is Flying Dangerous?

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Is Flying Dangerous?

Most of us pilots have people that ask us: “but isn’t flying dangerous?” While I would not use the term: dangerous, I would say that all flying has its associated risks.

Up to 85% of flying accidents in general aviation is associated with pilot error. So, who’s dangerous, the plane or the pilot, or if you will, the gun or the shooter?

UPDATE: As of October 2007, there have been a ten year all to many stall/spin accidents (mostly in the pattern) which almost always takes place in the pattern and more often than not in the base to final phase of flight. The ten year total of all Gen Av stall/spins is 404. That is about 40 of these needless fatalities per year. Of the ten year total, only 14 of them involved Mooney aircraft, so every year there are 1.4 stall/spin accidents in Mooneys. Relatively low comparatively, but 100% more than there has to be if the patterns are simply flown correctly and not in a tight formation to the runway, but low banking leisurely turns.

No one sets off to be a “dangerous pilot”, but the fact remains that some pilots are more dangerous than others.

So, most accidents are attributable to some kind of poor planning or poor decision making by the pilot.

Some pilots are simply more apt to have an accident or incident than others. Just the same as some drivers drive in a dangerous fashion, so to do we have pilots with the same tendencies.

According to the FAA, we are several times more likely to have an accident over some route than when driven in a car. That’s

a very sobering thought isn’t it? How about motorcycle riding. Its accident rate is somewhat comparable to flying!

Personally, I have found flying to be safer than driving. I have people trying to kill me every day in a car, but over 30 years of flying, have had only a hand full of times whereby my life was in jeopardy. I think that I did not lose my life for two reasons in any of those hand full of times. Number one is preparedness. Be prepared for anything and have a plan of action. This takes study and practice, lots of practice. Read accident reports and say to yourself what you would have done differently to have had a happier outcome. Number two is in the strength of the aircraft that I choose to fly. The Mooney. One of the most over built, super well engineered aircraft. After hitting a tree with one, and having penetrated several thunderstorms over the years, I’m still here. I have suffered one complete engine failure and survived that because of the wonderful glide ratio of the Mooney airplane. An off airport landing in the hilly Kentucky terrain I was over would have busted the plane up to say the least, but I was able to land right on the numbers at Lexington Ky.

That leaves a small percentage of accidents attributable to mechanical failure. Do we trust our mechanics too much? I think so. They are human as we are, and many of us complain about our bills which trains our mechanics over a time to do a minimum of work to repair our crafts. It is up to us to study up on our aircraft’s systems so that we can understand what the mechanic is telling us and we can inspect the work ourselves with some degree of knowledge of what took place.

I cannot state enough the importance of each of us to learn about our aircraft as much as humanly possible. We should be somewhat of an expert on the plane’s we fly, and that takes work and study.

I have always maintained that the best pilots are those who possess a mechanical ability or at least understanding. One’s brain needs to work in a mechanical way so as to consider all possibilities and have a quick reacting method to deal with it when and if it crops up.

I know of an experienced pilot who crash landed a Mooney in the Rockies because he had fuel starvation. One tank ran out of fuel and he elected to land the plane in a field rather than to discern he needed to simply switch tanks. Another pilot was a multi engine instructor I hired at one time to help me pick up a Cessna push pull Sky Master. We were talking plane to plane on the way back, and all of a sudden he yells in the radio: “double engine failure!”. He stated that he was going down the check list. I yelled back to screw the checklist, switch tanks! What else could take out 2 engines on a nice VFR day other than running a tank dry? Sheesh!

We need to recognize these things in flight and have an immediate course of action.

I could go on and on regarding this subject, but suffice it to say that if you study up on what you are doing and understand the mechanics behind it, don’t fly over your experience level, keep plenty of gas in the plane, strain the fuel, keep a sharp eye out for other aircraft, ask yourself “what if” in everything you do, chances are that you will end up an old pilot that feels his flying was safer than when driving. Remember the saying: “there are old pilots and bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots”.

Because most accidents are preventable, it is up to us individually to prevent them.

If you soul search and admit that you have room for improvement as a pilot, then by all means improve it. We owe that to everyone who trusts us enough to fly with us. If you choose not to take the time it takes to become a really proficient and safe pilot, then fly solo. If our poor accident rate were better, more people would be flying, and the more people who fly, the cheaper our new aircraft and parts will be.

There is only one way to fly in my book, and that is to:

Fly safe!

What If???

Are you a defensive driver? I have known few of those. Many people don’t think a thing of getting in a 4,000 pound mass of steel and plastic, aim it down the road, and drive like they have horse blinders on. Their world is narrowed down to a few inches of eye scan, rarely knowing what’s behind or to the side of them. You see them all the time around you. They change in to your lane without even looking, tail gate like you’re not there, and pull out in front of you like you’re some no count entity that disappears by not even giving the thought that you may be traveling up to 70 mph on the highway, then pull right out in front of you.

These are the people who get hurt and hurt others every day in the “private space” of their car. I hate seeing accidents, especially those involving injury and death, yet I see it nearly daily. I get upset at seeing some of those life altering accidents because most accidents are attributed to inattentiveness and stupidity. Yes, stupidity! I travel near daily on highway 281 in South Texas, which is loaded with cross streets, while the oncoming cars on 281 are legally traveling up to 70 mph. They just pull right out in front of you not even thinking how fast you are going, and what it takes to stop or steer around that stupid driver who pulls right out there. Dumb, dumb, DUMB!

Now, some of these dumb drivers are also pilots. I’ve seen them pull on to the active runway with planes on short final. I’ve seen them use cross runways that intersect the announced active without using a radio. They’re just there, and if you’re not looking beyond your active, to the sides, you might just miss one of these dummies.

I could go on and on about the stupid things I’ve seen pilots do.

I learned to drive at 14. Sheesh that was 40 years ago. My brother in law, Ray Rude taught me in his 1960 Dodge pick up truck. He taught me the basics of defensive driving at the time. I have really appreciated that, as I have not ever had a traffic accident in the 40 years I’ve been driving, including driving some large trucks during one business venture.

Luck? Sure. There is no doubt some of that involved, but I have avoided so many accidents by being attentive and always having a way out. Ray taught me to drive and to ask myself; what if? Being prepared and attentive is what I mostly owe my lack of accidents.

So, when I began flying back in ’71, I was scared stiff as heights scare me white, but I applied what Ray taught me about driving to my flying.

There are lots of pilots out there who have a ton more hours than I do, and accident free as well, but I have flown small planes over 5,000 hours with no accidents. Some incidents certainly, but I have yet to land off airport for any reason. So far, I’ve always made it back.

Recently, a doctor repeat customer of mine voiced concern about a recent runway encursion accident at Oshkosh. This was my reply:

Dmitri,

It is always important to keep in mind that flying can be as safe as we’d like, or it can be as dangerous as a cornered rattle snake. We have that choice to make each flight. After year after year of successful flights, it is easy for the human spirit to become complacent. Complacency has no business being in the cockpit. Often that attitude has us stray from our original flight lessons that teach if an approach does not look good for any reason; GO AROUND! We forget those basic safety lessons with time because we begin to feel that we can handle anything; hell, we’re experienced pilots! Taking mother nature on in any capacity can and will eventually lead to sadness unless certain rules are applied. Never should anything be left to “luck” when flying. It may amaze you that when I fly with so many pilots, few of them actually see the picture in front of them and continue landing even though there may be a deer, dog, or even a vehicle on a runway, yet they continue the approach! Tunnel vision is an enemy of ours and we must fight that tendency and train ourselves to look for hazards in a cinemascope way. About three years ago was when I was driving up highway 281 here in San Antonio near Bulverde, Tx. It had rained a lot and the grass on the divider was very tall when all of a sudden an old Chevy II Nova appeared coming out of the grass in the opposite direction and headed straight for me. I did a wild maneuver around that car only to see it tracking in my mirror down 281 in the opposite direction heading straight for two older women in a car I had just passed. They had all the time in the world to see and avoid even though I only had a second or two, yet they crashed head on critically wounding the women. The Chevy II driver was already dead via a heart attack as I later found out. Some people can actually be looking at an object with their eyes but their brains don’t believe it so they continue on.

Flying is as much psychological as it is physical. No one flies with me without learning to apply the term: “What If”….. What if there is traffic nearby. What if there is an object on the runway. What if the engine quits now, etc. Those that are psychologically prepared and ask themselves “What If” during any old boring scenario (because they’ve done it a thousand times), those are the ones that eventually get bit.

I had always promised myself that because I love flying so much, I refuse to let it kill me. The responsibility of such a statement is far reaching and requires continuous learning from other’s who paid a great price because at one flight or another were not as “frosty” or attentive as they should have been.

We have already chosen to fly the safest (by far) airplane in its class, so we owe it to that wonderful Mooney airplane to be the safest pilot’s in our class. The combination of the two makes for safe and enjoyable flying flight after flight.

Food for thought.

z

THERE ARE OLD PILOTS AND THERE ARE BOLD PILOTS, BUT THERE ARE NO OLD, BOLD PILOTS!

If you want to survive private flying, and survive it using something other than pure luck, you have to be a good, defensive flier! You must never get yourself in to a situation whereby the outcome is iffy, i.e. box canyons for you mountain types, questionable weather, questionable aircraft condition, or more importantly, questionable pilot ability, and ability to ask; What if, and have an out for anything you do in flight.

Do you trust your engine 100%? Don’t. I’ve had several total engine failures. Do you trust your airframe completely? Well, if you’re in a near unbreakable Mooney, I guess you can, but any plane can be overstressed, over grossed, or over balanced.

If you trust a tower or air controller completely, you may some day be disappointed. They are subject to mistakes just as we are. I was once vectored IMC out of Van Nuys Airport toward a mountain that is just north of Hollywood/Burbank Airport. I knew the mountain was there because I was raised there. The young sounding controller was very busy, but I broke in to ask him if terrain was nearby. He immediately vectored us to the east asking us for maximum turn rate. At that point we broke out on top, and sure enough, there was that huge mountain ridge above us.

Out of Santa Barbara, a tower controller cleared us for take off while a chopper was hovering near the end, but in line with the runway, and so on.

What can you do in these instances? You can be a defensive pilot who is aware of his or her surroundings, and not flying with “blinders” on.

A wise pilot once said that if you are ready for everything, nothing will happen. There is some truth to that statement. Always fly conservatively and attentively. Keep your aircraft as well maintained as you can. That takes more than money. TRUE! I have had aircraft in stock for sale that have receipts for tens of thousands of dollars spent on the past annual, and the plane was still lacking good maintenance. How’s that possible? By paying someone who has carte blanche over your plane, but lacks the real knowledge necessary in your make and model. Those owners were under a false sense of security.

Question everything, but more important than that is to question yourself and your abilities, and whether you’ve spent a lot of time going over flight problem possibilities and what you would do if……….

Flying can be fun and safe, and we want you to become an old pilot, not a young bold pilot so if done correctly FLYING IS NOT REALLY DANGEROUS!

Have fun, but

Fly safe,

zef