NTSB Most Wanted

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is responsible for suggesting safety regulations and for investigating accidents. Every year the NTSB publishes its "Most Wanted" list for safety upgrades they would most like to see. Its worth noting that the NTSB monitors many forms of transportation such as trains, highways, marine, and aviation. They are independent of the organizations that regulate those industries in order to prevent conflicts of interest during investigations. That independence from organizations such as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) also allows the NTSB to focus on safety. While the FAA has a dual mandate to promote safety and to promote aviation. These roles can sometimes put the FAA and the NTSB at odds over acceptable margins of safety or the feasibility of implementing safety upgrades. Suggestions by the NTSB are sometimes deemed impractical or prohibitively expensive to implement. Anyone familiar with the law of diminishing returns can understand the struggle of the FAA in this role. They rarely contest that NTSB suggestions can and will save lives, they do have to contest that some reforms are unrealistic for the airlines or general aviation (GA) or their respective pocket books. Pocket books that historically hardly have any money left in them after paying for the aircraft's fuel. This year the NTSB's most wanted safety improvement for GA was to "Prevent loss of control". This suggestion at face value sounds completely reasonable, who would argue that pilots failing at their basic job description of piloting by entering aerodynamic stalls & spins leading to their deaths should not be prevented? In this post I will argue for the FAA's likely position that this suggestion misses the mark and is not the true problem needing to be fixed.

In its own description of the issue (Prevent Loss) the NTSB seems extremely shocked that old pilots, who fly only on the weekends, only in good weather, with just a private pilot certificate that they received decades ago, crash much more often than professional airline pilots, who fly every few days, who train every few months, who get paid to be as good as they can. When one considers those factors it is really no surprise that loss of control resulted in 40% (Prevent Loss) of fatal GA accidents in the last decade according to the NTSB's statistics. Lets examine that number for a moment. 40% sounds extremely high but if we think about the situations that would cause deaths in aviation why would it not be that high if not higher? If your aircraft falls furiously out of the sky and hits the ground death is almost guaranteed. According to the FAA (Duquette, A.) lost of control and controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) are the number one and two causes of fatalities respectively.  According to the Aircraft Owners & Pilots Association (AOPA) (Rossier, R.) the fatality rate for a forced landing (No engine power) is 10% and the dreaded ditching in open water is still only 20%. So if you maintain control of your aircraft in a crash landing situation it is highly likely that you will survive and that is the number three cause of death. Hitting the ground on accident will always be the biggest killer for machines that are supposed to be in the air no matter how few accidents we have.

Aviation is one of the most regulated industries in the US. It is because flying is inherently dangerous. Ever since the Air Commerce Act was passed in 1926 new regulations have generally made the industry safer (Harris D.). Now there is so much focus on safety that flying in an aluminum tube across the planet is safer than walking down the street. We are extremely close to the natural entropy that can never be avoided. GA is and will always be much more dangerous than commercial flight by design. There is a real danger that GA could be regulated out of existence. GA already almost died once in a hail of lawsuits against manufactures. Lawmakers literally had to make it illegal to sue a manufacture over a faulty aircraft after a time frame just to get them to go back into business (General Aviation). I remember when I was a student pilot I noticed the huge regulation gap between FAR part 121 airlines & part 91 GA regulations. I asked my instructor why it existed and he gave me an honest answer that "No one cares if you crash your plane on your own.". The FAA regulates the airlines so much because they are protecting the public at large. Its a major part of American ideals and law that private individuals are free to take their own risks so long as they do no harm to the pubic at large. Most all pilots know what they should do but sometimes they do what they shouldn't. Its an error of commission that I'm sure every pilot has seen at one point from other "crazy" pilots at some point. We can't regulate away stupidity. I have personally seen a pilot go from the Florida keys at night, in a single engine aircraft, over open ocean, & into a 0/0 fogged in airport. We slept in the plane and waited for better weather the next day. Much of this problem really comes down to aeronautical decision making (ADM). Those who consistently make bad decisions and take massive risks will kill themselves. In two of the NTSB's example crashes for this issue one pilot (with no IFR rating) went into the clouds before spinning out & another crashed on landing while trying to take a "selfie". All pilots know (or at least they should know) how a stall works & how to get out of them, but no amount of training forces you to pay attention or take every flight seriously. Even if the FAA regulated that pilots must do mandatory stall and spin training only good pilots would take it seriously. The NTSB would be far better served to suggest ADM training to be a part of flight reviews. Pilots have a responsibility to themselves and their families to set personal minimums and follow them. I am reminded of a quote by Wilbur Wright who said "In flying I have learned that carelessness and overconfidence are usually far more dangerous than deliberately accepted risks."

Myself & my CFI flying to FL. (Fuel Stop in TN.)

References

Prevent Loss of Control in Flight in General Aviation. (n.d.). Retrieved February 12, 2015, from http://www.ntsb.gov/safety/mwl/Pages/mwl7_2015.aspx

Duquette, A. (2014, July 30). Fact Sheet – General Aviation Safety. Retrieved February 12, 2015, from http://www.faa.gov/news/fact_sheets/news_story.cfm?newsId=16774

Rossier, R. (n.d.). Differentiating precautionary landings, forced landings, and ditching. Retrieved February 12, 2015, from http://flighttraining.aopa.org/students/flighttestprep/skills/emergency.html

Harris, D. (2004, January 1). Civil Aeronautics Act (1938). Retrieved February 12, 2015, from http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Civil_Aeronautics_Act.aspx

General Aviation Revitalization Act | GAMA - General Aviation Manufacturers Association. (n.d.). Retrieved February 12, 2015, from http://www.gama.aero/advocacy/issues/product-liability/general-aviation-revitalization-act