AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2023 - 26

SAFETY SPOTLIGHT
Is GA safe?
Don't let sensationalized analyses
distort your perception of safety
BY RICHARD MCSPADDEN / Senior Vice President, AOPA
Air Safety Institute / AOPA Foundation Legacy Society member
IS GENERAL AVIATION SAFE? Like you, I'm frequently asked this
question by friends and family concerned about me and the safety
of their loved ones flying with me. The short answer is: Yes, GA is
safe. What's more, it's safer than it ever has been, trending even
safer. Recent proliferation of general aviation accident analysis
through social media distorts GA's safety performance, resulting
in more attention focused on fewer accidents. More people
are more aware than ever of our accidents, so it feels like we're
experiencing more. We're not.
People are less aware of the 26 million hours a year we fly
safely. That's more than 30 million safe takeoffs and landings.
There's no news, no dramatic analysis over non-events. Routine
doesn't drive clicks-those defibrillators in constant demand to
resuscitate social media channels.
The AOPA Air Safety Institute reluctantly entered the social
media analysis arena with our Early Analysis series that looks
at recent, conspicuous GA accidents on our YouTube channel
(@AirSafetyInstitute) and my TikTok account (@PropBlast). We
initiated these out of frustration with the growing popularity of
inchoate analysis by self-appointed doyens hunting " clicks " and prioritizing
drama over fact. In some cases, the speculation from these
analyses was flat out wrong and bordered on the absurd, but the
posts drew clicks. Our Early Analysis series is an attempt to quench
public interest in conspicuous accidents with level, deliberate analysis
that sticks to known facts and offers insight on likely avenues
the NTSB will pursue. We've learned that we can leverage interest
in conspicuous accidents as an avenue to " reach the unreachables "
with effective safety messages. We work hard to stay close to known
facts and discuss safety issues the accident exposes.
Let's put our general aviation accidents in some context. GA
is tied to $247 billion in economic activity in this country and 1.2
million jobs. GA is a vital pipeline for skillsets of all types in military
and airline aviation, but especially so for pilots. People travel
from around the world to access the exceptional training and
the freedom in this country to fly GA. Foreign governments send
their most critical pilots here for training to fly their most precious
dignitaries and fill their militaries. Americans Orville and
Wilbur Wright first harnessed powered flight at Kill Devil Hills,
North Carolina, and Charles Lindbergh became the most famous
person the world had ever known when he departed U.S. soil in
26
AOPA PILOT / January 2023
an American-built aircraft to cross the Atlantic. GA isn't just a
numbers game to us with important economic impact; it's a deep
source of American pride and identity.
GA encompasses a broad segment of activity. In general, if it's
not military or airline flight activity, it's general aviation. We fly
everything from light sport aircraft to Gulfstreams in activities
ranging from international, trans-oceanic travel to local flights
in and out of unprepared fields. Some 650,000-plus registered
pilots in the United States access more than 5,000 airfields in
200,000 private aircraft.
Our fatal accidents must be assessed in context of the amount
and diverse types of GA activity. Much of GA flying is recreational.
Pilots joining with friends to camp in remote locations only accessible
by GA aircraft; or pilots flying to a small airport just to drop
into an airport café or stroll downtown shops. Some formation
pilots fly just to join up with other pilots and fly in unison; some
fly sightseeing trips over this breathtaking country. Often pilots are
flying just to get airborne, gadding, with no particular destination
in mind. Flying is tonic to most GA pilots, the sensation of flight
rejuvenates them mentally and emotionally in ways indescribable
to those not enraptured by the experience.
Our safety performance over the last several decades is
impressive. We've dropped our fatal accident rate (our traditional
measuring stick) to 0.73 per 100,000 flight hours, a historic record.
That's less than half of what it was in the mid-'90s. All evidence
points to an ongoing, steady decline in the rate and fewer accidents
amid more GA activity in the future.
No one-and certainly not AOPA-is arguing that 200 fatal accidents
a year is OK. Our goal is zero. Some 75 percent of GA accidents
still involve some type of pilot mistake. As far as we've come, we've
got so much more we must do. Every fatal accident we prevent is
more people around holiday dinner tables. And so, we will continue
to press aggressively for even better safety performance.
So, when you click on the social media posts analyzing one of
these tragedies, keep in perspective all the safe activity that occurs
around it. Be deliberate about whom you give your " click " to, and
look for the responsible voices that stick to facts and use lessons
from the tragedy to prevent more.
richard.mcspadden@aopa.org
SpadMcSpadden
PropBlast
RICHARD MCSPADDEN
leads the AOPA Air Safety
Institute.
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2023

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