4 ms·

The Dangers of Private Planes

• dalke 12y ago
  "Because the rules are looser for general aviation than for commercial planes, the risks are much higher." Isn't that also because the full risk analysis should be weighted by the number of people involved? That is, "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", which is about a 42x difference. But each commercial flight averages more people than general aviation. While I don't know the numbers, even 10x makes the two modes much closer. By the same token, we have higher standards on bus and truck drivers than we have on standard passenger drivers. I don't want to suggest that GA is safe as commercial flights, or even cars. But I think a better comparison (from 2004) is at http://www.meretrix.com/~harry/flying/notes/safetyvsdriving.html http://www.meretrix.com/~harry/flying/notes/safetyvsdriving.... . It's conclusions, based on rather fuzzier numbers than 2 decimal places would suggest, is: - driving: 1.32 fatal accidents and 1.47 fatalities per 100 million miles - airlines: .05 fatal accidents and 1.57 fatalities per 100 million miles - GA: 7.46 fatal accidents and 13.1 fatalities per 100 million miles