Wanted List of needed safety improvements.

The Safety Alerts pinpoint a particular safety hazard and offer practical remedies to address the issues. Three of the Safety Alerts focus on topics related to some of the most common causes of fatal GA accidents. These include low-altitude stalls, spatial disorientation, controlled flight into terrain and mechanical problems. The other two Safety Alerts address risk mitigation.

The five GA Safety Alerts include:

Is Your Aircraft Talking to You? Listen!

Reduced Visual References Require Vigilance

Prevent Aerodynamic Stalls at Low Altitude

Mechanics: Manage Risks to Ensure Safety

Pilots: Manage Risks to Ensure Safety

The NTSB is creating short videos for each Safety Alert, which will be available this spring. The videos will feature regional air safety investigators sharing their experiences and observations from the many accident investigations they conducted as well as advice on how pilots and mechanics can avoid mistakes that can have such tragic consequences.

“GA is essentially an airline or maintenance operation of one, which puts the responsibility for sound decision-making on one person’s shoulders,” Hersman said. “We are promoting and distributing the alerts to reach pilots and mechanics who can benefit from these lifesaving messages.”

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