Monday, September 14, 2015

General Aviation Pilots: Save The Date, Maybe Save Your Life

By John Goglia

With 253 fatal general aviation accidents in 2014 – up 14% from the prior year – it’s time for private pilots (and those who fly with them) to seriously look at opportunities to keep themselves from becoming a part of a stubborn statistic in aviation: the number of fatalities involving GA pilots.   So here is an offer from the National Transportation Safety Board that no private pilot should refuse.  And that is a forum on the most common type of fatal accident in general aviation: loss of control.  As I’ve written about before, preventing loss of control accidents has been a major focus for the NTSB, the FAA and general aviation groups this year.

The NTSB forum, titled Humans and Hardware: Preventing Inflight Loss of Control in General Aviation, will be held on October 14 from 9 am to 5 pm ET at the NTSB’s headquarters in Washington DC, 429 L’Enfant Plaza, S.W.  The forum is free and open to the public.

If you’re nowhere near Washington DC and don’t plan to be on October 14th, no problem.  The entire forum will be broadcast live on the web at: http:ntsb.capitolconnection.org.  That date and those times inconvenient for you?  No worries.  The webcast will be archived and posted for 90 days for viewing at your leisure.

But view you must.  According to NTSB Member Earl F. Weener, who will preside over the event, “Every GA pilot gets training in loss-of-control events, such as aerodynamic stalls, yet about 40 percent of GA fatal accidents involve loss of control. We want to know what can be done to better address this stubbornly recurrent safety challenge.”

According to the NTSB’s press statement: “Topics addressed will include: an overview of the various types of loss of control accidents, human performance and medical issues, potential training improvements, and technological enhancements that can reduce loss of control accidents. The forum will feature presentations from pilots, instructors, general aviation advocacy groups, the Federal Aviation Administration, and manufacturers of potential technological countermeasures, among others.”

While, of course, it’s up to pilots themselves to take advantage of training such as this, I feel that educated friends and family that fly with them can make a difference by understanding the types of issues that can contribute to loss of control accidents.  Family and friends can be a major source of support in promoting training like this and also in educating themselves on the types of issues that can lead to loss of control – including weather, fatigue, medications and pressure to get home.

Original article can be found here: http://www.forbes.com

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