General Aviation is a $20 Billion Industry in the United States; How Safe is it?
Most people consider the risk of dying in a fatal plane crash to involve an event involving a large commercial airliner, like the huge machines carrying hundreds of passengers for Boeing or Delta Airlines.
However, private planes and small aircraft bring with them a huge risk of a fatal accident. Over 90% of the civil aircraft registered in this country are general aviation aircraft.
Recent Fatal General Aviation Plane Crashes in Indiana and Illinois
Consider the following examples of fatal plane crashes in our local area within the past eight weeks:
- A small, single-engine plane claimed a life as it crashed at the Porter County Regional Airport outside of Valparaiso, Indiana. Here, the Piper Comanche failed to gain the sky as it lifted off mid-morning on December 13, 2018, and slammed into the field between two runways at the airfield.
- Two weeks prior to this fatal plane crash, on November 30, 2018, at 11:24 a.m., a Cessna Citation crashed near Memphis, Indiana, on its way to Chicago’s Midway airport. Three people died in this plane crash, including the head of TEG Architects, Wayne Estopinal, who managed the company that owned the Citation jet, EstoAir LLC.
Both tragedies involved civilian general aviation plane crashes which happened in the morning hours on a weekday.
What is a General Aviation Accident? Fatal Non-Commercial Plane Crashes
According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), General Aviation in the United States includes over 220,000 active aircraft, and is the largest and most diverse collection of aircraft in the world.
General Aviation covers all flying craft except for schedule passenger airline services, according to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA). These vehicles include:
- amateur-built aircraft
- rotorcraft
- balloons
- single-engine planes
- sophisticated turbojets.
General aviation offers both business and public transportation that is more advantageous in many ways from that provided by the larger airlines. General aviation services include:
- Package deliveries
- Commuting
- Medical transport
- Law enforcement
- Family vacation trips.
The FAA studies show that inflight loss of control results in the most fatal GA crashes. In the latest annual report (for 2017), 347 people died in general aviation accidents. The risk of dying in a general aviation crash has remained the same since 2010. The National Transportation Safety Board estimates that there will be one plane crash involving general aviation for every 100,000 hours.
Conceptually, it is hard to grasp how risky plane travel outside of a major airline is when one considers flight time. How dangerous are these small private planes and jets?
From LiveScience:
“Depending on how the statistics are sliced, private planes may be even more dangerous than the leading cause of transportation deaths in America: cars.”
LiveScience’s research reports that the accident rate for personal plane flights is up 20% in the past decade. Even more worrisome is their calculation that the death rate for personal general aviation flights is up 25% in the past ten years.
General Aviation on NTSB Most Wanted List
The risk of dying in a plane crash involving aircraft other than a commercial passenger plane is so high that the National Transportation Safety Board has placed General Aviation Accidents on its “Most Wanted List.” The NTSB reports that:
- Nearly half of all general aviation accidents are caused by loss of control in flight.
- To prevent unintended departures from flight and better manage stalls, pilots need more training and a better awareness of the technologies that can help prevent these tragedies.
- Loss of control continues to be the biggest killer in general aviation.
What is Causing Most Fatal Plane Crashes in General Aviation?
Most fatalities involve a pilot’s loss of control while the plane is in flight. This is called an “LOC accident,” where the aircraft has an unintended departure from controlled flight.
What happens to make the pilot lose control? All sorts of things can happen as the plane is in the sky. However, the FAA and NTSB point to many GA plane crashes being caused by:
- Distracted driving by the pilot;
- The pilot loses his or her situational awareness;
- Weather causing the pilot to lose control of the plane.
Usually, loss of control by the pilot in a GA plane crash results from a stall. The plane stalls. Unlike a car that can roll to a stop, the plane may have no choice but to spin downwards. This is called a “post-stall spin,” where the pilot fails to keep the plane inside its normal flight envelope.
Stalls may happen because a pilot lacks understanding about how a stall actually relates to exceeding a wing’s critical angle of attack (AOA), as opposed to the more common idea that it’s just related to airspeed. When airplanes are close to the ground, such as in a landing pattern, there is limited time and altitude available to recover from a stall or spin, making these stalls particularly deadly. Although LOC happens in all phases of flight, approach to landing, maneuvering, and initial climb are, statistically, the deadliest phases of flight for LOC accidents.
Justice for Plane Crash Victims and Their Families after a Fatal General Aviation Accident
In both Indiana and Illinois, there are special aviation laws that exist to protect and provide for victims of private plane crashes and general aviation accidents. Federal law may also factor into these fatal plane crash claims.
One of the key elements in any aviation accident is the determination of what caused the plane crash.
Investigation into the accident may find that the fatal plane crash was caused by a number of things which place legal liability on a number of defendants, from the airport to the plane’s owner or manufacturer, to the maintenance crew as well as the pilot and his or her employer.
Personal injury and wrongful death claims may be available for victims of an Indiana or Illinois general aviation plane crash.
The popularity of air travel is growing, as general aviation is promoted as alternative transportation for everyone to enjoy, getting away from the stereotype that general aviation and small planes are a rich man’s game.
Accordingly, as more small planes take to the skies we can expect to see more and more of these fatal plane crash tragedies. Please, let’s be careful out there!
