ozone
Well-Known Member
So, I was perusing the NTSB website last night and I began to wonder: is there any correlation between number of accidents reported for a class of plane and its safety. For example, cirrus (all models) has about 12 pages of accidents listed (since it became a full-scale commercial enterprise), with around 80 fatalities. Diamond (all models, including gliders) has 6 pages since inception in 1995 with around 10-12 fatalities. Then there is Cessna (just looked at 172 models from 1995 to present)..232 pages for about 2000 accidents....didnt bother to count fatalities.
Trends i noticed:
1. most accidents were pilot-error (VFR pilot into IMC, takeoff stalls, hitting things attached to the ground, etc).
2. Alarmingly, I noticed that cirrus had a not-too-small number of front gear failures that were described as due to "inadequate welding" by the NTSB. More alarming: one of their test pilots died due to poor alignment of the ailerons relative to the wing...so it got stuck. AND, the pilot had no training to be a test pilot in either a military or civilian test-pilot school (?).
3. Diamond had 3-6 accidents due to "engine failure for unknown reasons"...most described by the pilots as 'i tried to give it more gas, but nothing happened' or 'i tried the pump, the auxiliary pump, etc...and nothing happened' Interestingly, diamond has seemed to use several different engine manufacturers along the way (rotax, continental, lycoming etc)
4. Cessna: in the first few pages, I found only one or two equipment failures...everything else was pilot error.
So, is this any way to look at the "safety" of an airplane, or am I off-base if I am going to think about buying/leasing/renting some day?
...And another thing: for the moment if we assume that one way to evaluate safety would be mechanical failure per number of planes in a particular model/brand....how would one find out how many of a particular model/brand are floating around the GA community in the USA? How many diamond DA40's are there total in the USA for example?
Trends i noticed:
1. most accidents were pilot-error (VFR pilot into IMC, takeoff stalls, hitting things attached to the ground, etc).
2. Alarmingly, I noticed that cirrus had a not-too-small number of front gear failures that were described as due to "inadequate welding" by the NTSB. More alarming: one of their test pilots died due to poor alignment of the ailerons relative to the wing...so it got stuck. AND, the pilot had no training to be a test pilot in either a military or civilian test-pilot school (?).
3. Diamond had 3-6 accidents due to "engine failure for unknown reasons"...most described by the pilots as 'i tried to give it more gas, but nothing happened' or 'i tried the pump, the auxiliary pump, etc...and nothing happened' Interestingly, diamond has seemed to use several different engine manufacturers along the way (rotax, continental, lycoming etc)
4. Cessna: in the first few pages, I found only one or two equipment failures...everything else was pilot error.
So, is this any way to look at the "safety" of an airplane, or am I off-base if I am going to think about buying/leasing/renting some day?
...And another thing: for the moment if we assume that one way to evaluate safety would be mechanical failure per number of planes in a particular model/brand....how would one find out how many of a particular model/brand are floating around the GA community in the USA? How many diamond DA40's are there total in the USA for example?