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Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 22:23:31 -0600
From: Snowbird <snbird@ibm.net>
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Subject: Re: NTSB fatals: Dopes in the air?
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Sam wrote:

>    I've been doing extensive reading of the NTSB accident reports. A
> majority of the fatal reports are due to (frequently) staggering
> negligence of the PIC.

Uh-oh, "serious zone" ahead

Yes, there is negligence.  But I'm not sure it causes a majority
of the fatalities.  I think in many instances, it's very hard for
someone who hasn't "been there done that" to tell what's going on.

Take airspeed for example.  Easy to say "whatta dope, he didn't
watch his airspeed, he stalled and spun".  But when an engine fails 
on takeoff for example, just how fast do you have to react to preserve
airspeed and prevent a stall?  I hope I never find out, but maybe
it might be faster than someone distracted by radios and a nervous
passenger and approaching hills might think.  

Take stalls for another example.  Easy to say "whatta dope, he stalled
the plane" when you're thinking of the kind of stalls we do in training
where the airspeed slowly bleeds off and the nose is pulled way up
to the horizen.  But if the wings (or worse yet the tail) got
contaminated by unnoticed frost or ice and stalls at a much higher
speed, or if the plane encounters wind shear and stalls in a "level
flight" pitch attitude, how fast and correctly would we all react?

Or take something like a crosswind or a scud running accident.  
How many of them were someone who had handled the same conditions
safely many times, and felt they were well within their envelope?

I guess when my husband was learning to fly I felt comforted by
the thought that "pilot error" was the cause of most accidents.
Then I started learning to fly and seeing flight decision making
in practical action.

There is always a big comfort factor in thinking that accidents
or misfortunes of any kind won't befall us because we're "not like
that", we don't wear short skirts or drive the streets at 2 am or
fly with less than 3 hrs fuel on board or whatever.

But IMO the concept that accidents are caused by "dopes" doing 
grossly negligent things should be approached with caution.  Yes, 
there is negligence, sometimes staggering negligence involved in 
some accidents.  But sometimes the negligence belongs to someone
else (as in a CO poisoning from a recently annualed cracked muffler).

And sometimes "pilot error" and negligence just might be the kissing
cousin of decisions which don't seem too unreasonable while we're
making them.  I could give examples of what I mean, but I don't want
to go on too long.  Just think about it.

Snowbird



But


