AOPA Pilot Magazine - April 2022 - 102

FLY WITH AOPA
Lessons learned
What the 'Nall Report' teaches us
BY IAN J. TWOMBLY
Since 1950,
the general aviation accident rate has decreased
by 90 percent.
were powerplant failures. And that doesn't include fuel issues.
In fact, nearly 20 percent of all accidents were powerplant failures,
not including many more that didn't reach the high bar of
an NTSB notification.
5. Having an instrument rating doesn't protect you from
danger. Conventional wisdom would say that having an instrument
rating makes you somewhat immune from many weather
accidents, such as the dreaded VFR into IMC. Yet an instrument-rated
pilot was on board in more than 70 percent of the
34 weather-related accidents.
That's just a sampling of the dozens of lessons that come
from the report every year. Spend a few minutes to dive in and
it's impossible not to rethink risk and the way you operate your
aircraft.
ian.twombly@aopa.org
airsafetyinstitute.org/nall
The 'Nall Report'
EVERY YEAR THE data geeks at the AOPA Air Safety Institute
gather, parse, and publish reams of information on aircraft accidents.
It's a job that requires answering dozens of questions about
things such as intent, result, and cause, and then painstakingly categorizing
the information for the greater good of the community.
The result is the Joseph T. Nall Report, an analysis of accident
trends from the most recent data available from the NTSB. Despite it
being publicly available and having fascinating insights into the relative
risk of what we do, most pilots unfortunately won't read it. So,
we've done the hard work for you and brought forward five things
we learned from the thirty-first annual Nall Report:
1. Accidents are up, but trending at historically low levels.
When someone waxes poetic about the good old days of aviation
they aren't talking about safety. Because general aviation is as safe
as it has ever been. Yes, the accident rate was up slightly in 2019,
the year of focus in the thirty-first Nall Report. But the rate is still
lower than almost any time in history. Fatal accidents were 0.88
per 100,000 flight hours and the overall rate was 4.88 per 100,000.
2. We're lousy at landings. In noncommercial fixed-wing flying,
landings are by far the riskiest segment of the flight. They
accounted for nearly a third of all accidents, and half of pilotrelated
accidents. Thankfully they are rarely fatal. That distinction
goes to weather accidents, where 30 of 34 resulted in loss of life.
3. Tailwheel pilots need more practice. Despite being a
relatively low percentage of total aircraft on the ramp, tailwheel
aircraft were involved in more than 40 percent of all landing
accidents. That's striking, and significantly more prevalent than,
say, gear-up landings.
4. Our engines are more fragile than we'd like to believe.
In general, we think of our engines as reliable, but that's a mistake.
Of 2019's 194 accidents caused by mechanical failure, 132
102
AOPA PILOT / April 2022
The Joseph T. Nall Report analyzes GA accidents in
U.S. national airspace and on flights departing from
or returning to the United States or its territories or
possessions. The Nall Report honors the memory of
Joseph T. Nall, a National Transportation Safety Board
member who died as a passenger in an airplane accident
in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1989. The report covers
airplanes with maximum rated gross takeoff weight
of 12,500 pounds or less and helicopters of all sizes.
Collectively, these types of aircraft account for 99 percent
of GA flight activity. Other categories are excluded,
including gliders, weight-shift control aircraft, powered
parachutes, gyrocopters, drones, and lighter-than-air
crafts of all types.
NOTICE OF ANNUAL MEETING OF MEMBERS /
The annual meeting of the members of the Aircraft
Owners and Pilots Association will be held at 9 a.m.
on Thursday, May 19, 2022, at the headquarters
of AOPA, 421 Aviation Way, Frederick, Maryland,
21701, located on the Frederick Municipal Airport
(FDK), for the purpose of receiving reports and
transacting such other business as may properly
come before the meeting, specifically including the
election of trustees. If you are not able to attend, but
would like to appoint your voting proxy, please visit
aopa.org/myaccount or call 800-872-2672.
-Justine A. Harrison, Secretary
DID YOU KNOW?
http://www.airsafetyinstitute.org/nall http://www.aopa.org/myaccount
AOPA Pilot Magazine - April 2022

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