Fatal accidents down, even as flight hours increase

In 2016, general aviation fatal accidents dropped 11.7%, even as the number of flight hours increased. That makes it one of the safest years for general aviation on record.

That’s according to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) Air Safety Institute’s 28th annual Joseph T. Nall Report.

While the total number of accidents rose to 1,214 from 2015’s 1,173, fatal accidents dropped to 195, from 2015’s 221, an 11.7% decrease.

Meanwhile, flight hours grew to 24.64 million from the previous year’s estimate of 23.98 million hours flown, according to the report.

The drop in fatal accidents lends support to the effectiveness of numerous industry initiatives whose goal is to reduce those mishaps, according to Air Safety Institute Executive Director Richard McSpadden. When you measure the decline in fatal crashes, “the results suggest that 2016 was one of the safest years for general aviation on record,” he added.

“These numbers continue to demonstrate historic performance in aviation safety,” said McSpadden.

The Nall Report analyzes data from the most recent year for which probable causes have been determined for at least 80% of accidents. The Nall report covers airplanes with maximum rated gross takeoff weights of 12,500 pounds or less and helicopters of all sizes, accounting for 99% of GA flight activity.

Flight time of the GA fleet is estimated using the FAA’s annual General Aviation and Part 135 Activity Survey, which breaks down aircraft activity by category and class, and purpose of flight, among other characteristics.

Excluded from the analysis are gliders, weight-shift control aircraft, powered parachutes, gyrocopters, and lighter-than-air crafts of all types.

In fixed-wing non-commercial operations, the rates of both fatal and total pilot-related accidents declined, and accidents attributed to weather declined sharply, according to the report.

Still, pilot-related accident causes continued as a stubbornly significant factor in non-commercial fixed-wing aircraft accidents, at 775 accidents, although the 72.9% rate indicated a decline from 2015’s roughly 74%, according to Air Safety Institute officials.

Of the 1,036 accidents in the fixed-wing non-commercial category, 185 (17.9%) were found to be mechanical in nature. Mechanical causes were noted in 16% of the category’s accidents in 2015.

One of the Nall Report’s graphs dramatically portrays the sharp decline registered in the weather-accident trend, which has had its ups and downs between 2007 and 2015. In 2016, however, weather accidents — a topic of major emphasis in the industry’s safety awareness campaign — fell off sharply year-over-year from 39 total accidents to a 10-year low of 23, and from 30 fatal weather accidents to 12. As usual, most were attributable to visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions.

In other categories:

• There were 64 total commercial fixed-wing GA accidents, of which 19 were fatal, marking a decrease in total accidents, but a 10-year high in the fatal category.
• The 40 accidents that occurred during Part 137 agricultural aircraft operations were the most in a commercial fixed-wing category, with maneuvering implicated in half the mishaps. Thirteen Part 137 accidents were fatal.
• The 79 non-commercial GA helicopter accident total of 2016 established a 10-year low. The 17.7-percent fatal-accident rate (14 accidents) increased slightly from 2015.
• There were 35 commercial helicopter accidents, of which three were fatal. The fatal accidents and their rate marked the lowest in 10 years, according to the report.

The Nall Report honors the memory of Joseph T. Nall, a National Transportation Safety Board member who died as a passenger in an airplane accident in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1989.