I have never been a passenger on a plane, and I have never been big on the idea of riding in one. It's not that I'm necessarily afraid of something going wrong, but more like the loss of control and idea of being so far up in the sky that makes me nervous. I always thought that if I go on vacation I would prefer to drive. After learning more about airplanes in this class, I have become more interested in the idea of flight and the experience of flying. I'm starting to think it would be fun to be on a plane. Because of my peaked interest, I decided to look on the internet about the safety of airplanes. I came across one article from last month that explains how unsafe private planes actually are.
We've all heard it said before that we are much safer in an airplane than we are in a car. We always hear the stories of large airliner planes crashing or going missing. We also hear the stories of private plane crashes that involve celebrities or children. What we don't hear on the news everyday is the many other plane crashes that are happening. The article by Stephanie Pappas looks into just how often there are private plane crashes. She explains that general aviation has become safer since the 1970s, but that it remains much more dangerous than commercial flight. The accident rate in general aviation hasn't changed much over the past several decades while the airline industry has improved their accident rate in the United States by 80 percent. Pappas suggests that private planes may even be more dangerous than cars in America.
The fatality rate for general aviation has remained about 1 death in every 100,000 flight hours. The accident rate in personal flights has actually increased by 20 percent in the past decade with the fatality rate increased by 25 percent. If we are looking at raw numbers, 30,000 people die in car accidents each year compared to 400 that die from general aviation accidents. When looking at these numbers you need to put them in context. Many more people are driving on a daily and yearly basis than those that are flying. If we convert traffic fatalities to hours driving then we see that the fatality rate for automobiles is 1.1 per every 2 million hours. If we do the same for general aviation, fatalities come to 21 per every 2 million hours. This would suggest that a private plane is 19 times more dangerous than a family car.
Why do so many private planes crash? According to NTSB statistics, it usually comes down to pilot error with loss of control being the largest category. A private plane crash is most likely to happen from the result of a stall/spin situation in which the pilot does not have the altitude to recover. Private planes also lack safety features such as co-pilots, backup navigation and information systems, and extra engines. Private pilots are required to complete training every two years, but maybe the requirements aren't enough to ensure safe flight. The NTSB is looking to take methods used in commercial airliners and applying them to general aviation in order to create a safer flying environment.
(Hofstetter blog post #3)
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