Snoopy wrote:
How many people have since been killed due to car accidents?
A fallacious argument. There are far more cars and far more people driving them; you would expect there to be more fatalities.
It’s only fallacious to a point.
Lots of people are killed on the roads and we have laws to mitigate the risk, such as speed limits, drink-drive limits, zig-zags and hundreds of others.
Equally we have aviation law to mitigate risk, mainly risk to the Public. That is why Public Transport is very tightly regulated and the regulation of non-commercial aviation focuses on the interface between our activities and the Public.
No doubt the recent tragedy in Germany will raise greater attention among regulators than does a fatal involving only occupants of the aircraft. Certainly the Shoreham crash occupied the CAA’s every waking thought for years.
Having aircraft of any sort flying over a large and densely populated area, such as London, engenders risk to the Public, and failure of a power unit is a known, real risk. Therefore, it seems proportionate to protect those on the ground against that risk by saying that you have to have two.
So we have proportionate aviation laws, as we have proportionate traffic laws. Most people consider the law sufficiently proportionate that it is largely policed by consent in both cases.
Timothy wrote:
Having aircraft of any sort flying over a large and densely populated area, such as London, engenders risk to the Public, and failure of a power unit is a known, real risk. Therefore, it seems proportionate to protect those on the ground against that risk by saying that you have to have two.So we have proportionate aviation laws, as we have proportionate traffic laws. Most people consider the law sufficiently proportionate that it is largely policed by consent in both cases.
I agree with you completely.
Good arguments, but are you sure it’s proportional?
Flying over LA is not a problem…thousands of private single engine planes every week.
If you feel fine by self restricting that’s ok. At some point it gets to be a real burden though without any benefit compared to the measures inflicted on all.
I’ve always assumed that in those places where two engines are required to fly over cities, the law was established before aircraft engines were reliable – say 1930 or before. I learned to fly more recently… partly at a 500 operations per day airport where virtually every flight is continuously over a dense urban area after reaching perhaps 200 ft altitude. I can remember several times since the late 1970s (at that airport and others nearby) when a plane has ended up on the ground in the urban area, and while I remember the crew being killed in some cases, I can’t recall any bystanders being injured in any forced landing. Sure, it can happen but statistically (over many millions of operations at that one airport alone) it’s not proven to be an issue as the airports and towns have grown together, so no changes have proven necessary.
There is a tendency among some to cover minor risks with inflexible, expensive and inefficient reactions, and then through lack of subsequent experience to assume those reactions were necessary. I think it’s better for everybody when that doesn’t occur.
Based on the above real world experience, to me it’s logical to site (or leave) an airport in middle of the city, where noise is less of an issue due to all the other noise – unlike in residential suburbia.
Town planning in the USA or Europe is very different though. European towns are generally unplanned (i.e. no straight roads) and more densely populated.
That’s a very important point. London (or Paris, Berlin or Rome) is a very different landscape to LA or Seattle.
Are overflights in singles allowed in Manhattan or Boston? They are more comparable from the point of view of a forced landing.
I’m not aware of any special requirements (e.g. two engines) for operations in cities anywhere in the US, except for the ‘security’ situation over Washington DC (and Disneyland, draw your own conclusions) which is a special requirement not specific to SE aircraft. It’s all Class B or lower airspace and operated accordingly.
I think the main general difference in regard to this issue in the US is that there are more airports inside and closer to cities, providing more places to go in the event of trouble. That’s a good thing for all concerned.
Even in post 9/11 New York, one can transit along the Hudson VFR. And the most celebrated ditching there was a twin :-)
Timothy wrote:
Are overflights in singles allowed in Manhattan or Boston? They are more comparable from the point of view of a forced landing.
If an unreasonable risk of harm would result from the failure of a power unit then the flight contravenes 14 CFR 91.119(a):
Except when necessary for takeoff or landing, no person may operate an aircraft below the following altitudes:
(a) Anywhere. An altitude allowing, if a power unit fails, an emergency landing without undue hazard to persons or property on the surface.
See also footnote 6 to Administrator v. del Rio, NTSB Order No. EA-3617 (adopted 1 Jul 1992) (pdf):
[Footnote] 6
See Administrator v. Michelson, 3 NTSB 3111 (1980), Aff’d,
Michelson v. N.T.S.B, 679 F.2d 900 (9th Cir. 1982), a case
involving a low helicopter pass over a resort. We stated that
“`[U]ndue hazard’ [as found in FAR section 91.79(a),]… embraces
a situation in which a pilot’s cruising altitude would not likely
permit the aircraft to land without striking, or passing
dangerously close to, people or property on the surface. … To
prove a violation of section 91.79(a), the Administrator did not
have to show that it would have been impossible for respondent to
have made an emergency landing without injury or damage to
persons on the surface in the event his engine had failed at some
point along his low pass over the resort. The Administrator had
to show only that an emergency landing from the altitude
respondent passed through presented an unreasonable risk of such
harm.” Id. at 3113-14. See also Administrator v. Colvig, 4 NTSB
202 (1982).
14 CFR 91.79(a) has been moved to 14 CFR 91.119(a).
