FAA Air Safety Investigator, Tony James, talks about the top 10 causes of general aviation accidents and offers insight in how they can be avoided.
Interesting video.
Just watched it.
1. Loss of control
2. CFIT
3. Engine failure
4. Low altitude ops (e.g. crop spraying)
5. Unknown (no GPS, radar etc data)
6. Errors on IAPs, loss of SA
7. Fuel exhaustion
8. Didn’t catch this one despite watching it twice
9. Midair
10. Windshear or severe weather
There is a video at 28:35 showing how fast a twin can kill you if it gets an engine failure at the worst possible moment on takeoff and you don’t react fast enough.
The midair data is interesting versus Europe where midairs are far less common.
Still watching it, but I thought he said for #8, in “Southernese”:
System Component Failures, (non-power plant).
Examples: Electrical Failure, Cabin Fire/Smoke, Vacuum pump Failure, CO.
There is a video at 28:35 showing how fast a twin can kill you if it gets an engine failure at the worst possible moment on takeoff and you don’t react fast enough
Was the airspeed too low at lift-off for engine failure control? You can see the ASI – and that speed would be in the manual.
[quote fixed up]
It is marked on the airspeed indicator with a radial red line – minimum control airspeed. To fly straight at that speed with one engine at full power and the other one windmilling, you need full rudder towards and (typically) some bank into the good engine. There is some allowance made for pilot reaction, but not much.
If you don’t apply full rudder fast enough, the aircraft will yaw towards the dead engine, and very likely roll over. You can also smartly close the throttle(s) and land.
Unless you absolutely MUST, you don’t fly slower than the minimum control speed. Given that the certification limit is 1.2x stall speed in the take-off configuration, it is not normally necessary.
And in a typical twin the climb rate even with a feathered prop is terrible. If you don’t do the procedure well you can have less than no climb.
It all depends on the options, there are some situations where putting down in a field are better than trying to climb and hitting a tree at 95kt. It also depends whether you can drift down to Vyse, or have to accelerate to get it. In the latter case, especially when not clean yet – the only way is down….
Thankfully, the time one spends climbing below the blue line is measured in seconds each flight.
It would be interesting to compare the U.S. top ten with Europe.
I don’t suppose we have many low altitude operations!
Midairs are also extremely rare over here.
Is it just me or anyone else surprised engine failures are number 3? I thought they were much rarer than midairs..