Remember Huerta's Summer Safety Plea? How Did We Do?

Remember Huerta’s Summer Safety Plea? How Did We Do?

Stephen Pope

Thursday, September 12, 2013 at 08:24 PM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

General aviation pilots showed a dismal safety performance over the summer, with fatal crashes occurring regularly despite pre-season pleas from the FAA Administrator for increased vigilance.
Many accidents were easily avoidable and attributed to recurring pilot errors, such as fuel exhaustion, low-altitude stalls, and flying into bad weather, indicating that existing safety campaigns were largely ineffective.
The persistent poor safety record is a major detriment to the growth and public image of general aviation, with concerns that continued lack of improvement could lead to mandatory intervention from the FAA or Congress.

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You may recall at the start of the summer flying season FAA Administrator Michael Huerta implored general aviation pilots to fly safely in June, July and August. In an open letter to the GA community delivered just before the Memorial Day weekend, Huerta begged us, “Make sure you’re ready – really ready – to fly.”

So how did we do? Now that Labor Day has come and gone we can examine the summer accident stats to see if we fared better or worse than the norm. Although no official numbers have been released by the FAA or NTSB, it appears that, in general, we failed Huerta’s test – miserably.