Sad but quite interesting (French accident statistics)

Peter wrote:

I never quite understood this, because the winter offers plenty of good wx slots

IFR pilots on business/commute, may feel more constrained by exposure to winter weather, that I can understand

Average Joe VFR PPL kind of flying (1h/month in glide range) should work exactly the same way in summer as in winter, the main problem tend to be water logged grass rather than quality of VMC above

Average Joe IFR pilots on hobby, it does affect the “nice destination” part, you are not going on weekend to beach with (500ft ceiling, 30kts winds, 3km vis), so it will be mainly currency flights and hardly any room to go somewhere else nice

Yes, winter flying is the best, but SD got it. It is a matter of flexibility. In winter, you have maybe one VFR day per week. Too little if you can’t fit in a flight in a weekday.
Windy makes finding these good days easier, but still.

I see most accidents happening in July/August. I don’t have monthly hours flown to compare, and I imagine pilots tend to relax in Cavok days.

Peter wrote:

never quite understood this, because the winter offers plenty of good wx slots,

I personally have not ever had a problem keeping current during the winter, but then I can fly midweek if I want to. I am aware that many others dont have that luxury and with family/work commitments I know how flying doesnt get a look in if you need to line up your free afternoon with good weather, dry airfield and aeroplane availability…

Regards, SD..

Yes; very true. Every spring, when the sun comes out, there is a load of crashes, pretty obviously due to pilots having lost currency over the winter.

I never quite understood this, because the winter offers plenty of good wx slots, and you tend to not get the summer haze which plays havoc with “real pilot WW1 navigation methods”. I guess a lot of people are based at grass airfields which get waterlogged for months.

Jujupilote wrote:

To me, we see the consequences of airplanes and pilots not flying.

I agree 100%.

I know of various incidents, some minor, some major, that have caused aeroplane damage this summer that are not reported as accidents. Im pretty sure that many of these are due to the combination of poor weather/unusable strips since January and then lockdown for 2 months just as the weather improved which meant that many pilots didnt fly for 4 months or so and aeroplanes didnt move either.

Regards, SD..

An article showed up on a french pilots news site about accidents. We heard about a few in the past weeks. We had about 2-month lockdown from mid-march to mid-may.

Facts :

• BEA reports 152 safety events at mid-september instead of the usual 200+ at the same time of the year
• Fatalities are approaching 50 as of now, which is an average number for a whole year
• 30+ of those fatalities are caused by airplanes (non-UL), which is comparable to the worst full years

The official conclusion is “2020 would have been even worse without the lockdown”.
I don’t buy it one second.
Engines have sat for months without preservation. Many people usually don’t fly from october to April. Flying really restarted in June, and the systematic cleaning maybe detered some to make more proficiency flights.

To me, we see the consequences of airplanes and pilots not flying. I will update when I have time to digest all 2020 accidents reports.

gallois wrote:

I don’t subscribe any more either.

I was initially scandalised because I enjoy reading Info-Pilote, but the June edition just arrived and I put it on top of the May one which is still unopened. In my case I only keep subscribing (and it’s not so cheap delivered to UK) out of a mixture of nostalgia and to have something to read in French.

If it helps get a ballpark figure the 2018 hours were 522,349.

I can find 3 fatal crashes on the BEA website : one was a private owner in a C172RG, the 2 others were homebuilds.
Still looking for the 4th one.

@Gallois, @Capitaine, do you have the hours flown by FFA in 2019 in Info Pilote ? I don’t subscribe.