Comment by sokoloff | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sokoloff | Hacker News Reader

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That's in the ballpark, but 300 hours per year is way, way over the average. Anything over 100 is on the high-end of the range.

Several issues though:

The risk is far from linear. Infrequent pilots have much higher risk per hour.

The number of hours for part 91 (most private flying) flights cannot be reliably determined.

About 75% to 95% of risk is under the control or strong influence of the pilot. Weather, fuel, crew readiness, pre-flight planning and related issues are much more under pilot control (if you're willing to cancel or delay flights) than in comparable car trips. It's extremely rare for another pilot to kill you.

I came up with 9% if you assume two fatals per accident.

Light sport is restricted to day VFR, which is lower risk, other things being equal. Unfortunately, that also saps some utility and pushes you towards taking a late day flight rather than waiting for better night weather. I don't think LSA is viable for transportation, which makes it all the more unusual for someone to fly 300 hours per year.

(Context: I fly about 150-200 hours per year, which is 80+% of our vacation travel. I also read every NTSB fatal report.)

If you look at the stats (e.g. the Nall report on AOPA's website), the fatal accidents mainly boil down to two categories: pushing the weather, and low altitude stall/spins, and both of these are mostly down to the pilot.

So if you remove the "accident waiting to happen" category of pilots, the fatal accident rate will likely be much lower. I've heard it said that GA has a similar accident rate to riding motorbikes, which is another activity where the risk mostly depends on the rider.

The type of pilot who is most dangerous is the type-A business owner who feels they have to get to their meeting no matter what the weather. Unfortunately these are the people who will have $250k in their pocket and want to use a plane for transportation. Perhaps the only solution is to have self-flying planes, similar to google's cars. (And of course, they would need to be hacker-proof!)

The advice I was given is that, as a private pilot, you should never put yourself in a position where you can't wait out the weather. Making it to your job on Monday or your meeting or whatever is less important than your life and the lives of your passengers. You don't have to go up, but you do have to come down, as the saying goes.

Takeoffs are optional, landings are mandatory.

Good advice

Couldn't agree more.

Just this prior weekend, we had to be in Columbus, OH for my inlaw grandparents' 70th wedding anniversary and then I had to be back to head out to Re-invent in Vegas. With the hurricane possibility, we cancelled our plans to use our airplane and booked 3 day advance purchase trips on one carrier to Cleveland (to avoid connections on the east coast), then drive to Columbus, then fly out of Columbus on a different carrier.

Was expensive on its face (4 people, late notice direct flights), but cheaper than risking killing my whole family tangling with weather. Of course, the bad weather didn't end up materializing, but you have to be willing to make those calls frequently to use general aviation for travel to take the "get-there-itis" pressure off.

If you're going to sweat the money for commercial tix/hotels/cabs or are not willing to sit in the FBO weather room and pilots' lounge if you're caught in weather in the middle of a trip, your risk is going to be way higher than it needs to be.

Shockingly, I'd add fuel exhaustion/starvation to the list of common accident causes. It's astounding but sadly true...

Yes, that seems to be quite common, although mostly isn't fatal.

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