Fly Me Friendly

Yes, there have been more light aircraft accidents in 2008. Sadly, the author of this article appears to be trying to link the rise in Recreational Aviation to the increase, throwing in comments about maintenance being done by non-CASA certified engineers and how RAAus wants to increase the weight of aircraft it is allowed to govern.

Suffice to say, I submitted a comment to the newspaper:

Hi,

Is Paul Bibby trying to imply that RAAus is the reason for the increase in accidents this year? An interesting concept given that the aircraft involved in the 4 most recent crashes were in no way RAAus aircraft but were, in fact, covered by CASA and their maintenance, monitoring and training regimes (2 x Cessna 172s, 1 x Lake Buccanneer and a crop duster). Further, the two mid-air collisions in 2008 (Moorabbin and Bankstown) both involved VH registered aircraft that were covered by CASA, not RAAus.

So, while over half the fatalities were in the 0 – 2250 category, how many were actually weighing less than 544kg and thus governed by RAAus instead of CASA? It is also important to compare the number of fatalities against the number of hours flown. It may be that there are more deaths because people are flying more but that, over all, we’re having fewer accidents per thousand hours, etc. Paul’s report doesn’t supply that information.

Fewer regulations are not necessarily indicative of a lax safety attitude. In fact, fewer regulations that are easier to learn & follow often lead to a safer environment. It seems of late that CASAs view on air safety is that we’d be safest if no-one actually flew. RAAus has been working hard to safely get more people flying once again and it is no surprise that the Recreational space is growing while the CASA controlled flight training environments are shrinking.

The increase in aviation related deaths, while still tiny compared to Australia’s annual road toll, is a trigger that we should be reviewing our procedures & processes in general. From this review we can determine where it may be necessary to educate to address common factors or revise procedures.

Combining information about increased fatalities with references to RAAus having fewer regulations and wanting to increase its area of control only serves to make me wonder about Paul’s motives in writing this story.

Cheers,

Grant

Two more light aircraft accidents have occurred in Australia, taking the total since Christmas Eve to 4. The first involved a light plane hitting a concrete tank then crashing. The two men on board were injured and some additional information reveals it was a Lake Buccaneer. Indications are that it was probably doing a precautionary landing in a field when it clipped the tank. Ouch…

The second accident was a crop duster crash that killed the pilot & sole occupant. No real news available on that one as yet.

Four accidents almost as many days may not seem like much to some but in Australia that’s a fairly high number. While there may be the odd accident here and there, lately there seem to have been a few (mid air at Moorabbin in August, mid air near Bankstown in December, other incidents in between, now these two and the ones around Christmas Day). I don’t have links to all the details at the moment but the number of incidents does seem to be on the rise.

Seems a couple of light aircraft have gone down in Australia this Christmas. Both involved C172 aircraft, the first one carrying two men and reports say low cloud & rain may have contributed. The second one had a single pilot on board who hit powerlines and crashed.

While these reports are from general media and may not have all the facts, initial review leads to speculation that the first may have been “scud running” due to “press-on-itis” and the second may have been due to low flying. If so, it makes these accidents doubly tragic as they could have been avoided.

It’s important to read and learn from the ATSB safety reports as well as those from the FAA. Typically in aviation you don’t get a chance to learn from your mistakes (many being fatal) so it’s important to learn from the mistakes of others.

I’m counting on good flight training (practical & theoretical), learning from studying accident reports and generally asking myself “How will this look in the news?” to help me learn good judgment when flying. Of course, I’m really safe in my flying at the moment – I haven’t got the time or money to go flying – small consolation…