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-   -   2009 Fatal RV Accidents (https://vansairforce.net/community/showthread.php?t=52535)

Peterk 01-03-2010 10:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ironflight (Post 392599)
I am with Ken on this one - we do tend to encourage unsafe behavior when we Ooh and Ahh over things that are actually illegal. I have posted a few aerobatic videos on YouTube - all shot at thousands of feet of altitude, usually above the clouds (that's how high!) because frankly, I have no training on low level aerobatics, and even if I did there are very specific conditions under which they can legally be performed.

When I see someone doing something spectacular in the airport traffic area, and the area is not currently under a low-level air show waiver, my reaction is usually negative, even when everyone else is amazed. I am impressed by good judgment, not by spectacle. I have spent too long on the cutting edge of aerospace, and watched people cross over that line, never to return - more often than I want to remember. My profession is one of making the most exciting thing in the world as boring as possible. That might disappoint some folks, but it keeps others alive.

As to last year's statistics, thanks for bring it up Doug! It made me take a half hour and go look up the NTSB site myself. I searched the 2009 database for "RV", and got 49 hits, and the 17 fatalities you mentioned. (Bob Milne's accident was in 2008 Phil - time does fly....). I built a quick spreadsheet with the data, and read the findings or preliminary reports (whichever was present) to get a feel for the cause of the accidents. Of the thirteen fatal accidents, I'd put them in the following bins:

VFR in IFR conditions - 3
Loss of Control on takeoff - 2
Los of Control on Landing - 1
Low Level Aerobatics - 2
Low Level Stall - 4
Formation gone wrong - 1

We can argue over a few of the buckets, but it's only a crude parsing - it's not intended to be complete and comprehensive. The best thing we can do is to ignite everyone's curiosity enough to go look them up themselves, and take the hour necessary to read the reports. Make your own comparisons to operations you are familiar with. And don't be deluded - accidents happen to folks with tens of thousands of hours as well as those with only a few.

I'd sure like to bury less friends each year rather than more.

Paul

Interesting there are no 10's on anyones's list. Different mission? Different personal needs? Different safety concerns? Most likely fewer people in the aircraft. They are certainly fast enough and vulnerable enough to fall into any of the above categories.

pierre smith 01-04-2010 05:31 AM

Dan Lloyd...
 
...is one RV-10 fatality.

Sometimes you just have to say no. My wife wanted to fly to the coast last week, to visit an old high school friend, 130 miles from here, in S.C. I said no, the weather's lousy and she didn't quite understand because it was CAVU here at home. I was pressured because.."She's only gonna be here another two days before she goes back to Maine"...or wherever.

Don't get suckered into a situation you shouldn't be in.

Nevertheless, I stood my ground and we left the next day because I deemed the entire trip, there and back, doable, VFR. It was barely VFR the last 30 miles and a turnaround to better weather was always my call and she accepts that.

Sometimes, just say no.

Best,

Phil 01-04-2010 05:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ironflight (Post 392599)
I searched the 2009 database for "RV", and got 49 hits, and the 17 fatalities you mentioned. (Bob Milne's accident was in 2008 Phil - time does fly....)

Hey Paul,

I thought about this earlier this morning. Actually Bob's accident occurred in April of 2009, but it didn't register as a fatality in the NTSB databases. It's listed as a non-fatal because he died some days later in Memorial hospital.

In my mind, that makes it a fatality.

That's the reason it's not showing up under the fatal accidents.

Phil

Phil 01-04-2010 06:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phil
That's the reason it's not showing up under the fatal accidents.

Which makes me wonder how many non-fatal accidents eventually turned out being fatal and aren't reflected in our numbers.

I'd almost consider 'serious' as a fatality too. All of the people I know who have had accidents with a serious injury will never experience a quality of life I'd like to experience. Their flying careers are over, blindness, severe burns.... I'm not sure that's worth living for.

N8RV 01-04-2010 06:30 AM

One accident in that database involved an RV that crashed for undetermined reasons. Witnesses had differing reports, none that agreed. In the end, the NTSB simply doesn't know what went wrong.

Both the pilot and the passenger had "autopsy evidence of coronary artery disease and a previous heart attack, though it is possible that either or both were not aware of their heart disease." It may have been medical incapacitation of the pilot that caused the crash, but nobody will ever know.

Both pilots were very careful and were not the buzz-job types.

One bucked most of my rivets in Smokey. I choose to believe that medical incapacitation was the underlying cause of the accident.

There are times we just don't know what happened ...

LettersFromFlyoverCountry 01-04-2010 06:40 AM

One of the reasons we don't learn more from individual RV accidents is because we don't know HOW to talk about individual RV accidents.

TSwezey 01-04-2010 06:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pierre smith (Post 392652)
...is one RV-10 fatality.

Pierre there were no fatal RV-10 crashes in 2009. I believe the last fatal RV-10 crash was almost two years ago on 4/7/08. There was a six month stretch there back in late 2007 early 2008 when we had three fatal RV-10 crashes. Dan's accident was 11/2/07.

Phil 01-04-2010 07:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob Collins (Post 392672)
One of the reasons we don't learn more from individual RV accidents is because we don't know HOW to talk about individual RV accidents.

I think we can blame that on our P.C./soft society. In the world we live in, no one is willing to accept blame and those who try to call it like it is are persecuted.

Now days you can't come right out and say on the internet, "That guy was absolutely stupid because of 1.XXX 2.XXX and 3.XXX." Those conversations occur face 2 face in a hangar.

If you do, then folks say you shouldn't be so judgmental. They say that family members are reading posts and we can't let their family know they were missing a few marbles at the time of the accident.

In Bob's case, he made a stupid decision. I knew Bob, well. He'd tell you in a heartbeat that he screwed up. Originally his brother came on VAF and said we had it wrong and the Bob would never do anything stupid. After learning more about the accident he came back and humbly admitted that Bob screwed up. That doesn't happen very often and I have much more respect for them for admitting it and then using his accident to make sure other pilots understand the impact of their decisions. It's rare for a family to accept blame.

It's easier to talk about the group of accidents as a whole and not call any individual stupid. I think that's where you were headed.

Ironflight 01-04-2010 07:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phil (Post 392656)
Actually Bob's accident occurred in April of 2009, but it didn't register as a fatality in the NTSB databases.

You're absolutely correct Phil - I was focusing on the ones labeled "Fatal", and didn't read the others, and somehow, I thought it was the end of '08...tme gets ll jumbled up when life gets busy!

And it IS definitely misleading when they don't call it fatal if the person lives beyond a certain time, then passes away later from the injuries.

Paul

Paul Thomas 01-04-2010 08:44 AM

I didn't read the posts so this point may have already been made.

There is less warbirds every year but more RV every year so looking only at death is misleading. Death/flying airplane or even better death/flying hours would be a better metric.


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