There is a very limited value in accident reports as they don’t have data on similar missions where people survived (that is what needs to ne learned), usually they do a great job explaining what happens but rarely predict what would have happened and why it was a killer issue on that flight but not others?
The majority of accidents are pilot errors, these errors are likely to have been done by most pilots in the past without crashing, what tends to save the show is extra margins and not doing “other errors”, one or two is enough on a given flight !
There are few reports of group of aircraft where one crashed while others survived on exactly similar mission/aircraft, it’s worth looking at these, few examples,
- One PA28 hitting hill in Glocs while another PA28 made it
- One who did precautionary landing in field Barcelonette while another vintage flew into mountain on hot day with high density altitude
- One who flew straight into a cell to L2K while load of aircraft made it around (using Avgas)
- Few cases of where some people cancelled or diverted while other pushed ahead without backup plan or limits
Long story short, if one keeps wing level, stay high above obstacles with plenty of onboard fuel and flying currency while having backup plan everything is going to be fine (easier said than done as the tolerance is no more than two errors)
PS: I am talking about predictive power not the ability to explain things or narrate what happened after it happened…for example, distraction by some unseen traffic on radio in the circuit, does predict the increase of losing control or gear up landing (failure to reduce AoA or lower gear handle does explain why it happens)
Ibra wrote:
Long story short, if one keeps wing level, stay high above obstacles with plenty of onboard fuel and flying currency while having backup plan everything is going to be fine
Well there may be more to it than that. We would all agree that there are many variations of how the plane should be being flown in different phases of flight. Sure, plenty of fuel, and currency are always good. A back up plan is a great idea, but that has to be constantly re-evaluated to be valuable. Staying high above obstacles will be a bad idea, if the obstacles are at the departure end of the runway – Vy+, avoid Vx!
I spent three months in hospital reminding myself that I’d thought that everything was fine, and the pilot flying had everything under control. He did not, and I did not notice his error until I became aware that I’d been ejected through the windshield, and was now trying not to sink. Everything is never fine while flying, we’re just keeping the risk within limits we can handle, with room for some degradation in circumstance to still be handled.
I flew a practice forced approach in the 185 amphibian at the completion of my maintenance check flight the other day, it was not good enough. Everything was fine because the engine kept running, but if it had actually quit, I would not have done well enough. My currency was inadequate. I’ll practice when I next can, knowing that in the mean time, everything is not fine, I need more currency….
I agree on VX & VY, I forgot to add: fly in long runways 
as they say, there are 3 useless things in aviation height above you, runway behind you and fuel you leave on the ground
On long runways, I arrived once to find that my unattended home airfield was sitting under some wet frozen clouds, the approach there would have likely resulted in an accident due to lack of instrument approach, delays in complex airspace and low runway length, what saved the show was the runway length, the same approach done in my home airfield would have likely resulted in death due to the lack of instrument approach, complex airspace, runway length and most importantly a ‘red truck’ (that was my radio call not to scare my wife) lined up at runway end on arrival, I requested passing overhead in VMC with steep descent and quick 4nm final intercept, the approach was conducted fast speeds with visibility during flare being glimpse from storm window (there was no possibility of go-around into weather for another approach or elsewhere)
My biggest mistake was not having enough fuel or serious selection of diversion options (5h endurance would have been better with that icing in stratus), on arrival I felt adding extra errors from complex airspace, small non-instrument runway would have likely to complicate things, looking back after the facts, I was so wrong in terms of expectations: the initial plan outcome would have been death with no doubts !
As one very successful GP motorcycle racer (Kenny Roberts) once said, in order to be successful and survive you need to know that the activity can kill you, while at once believing that high levels of preparation and concentration will prevent it from happening to you. While there are examples that illustrate that this is not always true, it’s close enough to the truth that it generally works, for most pilots.
I guess that’s my reaction to observing crashes, I already know they can happen and I’m mainly concerned with preventing them happening to me.
Silvaire wrote:
I guess that’s my reaction to observing crashes, I already know they can happen and I’m mainly concerned with preventing them happening to me.
That is exactly what I extract out of crash reports. To get sensible for the causes of crashes and mitigate risks. It irritates me if I analyze a crash and cannot find a plausible reason other than stupidity of the pilot. Because I do believe that most of the crashes are not only happening due to shortcomings of the pilot, but something on top.
At least I do not want to become a crash report myself where the summary may read something like “what an idiot has it been”.
As was aptly stated during the Apollo 1 investigation, many accidents are the result of “failure of imagination”. This is particularly applicable in GA, and even more so, when GA pilots start doing things in airplanes which are out of the norm. Pilots, at various levels of experience, fail to imagine what could happen next if the unexpected happens, and sometimes it happens. Pilots who are experienced in the type of flying they’re doing, and ahead of their game, are probably preventing multiple accidents per flight, by accounting for the unexpected.
So many times while flying with another pilot, their flying has exposed to me a weakness in their imagination of what could happen next. Depending upon circumstance, I may say “Do you realize that if X were to happen right now, it would be very high skill and reaction time requirements to escape safely…”. Often, too often, that seems to be news to the pilot.
Generally now, I choose to not watch most GA videos to be found, and particularly the amateur “STOL” demonstrations. It’s a Pandora’s box of “there is not good reason to be taking that risk, do you even realize the danger you’ll be in if it quits there?”.
I failed to closely monitor an experienced pilot whom I was about to send water solo, with my comfort in his skill, and in absolutely perfect flying conditions. The result was both of us in hospital for months, a wrecked plane, and some very shaken family and friends. I know that at least two acquaintances quit PPL flight training because I was in an accident.
I used to read accident reports when learning and recently qualified, but gave up a long time ago. I didn’t find any real lessons other than generic ones I should already have known, and many are just sad.
The FFA info-pilote magazine has a monthly safety article where the author analyses the key points of several incidents with a common theme and tries to draw conclusions, which I find more informative than the raw data. He made me laugh a few years ago, writing something like “there were 5 gear up landings in France last year despite me writing articles about it in 1991, 1996, 2007 and 2012”. It did make me go away and think seriously about the occasions when you would elect to land with the landing gear retracted.
Debate on EuroGA is better for me because it offers more ideas, and solutions as well as causes.
Pilot_DAR’s what would you do now if… is a very good idea.
The closest I’ve been is Jgmusic on the front page of the newspapers in the supermarket, which was very upsetting.
Paul Bertorelli at AvWeb asking if the accident reporting (in aviation news outlets) is doing anything good
https://www.avweb.com/insider/is-accident-reporting-making-us-all-crazy/
It is a very valid question indeed.
Some of us like to discuss accidents coldly with a practical learning purpose, but for those not sharing that view, the resulting perception is that accidents play a much bigger role in GA than they actually do.
Yes there are risks at play but when compared to, for example, motoring, most of them are in the pilot’s -hands-brain, so we have more effective tools to tame the risks.
Airlines and AOC operations have annual CRM courses, which in effect are to a certain extent drawn from relevant accident case studies. There probably is a case for a library of well curated GA accident case studies, not the sort of ambulance chasing, speculative you tube efforts (although some are quite sober and well put together). I tend to compile a list of accidents for the type I am flying to see if there is a special trend.
