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Flying isn't all that dangerous IMHO

D

David-aviator

Well Known Member
What happened to the thread on dangerous jobs?

I checked out the numbers and they may or may not be accurate, but using those posted here is another perspective.

What the statistics say is of the 529,882 registered pilots in the US, 302 died last year.

Another way to look at it is 1 of each 1754 will kick the bucket in a crash next year.

If airline pilots are taken out of the equation, it is 1 in 1506.

Percentage wise, the risk factor is 0.0664%, according to MS Excel.

I vote for keep on flyin'. :)

But lets be careful about it.
 
David-aviator said:
What happened to the thread on dangerous jobs?
Click to expand...

I found it to be of a lot of interest. I'm too..........surprised that it has disappeard. If some of these threads of interest, don't come up, many of us will never see them. The link contained worthwhile subjects, such as pilots operating in Alaska.

L.Adamson --- RV6A
 
Active pilots?

Do we have a way to know the number of active pilots? I'm sure there are a number of inactives that would skew the stats.

Mark Twain famously said "There are lies, damnable lies, and statistics."
 
Since the original thread was deleted, I am hesitant to post this, but I want to make sure my point was not misunderstood.

I certainly was not advocating not flying... If anyone thought that, my apoligies....

What I am talking about is the choices we make about our flying... Often for little or no reward. Whether to press on, or land... Whether to buzz or not to buzz.... Whether to fix the airplane, or fly it broke.....

As for the statistics, they come right from the Gov't labor statistics site....
Page 19 of this report shows the 10 deadliest careers in America...

http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cfch0008.pdf

The 2009 statistics just released show 63 fatalities for 57 deaths per 100,000 employed..... Three times more deadly than truck drivers at 18 deaths per 100,000 employed.... I have followed these numbers for several years.. Actually 2009 was a good year. Flying has been #1 a few times....

Let me personalize this.

I recognize that I have a very high tolerance for risks and participate in some of the most dangerous aspects of aviation.... (warbirds, low level airshow aerobatics, S/E IFR in the midwest, multi-engine flight training)

But I have made the risk reward calculation, Most of the incredible experiences in my life have been a result of aviation, and I believe it is worth it... But I do look at what I do and try to drive as much risk as possible out of it.

The best explaination I have for my personal risk/reward rationalization is posted here in a eulogy that I gave at Gerry Beck's funeral after the Oshkosh Mustang accident in 2007. Photographer Max Haynes made a photo essay out of it. Here it is... http://www.maxair2air.com/07AIR/BECK/O01.html

My reasons for drawing attention to the dangers of our business is so that I don't have to give any more eulogies about lost friends.... I have lost too many....

The Flight instructor handbook says that learning occurs when behavior changes....

I have changed many behaviors in the last 10 years of my aviation career. Do I miss buzzing? yep, but there are just too many cellphone towers and too many met towers... Do I miss scud running? yep, I enjoyed the challenge of it, and I thought I was pretty good at it, but it is just not worth the risks....

Unless our industry changes behaviors, then Every year in late August when the BLS data comes out, commercial pilot will still be 1, 2, or 3, deadliest career in America....

As to why the thread was deleted, I don't have a clue, but not talking honestly about the risks in aviation will not keep our friends, or ourselves alive.



Tailwinds,
Doug Rozendaal

[ed. Hi Doug. I didn't delete that other thread (one of the others did before I saw it) and because they didn't mark it as *soft delete*, I couldn't review it. Sorry about that. But folks, PLEASE don't let this thread drift into a discussion on moderation practices, because I'll delete it then. Safety needs to be discussed. Keep it RV, and thanks in advance. dr]
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Thanks

Much appreciated Doug.
I enjoy your posts, and like that one above, I take the time to read your links. I have lots to learn and enjoy the process. Nice story, nice pics.

While I guess some moderators dont like this if it isnt RV specific, I find it all very good info and its appreciated that you take the time to post it. I was at osh and saw that accident up close. Reading the obituary and seeing the pics of your friend was nice. I didnt know..., glad I do now.

Thank you.
 
Doug -

I liked your original thread, especially the part where you talked about rationalization of risk. I think you and I talked about that up at OSH - thee are two ways to talk about the risk of something like aviation. One is to say "oh heck, it isn't that risky!" that is rationalization - all the statistics, and common sense, tells us that there is more risk in aviating than in standing quietly in an open field. The other way to deal with risk is to accept that the risk is real, and actively do something about it. Sometimes, you just have to accept it, but you are doing so with open eyes and knowledge.

I personally am much more worried about the pilot who denies the risk by rationalizing it away than I am with the pilot who acknowledges the risk and does something about it - or at least accepts it. I know a LOT of fine and experienced aviators who don't really think of aviation as risky anymore, because they have been at it so long, the cautious ways are simply ingrained in them. It's a bit like riding a bicycle - it was darn hard to learn when you were a kid, and now, you don't even think about it. I'm not so worried about the old guys who have learned the lessons.

What I worry about are the young guys who see the older folks be casual about the risks, and think that they can be as well. Well, they don't have the tens of thousands of hours of experience that the old guys have that make it look easy....

I'm not one of those safety mavens who demands that life be 100% predictable, tame, and without risk. But I do want people to acknowledge and accept the risks they take - and that they might be sharing with others.

Paul
 
Margin will save your butt

Ironflight said:
What I worry about are the young guys who see the older folks be casual about the risks, and think that they can be as well. Well, they don't have the tens of thousands of hours of experience that the old guys have that make it look easy....
Click to expand...

Not sure I agree with your statement, Paul. I have experienced a lot of pilots with a lot of hours that I would not fly with. I agree with the casual about risk part but I do not think it has anything to do with number of hours. (Of coarse the insurance companies may prove me wrong as their rates are very much based on hours). Some times the number of hours makes more experienced pilots complacent with things like "I have gotten away with this before therefore I can again"
It is all about understanding risk and giving yourself margin.
 
Plehrke -

You are correct, I was generalizing. There are high time pilots I wouldn't fly with either, and I can cite crashes due to complacency of high time pilots. But statistically, the high time guys have more experience and do better with having seen the many and various ways that aviation can get you. I didn't intend to take this off track on high time vs. low time - just commenting that those who have more experience need to think about how their actions are viewed by those who may look up to them for guidance. Old/young or low/high time is a shorthand.
 
I had a date last month in Minnesota to help a friend with his Subby installation. I told him I was coming if I had to drive it as I don't do thunderstorms.

Risk is a matter of perspective. I flew the trip and it was more relaxing than doing it by road. Ten hours of constant attention so as not to get run over by a trucker who has been on the road too many hours, too many days is no fun. You sit there just a few feet from those huge tires hoping the guy stays in his lane. I had trouble staying awake in the RV with my autopilot doing all the work.

Yes, the fatality rate numbers say it is safer to drive than to fly. But is it true? There have been at least 6 major truck and school bus crack ups in the local area this summer killing a number of people. A local police chief hit a tree solo last Friday and his funeral is today. No one has been killed locally flying - so far this year.

I don't mean to be flip by saying "flying isn't all that dangerous". Certainly, things can happen we have no control over but it isn't all that difficult to avoid the usual killers in an airplane - weather, buzzing, low altitude aerobatics, not paying attention to business in the traffic pattern, and inadequate fuel for the mission.

Flying is a very important aspect of life for many of us. None-aviators have a difficult time understanding that premise, but it is true. So we do it. Some of us won't be here next year because of it. We mitigate risk, we accept it, we do our thing and let the chips fall where they may. My last mental check list item before take off is holy spirit, you've helped out in the past, thanks, and I'll take any help again. If this is the last flight, its been a good ride and let 'er rip. That's our life as flyers - in a 100 years, none of us will be here.

I am more concerned about languishing in a nursing home with someone feeding me than the calculated risk of flight.
 
Sadly, I think the TT time thing can best be explained as follows:

The high timers have said, "I am NEVER going to do that again...." more times than the low timers.

If a pilot really doesn't do it again, that's a change in behavior, and that is the definition of learning.

Said another way, "Good judgement comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgement"

We need a different learning model.....

Tailwinds,
Doug Rozendaal
 
B25Flyer wrote: The high timers have said, "I am NEVER going to do that again...."

That's been my definition of a good pilot for many years. The pilot who says (or thinks to himself), "Well, that wasn't so bad" after an uncomfortable experience or close call, probably has not learned the lesson. Just my personal observation over many years. ($.02 worth)
 
David-aviator said:
Snip....
I don't mean to be flip by saying "flying isn't all that dangerous". Certainly, things can happen we have no control over but it isn't all that difficult to avoid the usual killers in an airplane - weather, buzzing, low altitude aerobatics, not paying attention to business in the traffic pattern, and inadequate fuel for the mission......
Click to expand...

David, you are spot on.... If we "learn" that means change behavior and take all the VMC into weather, buzzing, illegal low altitude acro, turnbacks after engine failure on T/O, and a handful of other activities. Flying could be as safe, or nearly as safe as driving.... The airlines have proven that...

The problem is, we don't. We continue to have lots of people who have convinced themselves that "their" flying is not dangerous and we all pretty much continue to do what they have always done, and the result is, that every year, flying is the first, second, or third deadliest career in America....

That will not change until we "learn" how to fly more safely and "learning" requires a change in behavior... And that is really tough....

Step 1 is to honestly acknowledge the risks. If we are unwilling or unable to do that. Very little will change.

Please do not think I am trying to scare anyone away from flying. NOT TRUE!

I want to encourage people to fly and make smart choices. If you have a desire to fly in bad weather, get an instrument rating and stay current. If you have a desire to fly low-level acro, get training, start up high, and when you have the needed experience get a SAC Card (low Level Waiver) understanding the risks of that game. The list goes on....

All of us can employ strategies that will reduce the risks in our flying without driving the fun out of it.... Because nothing drives the fun out of flying faster than a funeral.....

Tailwinds,
Doug Rozendaal
 
"Every Accident is Preventable"

"Every Accident is Preventable"

That was a quote from one of the professors at the beginning of his lecture at the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterrey, California during the two month Aviation Safety Officer course I attended many years ago. At the time, we were not buying it as we had been tricked many times already during aviation accident case studies.

We slowly began to ask questions and propose accidents that were NOT preventable. For every accident we gave, we got back a way to prevent it. As you can imagine, we quickly got to statistically impossible accidents...getting hit by a meteor...and practically impossible solutions...build a global meteor shield. Our professor stopped us and let us know that the point of the lesson wasn't to find a solution to every scenario but to help us shift our thinking. Yes, the chances of getting hit by a meteor were 1 in 1(and a whole bunch of zeros) and cost of building a meteor shield was $1(and a whole bunch of zeros) but they were NOT zero. Every accident IS preventable but not every accident WILL be prevented because of the cost.

After the lecture ended and the material began to sink in, it was empowering to think that every accident is preventable but at the same time a little unnerving to realize that, as leaders, we were the ones having to draw the line at some level of acceptable risk due to cost (not always financial). I can't think of another specific lesson that stays with me today as strongly as the "every accident is preventable" lecture. I always think about it before those risky behaviors we all love so much and HOW I can lower my risk and not IF I can.
 
Let's remember the quoted statistics are for the workplace.

What is the comparable rate per 100,000 for recreational flying?

Closer to the bone, how many RV fatalities each year vs how many flying?
 
Safe Flying

Flying is not "safe". Hour for hour geneal aviation is about as dangerous as motorcyling which is more than 10 times as dangerous as automobiles per mile. The difference is that with flying, the chances are much greater that I will kill myself rather than some other person doing it.

The idea of dying of someone elses stupidity is more distressing to me than dying of my own. In theory I could eliminate almost all of those risks but in practicality I will not and neither does anyone else. Anyone who was determined to eliminate every controlable source of an accident would not be the sort of person who would bother to fly in the first place, and would hardly ever get off the ground. I don't pull the plane apart and look at every control connection before every flight, even though I know I would probably not survive a control failure and they do happen.

Look at all the great experienced respected pilots described as "really careful" who get themselves killed.

We decide what level of risk is acceptable to us and set our limitations at that level with a realistic appraisal of our craft and ourselves. That is the best we can do. Having done so, there is still a realistic probability that we will sometimes underperform and exercise bad judgement. All accidents are avoidable only in a theory that looks only at the physical cause of accidents and ignores the plain fact that the mechanism relied upon to act to prevent them, the standard issue human being, is inherently inconsistent and unreliable in performance--no exceptions. We can all strive to reduce that unreliability in ourselves but if you think you have eliminated it in yourself, you are kidding yourself.
 
Reading this thread brings to mind one of those pat sayings that we tell our kids: "It's wise to learn from your mistakes, but it's wiser to learn from the mistakes of others". The challenge, of course, is in the implementation.
 
DanH said:
Let's remember the quoted statistics are for the workplace.

What is the comparable rate per 100,000 for recreational flying?

Closer to the bone, how many RV fatalities each year vs how many flying?
Click to expand...

Dan Checkoway used to keep stats and for 2008 he reported 10 fatal accidents with 11 fatalities....

Is that to many? That represents ~.15% of the fleet will be in a fatal accident. Does that sounds acceptable?

Disney's Magic Kingdom has around 17 million visitors each year. .15% means they would have 25,500 fatalities each year or 70 dead visitors every day..... Does anyone think .15% fatality rate is acceptable?


Certainly .15% is too high if you your spouse/friend/kid/hangar mate was on of the 10. And .15% is too high if 6 of the 10 were easily preventable.

The reality is most GA aircraft accidents are easily preventable. Unless we are honest with ourselves and willing to frankly discuss the risk inherent in our personal flying then nothing is going to change.

Tailwinds,
Doug Rozendaal
 
B25Flyer said:
Dan Checkoway used to keep stats and for 2008 he reported 10 fatal accidents with 11 fatalities....That represents ~.15% of the fleet will be in a fatal accident. Does that sounds acceptable?
Click to expand...

Nope, sure doesn't. The above suggests a fleet of about 7300. Converted to comparable statistics you have 150 per 100,000....which means the chance of death by RV is only a little less than death by cancer (178 in 100000) or heart disease (191 in 100000).
 
DanH said:
Nope, sure doesn't. The above suggests a fleet of about 7300. Converted to comparable statistics you have 150 per 100,000....which means the chance of death by RV is only a little less than death by cancer (178 in 100000) or heart disease (191 in 100000).
Click to expand...

I may be missing something (I often do when talking statistics), but I think that the numbers Doug is refering to are PER YEAR, while the numbers you're talking Dan are PER LIFETIME. Please let me know if I am wrong, but this is a whole different perspective....
 
Ironflight said:
I may be missing something (I often do when talking statistics), but I think that the numbers Doug is refering to are PER YEAR, while the numbers you're talking Dan are PER LIFETIME. Please let me know if I am wrong, but this is a whole different perspective....
Click to expand...

Paul,

The cancer numbers probably are per year. Heart disease and cancer are way over 50% per life time.
 
its up to us...

It seems to me that safety in flying is more a function of the person in the left seat.

In a car, motorcycle, etc, you can be doing everything right and still be killed.

Just my humble opinion....

Dave
 
We could have a discussion about mitigating the risks of cancer and heart disease and the story line would be exactly the same.

1:Acknowledge the risks.

2: Change the behaviors that contribute to danger...

Changing the behavior is the tough part here too....

The differences between the flying and the Cancer/Heart disease discussion numbers would in be the age distribution....

Another way to think about this is, look at how many friends we have who have succumbed to Cancer or Heart disease. If everyone flew, we would have as many funerals from flying as heart disease.. Too many....

We are dangerously close to beating a dead horse here, My point from the outset was to raise the awareness of the risks associated with aviation in general and RV flying specifically, in hopes that a few, certainly not all, pilots would pause for a moment and look in the mirror at their own operation. Hopefully it might cause a discussion or two at a Saturday morning airport coffee club about the risks inherent in our business and cause one or two pilots to give a second thought to off airport buzzing, or scud running, or who knows what....

Thanks for the soapbox... Stepping down.

Tailwinds,
Doug Rozendaal
 
Per year....

The top 15 causes of death in the US, 2007:

http://caonline.amcancersoc.org/cgi/content-nw/full/caac.20073v1/TBL7

(For comparison, birth and death rates:
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2010/tables/10s0078.pdf)

I think inserting 190 (150 + 40) in line 5 ("accidents, unintentional injuries") gives you an overall picture of how likely the average RV driver is to die in any given year.....and how.

Doug is right of course.....we can modify behavior and improve the numbers.
So is David....flying is only one of a great many ways to die, and most of us figure it is worth the risk.
 
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