Certainly shows Diamond in a good light but I suppose it depends how many hours and how many of each type are flying each year.
Edit, just read the link! Looks even better when adjusted for fleet size and hours!
I think this falls into the category of ‘lies, damn lies and statistics’. I don’t think there is any meaningful way to compare these stats, for the simple reason that the mission profile of the various fleets is so different. On the two extremes we have Cirrus and Diamond: one, the Cirrus, is mainly flown for private transportation and hardly ever used as a trainer. The exact opposite is true for the Diamonds. Cessnas are used in pretty much any imaginable role in aviation. Next there is no reliable way I am aware of to aggregate hours / model or type. This is a problem that often comes up in discussions about accident rates, Richard Collins has written extensively on the subject.
It would be nice to get a more robust sample which checked the thesis that the DA40/172/PA28-161 do enjoy a materially superior safety record. A priori the FG, low kinetic energy and benign slow speed characteristics would suggest this is the case. If you then scrub the statistics for buzz jobs/suicides I would expect the safety record of this cohort is not that removed from highway driving, and safer than the usual proxy for GA ie motorcycling.
The 172SP with air bags, Garmin1000 and 26G seats must be about the safest GA aircraft out there and I am surprised not more is made of it.
I think neither the aircraft nor they way they are used can be compared.
Although no “hard facts” I think the following:
- A much, much higher percentage of Diamond aircraft are used as trainers
- When used as private aircraft Cirrus aircraft fly more sophisticated missions
- (I bet) that Cirrus aircraft are used much more for IFR flying in bad weather
What’s also true:
- members of the Cirrus Pilots Club COPA have a much lower accident rate than other Cirrus pilots
- many wealthy beginners are attracted to the Cirrus and fly sophisticated missions with very little experience
- the SR22 (and most SRs are 22s) is a high performance plane that cannot be compared to the DA40
- the much higher performance of the Cirrus’ (highest wing loading of all singles!) requires precise and well planned flying. It cannot be flow like a Skyhawk, Warrior, or even C182. You have to plan the descent for example, becasue you’re coming from very high, very fast – and the plane does not want to slow down.
- The Cirrus has very sophisticated but complicated systems which have to be studied intensively.
And I also think that SOME (small percentage) of accidents in the Cirrus happen because pilots depend on CAPS evey now and then and do flights they would never dare to do in a parachute-less plane.
I am SURE that if you take an exerienced and well trained pilot who has enough experience for a high performance plane – the Cirrus is the safest of these airplanes. But you have to let it be safe! The Cirrus sometimes attracts the wrong people and often is flown with the wrong mindset and into conditions no single plane should be flown into. Fly the Cirrus with the “Oh, I will always have a way out with CAPS” – and you’re bound for desaster. The editor in chief of Germany’s GA magazin “fliegermagazin” did an IFR flight through the ALPS in icing conditions ina FIKI Cirrus G3 – and what did he write? Something like “after all the CAPS system gave him some peace of mind” (or very similar, have to find the article). For me that’s where the trouble begins and exactly the wrong mindset.
I must say I feel very safe in the plane, but i have experienced the above effect. You think about if you can really do this flight and after a while you start thinking about the parachute…. it almost creeps into your mind if you’re not careful. A feeling like “well, if it really goes wrong there IS a way out”. And you have to recogize that you are beginning to walk down that dangerous route, and then you have to cancel the flight and go home. But you have to LEARN that, somebody who has experience has to TELL you. That’s what you learn at COPA.
This weekend I did two flights. First in the Cirrus, then in my old Warrior. I actually felt much safer in the Cirrus, now that I have flown it for 70 hours (1100 in the Warrior). That was VFR in sunshine. But with the Cirrus I am already flying into conditions my Warrior has never seen! And in that respect the Warrior (or let it be an Archer, 182) is very comparable to a Diamond DA40.
I don’t know how one could possibly correct for the obviously very different mission profiles of these types.
It’s like a great deal of social research 
Doesn’t stop people generating reports, which then get front page treatment in the Daily Trash, but anybody even half educated needs to only skim read it to see the holes.
I don’t know how one could possibly correct for the obviously very different mission profiles of these types.
You can’t. That’s why this kind of stats is worthless (OK, it’s worth something to the marketing guys at Diamond, but the usefulness stops there).
Market forces and Darwin suggest that once you go beyond 300nm missions in light IFR the equipment of choice is turbine, and arguably multi crew. If this were not the case GA would still have a healthy MEP and RG market.
Crash worthiness and kinetic energy are hard physics.
Poor appreciation of recovery technique for a fully developed spiral dive (hence the safety advantage of docile FG) is another relatively hard fact. The Aermachetti 260 or Tucano about the only aircraft which are retractable and can demonstrate a fully developed spiral dive safely-and from a healthy starting height. Recovery of incipient spiral dive is taught, sort of-I would posit that a fully developed spiral dive is never demonstrated outside of a test pilot programme.
Al Mooney correctly managed this risk in the original Mooneys with his PC system. Cirrus has a similar approach but full time stability augmentation as in PC is not a bad idea for minimising the risk of a spiral dive.
I certainly can’t be accused of having a bias for Diamond aircraft…to the contrary, I don’t like the company, and I rather hate the aesthetics of all their aircraft models.
But…the safety statistics of the DA40 – over many years now – have been really impressive indeed. I think that – even taking into account the different missions etc. – it is reasonable to say that it compares very very favourably to Cessnas and Cirruses.
Why that is I am not sure. I have only very few hours in the DA40 and the only thing I can say is that it is a very well balanced aircraft overall. It “feels” nice and safe when handflown. Visibility is very good. However, these two things also apply to the Cirrus. I really don’t know what it is…
My guess – and it’s only that – is that the secret lies in the very different mission profiles. Most statistics come from the US, and to the best of my knowledge and experience there, not many Diamonds are flown as private transport. They mainly seem to live in the training environment. As we all know, in this environment the accident rate is very low.
