yeah, not much from them except a lot of holy shits. It was flat, they could stand, so might well have tried to recover the pilot.
Seems to be the new behaviour ‚de rigeur‘ on accident sites. Get out your phone, make videos, stand in the way of rescue workers, but don’t help. Regular situation at autobahn accident sites, cars driving by slowly with smartphones held out the window.
Disgusting.
What I find shocking about the attitude of the CEO is that on ine hand he aims to build “the safest aircraft”, and in complete denial of the fact that the biggest single risk factor is the pilot then aims to explicitly attract pilots with risky behaviour and then proceeds to provide training in such risky behavioir.
There is nothing wrong with either, but these two goals (a safe aircraft for thrillserkers) are not reconcilable, the result is and will continue to be a bad accident record.
Of course boring safety-oriented pilots can still buy a safe aircraft, but the reputation of the A5 will be a shadow hanging over them, and they will be perceived like somebody buying a souped up motorcycle claiming to never exceed the speed limit and always using the middle of the lane.
Advertising draws out the customers who you are aiming at – if you do it right 
Example: you advertise a plane by claiming it can be used for travel just like a car, and if something goes wrong you pull the chute. That will draw out customers who think that, ahem, it can be used for travel just like a car and if something goes wrong you pull the chute Then you get a lot of chute pull life saves crashes due to people thinking it can be used for travel just like a car etc. Then you put in place a training programme. Also over the years, especially as more secondhand models appear on the market and sales of new ones plummet, the customer base has shifted from those who think it can be used for travel just like a car and if something goes wrong you pull the chute, to more experienced pilots who know that it isn’t anything like a car and actually it is just a modern plane with the same requirements and vulnerabilities to screwups as anything else from the 1950s or 1960s etc. Years later the plane is no worse in safety than any other, and by any measure is a success.
If you advertised light GA honestly, there would be no sales – nowadays.
I am not a big fan of this safety obsession of GA which stems from the public transport focus of aviation. Half of the magazine pages are filled with boring safety content. Motorbikes are suicide machines designed to have fun. Jetskis even more so. Neither motorbike nor jetski magazines / online forums have the same safety fetish as GA.
GA aircraft are really not much different. A dangerous but fun hobby. The SPL (sports pilot license) expresses it quite well because it is not just a component on the way to an ATPL.
alioth wrote:
To be fair to them, they did motor as quickly as possible towards the crash site, and I’m not sure if they could have done anything when they got there (other than risk adding themselves to the casualty numbers).
Although what you say might be true, I don’t think your statement applies to these guys in the video. If they were the slightest bit interested in helping anyone I would expect to hear at least some discussion between them about what, if anything, they could do. I know it is very easy to sit here afterwards and watch a video and say ’I’d do this’ or ’I’d have done that’ but even when presented with a scene in front of you like that wouldn’t you at least say ‘what can we do?’
The bystander effect is very strong. It’s obvious none of these people are trained rescuers, and also what the video omits is apparently the floating lifeless body of the pilot (I’m told other videos showed it).
I suspect the truth of the matter is that 95% of people even on this forum wouldn’t jump into that water especially when confronted with highly fragmented wreckage and the possibility of being confronted with PTSD-inducing gore.
Is it me misunderstanding? It looks like there were TWO more A5 crashes on the same day – July 27th 2019?
I know Icon have gone to great lengths to make the A5’s flying characteristics exceptionally benign.
…and now I think I understand why they wanted buyers to sign their “I won’t sue you” contract.
My impression is that the affluent buyers are first time pilots, with a “let’s have a blast mindset” and grossly underqualified when it comes to flying near water, which is precisely the purpose of their product.
Conclusion: A5 is a killer toy in the hands of its target customer base… I would bet that the FAA is going to tack on some type-specific training and pilot certification.
