he NTSB, FAA and also Sector interest bands
Over the last couple of decades, NTSB, FAA and Sector interest bands have managed to highlight reductions from tragic GA crash levels as positive signs of progress. While this is much better news than when those amounts were rising, the processes used to compile official injury statistics are unique and straightforward enough that it may not be easy to assess their significance.
Worse still, the limitations of how and when Information is collected create questions of interest and useful consideration – like the value of time at type or changes in risk profile due to increased pilot experience.
Finding Aircraft Damage Is Easy If You Look for It?
A smoking crater with some remnants of aircraft might appear straightforward to spot at first glance: look for the gaping hole with bits of wreckage sticking out, right? Chances are good that this is where your aircraft went down. However, federal statistics are based on an exclusive definition of “injury”, which does not take into account both the immediate consequences on airworthiness or potential repair costs. Air planes can and often are involved in battles for damage that is costly to fix, yet doesn’t qualify as “large enough” to require coverage. Sometimes this damage goes undetected by the pilots responsible, only to be revealed during a subsequent pre flight review.
What constitutes an “injury” is determined by 49 CFR Element 830, regulations which dictate which events must be reported to the NTSB. To qualify as an injury, two conditions must be fulfilled: that an air craft was inhabited with “all intent of flight,” with an exception for drones; and there must be either loss of life or serious problems for someone inside of it or “considerable injury.” These will both be further defined below.
The Prior is generally instinctive, with symptoms including hospitalization for two weeks or longer per episode; harm to organs, nerves or muscles; instant or sudden burns up off; as well as cracked bones other than fingers, feet or nose. To be considered “lethal,” passing must take place within one month from the event. The latter will be considered “harm or failure that adversely impacts the structural strength, effectiveness or flight characteristics of a plane and requires significant repair or substitution” However, there is an extensive list of exceptions which quickly exclude many GearUp landings from retractables (view side bar previously mentioned, “You Do Not Call This “considerable?”). Motor failures that result in powerful driven landings without further harm are furthermore excluded.
Logical combinations often produce unexpected artifacts. When your pilot evacuates immediately to a hangar in order to program his GPS for landing on the runway, then it is likely an indication of an imminent collision. When your mechanic hits the hangar while performing an earth run, then it simply isn’t happening. Worse still, if the mechanic goes to the tail of a parked air plane while students and teachers are conducting the motor launch checklist, then their aircraft will likely soon be counted as having been involved in an accident even if it hadn’t actually moved. Therefore, NTSB staffers often start demonstrations with a series of slides to encourage viewers to vote “yes” or even “no more” on whether their picture led in collision. Even the straight-tailed 172 lying around its roof was now “no more” (it had been torn from its tiedowns due to a microburst). On the contrary, the Cherokee 140’s firewall has flexed every time a wheelbarrow landing dropped the nose equipment, making it an “absolutely.”
The Investigative Process
Viewing television footage of this “Move Group” and scanning through wreckage, it is easy to overlook just how small the NTSB actually is. Their federal team for roadways, castles and pipelines as well as aviation numbers just a few hundred people – less than the population of a small local healthcare facility. Administrative personnel, legal counsel and bookkeepers make up part of their staff while specialists from recording apparatus and substances labs make up fifty percent of it; sixty are actual on-the-spot researchers devoted solely to researching acute crashes.
Advice regarding severe events often originates from your FAA, emergency personnel and pilots involved. A lawyer from the local FSDO is usually the initial aviation expert on-scene; when there is little doubt as to facts, that contractor’s test becomes dependent upon that Board report. Even simple scenarios can be resolved entirely based on pilot written document (Form 6120.1): Who will sue if student admits losing control in cross wind?
The amount of detail recorded changes for additional reasons. Pilots who pass away in the cockpit tend to provide less advice –on training, practical experience, etc –than those who survive to be interviewed and whose logbooks cannot be located. As a result, two thirds of fatal injury pilots lack make-and-model practical experience and more than half who could not be recognized were killed during crashes that increased this problem (although these statements cannot be directly compared; neither implies the other is correct).