Aviation Safety Report Offers Blueprint During Flight Instruction

CFIs should glean lessons from the annual Nall Report to help learners understand where risk originates.

Meg Godlewski

Tuesday, April 11, 2023 at 05:42 PM ET

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It’s important to know how and when to perform a go-around. [Credit: Meg Godlewski]

Key Takeaways:

Flight instructors are key to aviation safety, tasked with analyzing accident data (like the Nall Report) to identify risks and develop training scenarios for effective mitigation.
A significant portion of aviation accidents occur during critical flight phases, particularly during the approach to landing (often due to unstabilized approaches leading to stall/spin) and shortly after takeoff (due to engine loss leading to stall/spin), emphasizing the need for robust scenario training and strict go-around discipline.
Other major preventable accident causes include fuel mismanagement (stemming from poor planning or system knowledge) and VFR flight into Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC) due to inadequate weather planning or instrument proficiency.

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The flight instructor is the first gatekeeper when it comes to aviation safety. It is incumbent on the CFI to teach and model good habits for mitigating risk—and you can’t do that without understanding where the risk is coming from, and when and where during the flight training process we are at a higher risk for an accident.

One way to do this is for the CFI to review the Nall Report, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association’s (AOPA) Air Safety Institute’s annual report that looks into accident causal factors—and to develop training scenarios to give learners the tools to address these risks.