The Dangers of Private Planes

By DAMIAN FOWLER

JULY 16, 2014

Summer is the season when the pilots of private planes like to take to the skies. But summer flying often means thunderstorms and extreme changes in weather that can lead to accidents. It’s also a time to think about a system that doesn’t do all it can to protect those pilots and passengers. Flying in small private planes is far riskier than flying in commercial aircraft.

The death of Richard Rockefeller, who crashed his single-engine plane last month in a residential area of Westchester County, N.Y., was just the most recent reminder of the hazards. And while that crash made national headlines, every week there are small plane or helicopter crashes somewhere or other in America that don’t involve a celebrity, politician or businessman.

Just type “private plane crash” or “helicopter crash” into Google Alerts and the updates come in regularly. In January, in Aspen, Colo., a twin-engine private jet crashed and burst into flames, killing one and injuring two. In February, in Nashville, a twin-engine aircraft missed a landing approach and all four people on board died. In March, in Ridgway, Colo., an airplane went into a flat spin, crashed into icy water, and killed five people. Just yesterday, a small plane went down in New Jersey.

The National Transportation Safety Board found that in 2011, 94 percent of fatal aviation accidents occurred in what’s called general aviation. That category includes private small planes flown by amateurs as well as professionally piloted corporate flights in high-powered aircraft, such as the Gulfstream IV jet that crashed in May in Bedford, Mass., killing all seven people on board. By contrast, commercial aviation had no fatal accidents that year. Statistics from the N.T.S.B. show that general aviation aircraft average nearly seven accidents per 100,000 flight hours, compared with an average of 0.16 accidents per 100,000 hours for commercial airlines.

Why the difference? For one, there are different administrative rules for each category: Part 121 of the Federal Aviation Regulations for commercial airlines, Part 135 for on-demand charter flights, and Part 91 for general aviation. Because the rules are looser for general aviation than for commercial planes, the risks are much higher. General aviation pilots can be certified to fly a given aircraft with a relatively low number of flight hours.

Most general aviation accidents involve some kind of pilot error. There are many factors that can contribute to this, with bad weather being the No. 1 culprit.

An October 2012 report from the Government Accountability Office found that the highest incidence of fatal accidents in general aviation occurred with single-engine piston airplanes, on personal flights, in which pilots lost control of their aircraft. In some cases, bad weather was to blame, and according to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, nearly 75 percent of weather-related accidents are fatal. (Dense fog was a possible factor in the Rockefeller crash.) Between 2008 and 2012, there were 7,502 general aviation accidents in the United States. Of those, 857, or 11 percent, had weather as a cause or contributing factor. Recognizing this, the Federal Aviation Administration just began an eight-month national safety campaign titled “Got Weather?”

An N.T.S.B. study found that bad weather exposed weaknesses in a pilot’s knowledge, training and skill, which were usually the real contributing causes of an accident.

The current policies are not working. Five years ago the F.A.A. set a goal of reducing the accident rate in general aviation by 10 percent by 2018. But it has remained static, with the N.T.S.B. reporting an average of 1,500 aviation accidents a year, resulting in about 450 fatalities.

Perhaps the F.A.A. should require all general aviation pilots to carry liability insurance, which would force pilots to have the superior training the insurance companies would require.

There is currently no federal requirement that the owner or pilot of a private aircraft carry insurance to cover injuries to passengers or a third party on the ground. While some states do require this, the regulatory environment is an inconsistent patchwork.

Typically an insurer will be more rigorous than the Federal Aviation Regulations in setting a minimum number of flight hours in a specific aircraft model, and may require additional training for a pilot who is considered inexperienced or has few flight hours. “The insurance companies study these statistics, know what leads to safer flying, and most importantly to them, have a vested interest in the pilot being properly trained and experienced in the aircraft before they take on the risk,” said Stuart Fraenkel, a lawyer and associate adjunct professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

This lack of federal regulation can have a serious impact for victims. Last year, a single-engine plane crashed into a house in Palm Coast, Fla. The owner of the wrecked house was lucky to survive but stunned to find out that the pilot had no insurance.

Before jumping enthusiastically into a friend’s small plane this summer, it may be advisable to ask the pilot about the weather forecast — and whether he has any insurance.

Damian Fowler is the author of “Falling Through Clouds: A Story of Survival, Love, and Liability.”

Source Article:  http://www.nytimes.com