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Top 10 Causes Of General Aviation Accidents (2012)

Yes, there is:
http://www.sust.admin.ch/pdfs/AV-berichte//2141.pdf

As probably you could not read other than english:
cause of accident: 1. flight into IMC conditions at 3000m above sea level within a 3to 4 octas broken layer starting at 11000ft and above
2. bad choice of flifth path, bad tactic for high mountain flight.

I would at least try to make the impact at some slow speed, by trading energy for a climb rate so as to make contact with the ground at a low speed and not too sharp an angle.

You might not succeed. Downdrafts can easily overwhelm any SEP (or small turbine for that matter).

Here it is… in French

Link to PDF

[link fixed]

Last Edited by Peter at 14 Nov 21:11
Last Edited by Flyer59 at 14 Nov 20:09

Incredible …. Is there an accident report for this?

Yes, that one was very ugly.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

I am not so sure about the simple downdraught explanation.

If I was getting pushed down towards terrain, and given that obviously air cannot flow directly into the ground, and there was evidently no way out, I would at least try to make the impact at some slow speed, by trading energy for a climb rate so as to make contact with the ground at a low speed and not too sharp an angle. But the Fossett wreckage was spread out all over the forest; clearly it was a very high speed impact.

So he might have just flown into a bit of IMC and lost control.

There was a really bizzare crash in Switzerland a year or two ago – a Baron HB-GDS. Nobody could understand how the plane could have impacted with apparently little or no forward speed but a huge vertical speed. The final report thought he entered a bit of localised IMC. But as with so many GA crashes, nobody really knows.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I found it interesting that the example to illustrate no. 5, “unknown”, was Steve Fossett. Speculation that it was windshear/sinking air at maybe 700-1000 fpm that the Citabria could not overcome.

If nothing else, it is a warning to respect the lee of mountains in anything but the lightest of winds.

Chris N

Ridgewell, Essex

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.

I think it’s notable that any particular area and type of operation will have different statistics. Two of three (US) flights I’ve made in the last month involved turning the aircraft to avoid a collision: one while descending wings level, and another joining the traffic pattern. Mid-airs are accordingly something I worry about in my area, but other issues would top the list for other pilots.

Aircraft engines do seem to have ‘soft’ failure modes in general, I agree.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 14 Nov 14:48

It depends how they’re calculated. I was thinking no.3 cause of ga fatalities being caused by engine failure. Now that I think about it the example he gave involved a twin ditching in the sea without anyone getting hurt. So it makes sense that there are more engine failures than midairs… Still number 3 seems quite surprising to me. I guess a big percentage of that is still pilot error (carb icing, no proper maintenance etc..)

Is it just me or anyone else surprised engine failures are number 3? I thought they were much rarer than midairs..

Agree. I haven’t yet had time to watch the video, but I would also have thought that they were much further down the list. Food for thought…..

What counts as a “failure” is debatable; very few failures are instant mechanical stoppages e.g. a broken crankshaft or camshaft.

Yep, thought the same. Then again, if it leads to an accident then it’s serious enough, no matter the reason.

Last Edited by 172driver at 14 Nov 10:43
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