John Zimmerman, president of Sporty’s, recently penned an essay in Air Facts, where he’s also editor-in-chief. The essay’s title— “Ignore the YouTube crash detectives—it’s usually pilot error”— tells you pretty much everything you need to know about it. John’s specific lament is that, “When a high performance airplane crashes in IMC, the self-proclaimed experts on social media quickly spin elaborate theories about autopilot failure, in-flight icing, structural failure, carbon monoxide poisoning, or some other incredibly rare cause.” But when “the NTSB report comes out a year later, it’s almost guaranteed the cause will be ‘the pilot’s spatial disorientation and loss of airplane control.’”
In my 20-year experience as this magazine’s editor-in-chief, I agree wholeheartedly. Loss of control—either resulting from the pilot inadvertently entering IMC, maneuvering (especially at low altitude) or losing situational awareness—seems to factor into the vast majority of accidents. The only addition I’d make to John’s discussion is the likelihood that an aircraft won’t fly very long or far without an adequate supply of fuel, and pilots seem to need a reminder every so often.
This certainly shouldn’t be a new revelation for you, either. The fact is the airplane rarely lets us down. Weather can certainly affect the flight’s outcome, but that’s something we train for and, while we can’t control the weather, we can control when and where we fly in it. Again, a typical weather accident has as its root cause the pilot’s decision to fly in those conditions.
Each month, we cover a handful of accidents: one in-depth article for our Accident Probe and several more in our Accident Briefs. The former always looks at a fatal accident for which there’s a probable cause statement while the latter hits the highlights (and lowlights) of the most recent complete month of preliminary NTSB reports. We typically stick with just the facts in both formats, mainly because the NTSB has gotten better at this over the years and rarely overlooks something. When we think they have, we call them on it.
The punchline in all this is if you stick with the basics—fly the airplane, avoid weather you can’t handle and make sure you have enough gas—you likely won’t make the cut.
