Whats going wrong in Recreational Aviation lately?

[Guest Rocko]

Hey all

 

I know this is a pretty unpleasant subject, but it's one that has me, and others I've talked to locally, really concerned.

 

Whats going wrong in recreational aviation recently?

 

The fatalities seem to be spiralling out of control. It's not the one or two per year, where some dope tries flying his 2 stroke Victa lawnmower powered special into a hill without a license. We're now talking serious aircraft, that really shouldn't be crashing like this!

 

Is it poor maintenance?

 

Is it poor piloting?

 

Is it insufficient training?

 

Or, most concerning, is it something wrong with the whole recreational aviation attitude, where people are becoming complacent to the point of stupidity?

 

Yes, I'm well aware that a few of the incidents lately have been occurring in GA registered aircraft. Thats no excuse. Quite a lot haven't been!

 

I enjoy this flying thing. I also like to think I'm as safe as I can be. And, honestly, I'm bloody well sick of hearing some "Ultralight pilot", flying his "Ultralight" aircraft, has become yet another statistic due to clogged fuel lines from a tank full of crap he didn't check, taking off in ludicrous weather conditions, not checking an engine for oil, or some other preventable reason.

 

Because we all know where this will end. The whole things going to reach critical mass, and some government body will slam their regulations down our throats, limiting us as just another "minority group", and taking away ALL our "privileges". Because, lets face it, they ARE simply that...privileges...tolerated by an aviation industry and government that don't really consider us that important.

 

Think it won't happen? Take a look at whats happened across the country for riders of Jetski's. Legislation that makes it beyond difficult to ride freely anywhere! And their fatality rate per hundred riders isn't even close to ours!

 

Personally, I'm tired of having friends ring me up to tell me that yet another "ultralight" has crashed. That a whole families future has been ruined because someone else has died in an accident, taking their passenger with them. And, I am REALLY tired of being labeled as an idiot by most people for doing something I love, because of a small group who seem to think the rules don't apply to them. THAT's the public perception we're getting, from these incidents!

 

Don't get me wrong. I hold a lot of sympathy for those people killed, and in particular their poor families left picking up the pieces. But the buck stops somewhere. Most often, thats with the pilot! Yes, some accidents are unavoidable, but a lot aren't!

 

So, whats the deal. Who's doing anything about this? What are the authorities doing? What are WE doing? When we see someone do something we know is dodgy, what do we do about it?

 

Lets perhaps open a reasonable general discussion on this, look for the fundamental reason for the increasing trend, and see if some real solutions might be out there? Without a flaming war, preferably, since the "Oh, you're a heartless bastard" label has worn pretty thin lately.

 

Perhaps, if a few good suggestions come out of it, they can be passed on to the RAA for further discussion.

 

Cause personally, I want to keep flying into the future. And these spate of accidents isn't helping ensure this!

 

Scotty

 

 

[Guest pelorus32]

G'day Scotty,

 

I care about this a lot, I fly and my 15 year old daughter does as well.

 

The first thing I say is "there but for the grace of God..." the people involved in these accidents, I'm sure, didn't want to end up like that. But I think that it can happen pretty easily. These were people just like you and me.

 

I have my own views about what is going on here. However I think that what we have a right to expect is that our association will start to talk clearly, to us, about the patterns that I think are apparent in the recent group of accidents - or the patterns that they find. They are the people who can finally discern whether a pattern exists; what the pattern is; and most importantly what we might do about it.

 

I'm not going to speculate because I think it is dangerous for ignorant people like me to speculate. But I do want quick-smart direction from RAAus on this. One death is one too many and we're not talking about just one.

 

And to be clear I don't mean restrictions. I mean targeted action designed to overcome the problems - these are human errors.

 

Regards

 

Mike

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

The performance of aircraft keeps going up but the training sylibus is probably dragging behind. It will have to start with training the instructors.

 

 

[facthunter]

Come downs

 

And I thought it was only me, Rocko.

 

I think there's an attitude of Don't bother me with all that stuff, " I JUST WANNA HAVE FUN -YEE HAAAA". Not with everybody, of course. I'm always accused of taking it too seriously, but I sure take death seriously. Most of these occurrences do not have to happen, they are the result of an incorrect action and as such, are preventable, and very sad indeed. There are times when I wonder if we will ever achieve a practical working safety culture. It has to be an attitude, an ever- present way of thinking, which governs the way you do things. My belief is that it can be achieved by the information supply ( quality & quantity ) TRAINING & KNOWLEDGEBASE, rather than more onerous checking, which often serves little purpose other than to make it look as if you are addressing the problem. Nev..

 

 

[Yenn]

We need quicker info on all accidents and full follow up info. From memory we seem to have a lot of landing incidents, but without going back over past magazines it is impossible to see if there are any trends in fatalities.

 

I know of some stupid decisions made by pilots, but luckily they have not resulted in accidents. I once made a snap decision to change my landing direction onto a different runway at an angle to my approach, and payed the price by hitting a mound of dirt hidden in long grass. That taught me that it is better to do a go round and a proper approach than to make snap decisions.

 

With the internet it is easy to be kept up to date on incidents, but of course political correctness comes into play and those in the know don't want to be seen to be pointing a finger.

 

 

[Guest brentc]

You only have to look back a short period of the crashes that we have read about even on this forum alone to develop a trend.

 

I can think of 8 fatalities within around the last year for starters.

 

For all of those there must be literally dozens of close calls.

 

I'm afraid that whilst membership was small, fatalities and severe crashes were indeed limited. It now appears that RA is big, more hours are being flown and more crashes and fatalities are occurring.

 

The trouble is that in RA world versus GA world, often poor engine / aircraft maintenance becomes pilot error due to owner maintenance. In the GA world, if you have an engine failure, it can possibly be the fault of the LAME, therefore as a result actual Pilot Error statics become much lower. In RA world, with owner maintenance, aircraft problems become pilot error in many cases. (I hope that makes sense)

 

What can you do? Let's take the following real-life examples. How would you stop them from occurring?

 

I'll elaborate:

 

- Fuel Starvation causing engine failure and crash

 

Joe Blow runs out of fuel on a short flight and crashes because there is nowhere to land. 2 fatalities occur.

 

- Poor engine maintenance, followed by poor pilot judgement

 

Brian is having trouble with his engine. He tweaks and tweaks and decides that it's ok. He then takes off thinking that it's ok, and it wasn't. 2 fatalities occur as there was nowhere to land after take-off.

 

- Unauthorised aerobatics in non-aerobatic aircraft

 

Fred shows off to his best mate and does this way-cool wingover and doesn't manage to recover from the following spin. His aircraft is not aerobatic, but he's done it so many times he's an old hand. Fred and his passenger lose their lives.

 

- Poor engine maintenance causing failure

 

Len services his engine and is distracted by his hangar mate and forgets to put oil in. He goes off for a fly with his mate and the engine fails. They are not high enough above terrain and they can't glide to safely and both lose their lives.

 

- Max is flying along and one of his propellor blades breaks off. The engine shears off it's mount and the aircraft is left in the air with no engine. The aircraft comes crashing back down to earth and both pob lose their lives. The propellor was fitted by Max only a week earlier and came used off another aircraft.

 

What would you say are the cause of these accidents?

 

- Pilot error / poor judgement?

 

- Mechanical failure?

 

- Bad luck?

 

- Stupidity?

 

How would you stop these accidents from occurring? Would a risk of fine / enforcement mean that Len would have remembered to put oil in his engine?

 

Each accident is so different and the reasons are so varied. You can't just say, 'well don't fly over tiger country' because nearly everyone does and if you're engine fails at the wrong moment, it may be all over. Better flying training? How would that have helped the above examples when someone forgets to put enough fuel in?

 

I feel it's a can of worms and I'm also open to suggestions.

 

 

[Guest Fred Bear]

You did well to bring it up Scotty and others too with their comments. Agreed that of late it is getting a little silly. Scotty, I personally think you should forward what you posted here to our magazine in the 'letters' section and see the response that you will get. It will only echo calls for greater airmanship and safety. See yesterdays article Daily Telegraphy-Sydney. They were talking about all the 'ultralight' crashes of late and why is there so many? They made a mistake by calling us Regional Aviation Australia when infact it is Recreational Aviation Australia (as we all know). Would pay to get it right before trying to sensationalise on the 'ultralight' hype again. We certainly do not need this sort of publicity, ever. Middo did make a comment in there that ultralight pilots are subject to similar 'tests' as a GA pilot.

 

 

[Guest pelorus32]

Great summary Brent. Here's my crack at what the issue is with each of your examples:

 

Joe Blow: Human failure - he failed to plan and monitor appropriately (assuming there was no more complexity to it than that)

 

Brian: Judgement failure "he thinks it's OK". At worst the test flight should have resulted in 1 fatality - second judgement error;

 

Fred: A violation therefore a pilot problem;

 

Len: Pilot/maintainer error - where was his careful pre-flight.

 

In summary each one of those is a human problem. More simply there was nothing wrong with the aircraft or engine per se and the wings/tail/control services didn't fall off and cause it.

 

Our problem is people and because people fly planes it means that we are going to keep getting these errors until we do something about them. I would even go so far as to question whether stick and rudder has much to do with any of your examples.

 

Regards

 

Mike

 

 

[Guest brentc]

I would even go so far as to question whether stick and rudder has much to do with any of your examples.

Probably not. I don't think I can call the last time an uncoordinated turn caused a fatality, so perhaps stick and rudder skills is not the answer. I don't think that imposing penalties are either.

 

If I can re-iterate too that those are REAL life examples.

 

I don't like to say it but I think the owner maintenance situation must come under further scrutiny at some stage. We enforce Level 2's for work on school aircraft, but yet what is the difference between a private operator with un-suspecting passenger versus a student? Does the life of an instructor and student hold more value than that of a pilot and passenger? No. Problem is then that the current L2 structure wouldn't allow for such a big change. Interesting problem with a difficult solution.

 

 

[Guest pelorus32]

Probably not. I don't think I can call the last time an uncoordinated turn caused a fatality, so perhaps stick and rudder skills is not the answer. I don't think that imposing penalties are either.

I'm with you about the penalties - that's not what we have to do. I think in fact that penalties will just tend to drive it underground. I've got a good mate who's a human factors and CRM guru in the airline industry. He's been pretty instrumental in CRM in Australia. His view on penalties however is that you do need to penalise the violators. Violators are people who deliberately break the rules - and generally they keep doing it. So your man doing aerobatics is probably a case in point.

 

I think it's reasonable that you might penalise someone for doing a high-speed beat up on a busy day for instance. But that's a side issue.

 

If most/all of those accidents were judgement/human error rather than stick and rudder then the work we have to do is on that side of the equation.

 

We need to be looking at the attitudes of the people and how to help them develop and maintain safe attitudes (in their heads not with the elevators:;)3:). We need to be helping them with the management of flight not simply the process of flying. How far ahead of the aircraft were those people?

 

That trite saying when you get your pilot certificate: "this is a licence to learn" is actually very true. We develop the S&R and some basic management skills up to certificate time. What we develop after that is the deeper judgement and management stuff, hopefully built on the basic attitudinal stuff that we got during our training.

 

Run out of steam...:yuk:

 

Regards

 

Mike

 

 

[Guest Rocko]

Worrying trend...

 

I agree that the poor buggers running the RAA are totally in touch with the problem, but seem to be wringing their hands in despair. Every time I get the RAA mag over the past year or so, they're using their monthly columns to emphasise and reiterate the rules, and subsequent recent breaches of them. Obviously, it's not helping, since the incidents are still going up.

 

It's the same situation we have with provisional drivers, who keep killing themselves. The statistics go up, no matter what the authorities do to counteract it. Eventually, the incidents become so problematic, that the government is forced to step in and take drastic action against ALL provisional drivers, in an attempt to cut the death toll.

 

We're no different, are we. If this trend doesn't stop, we're all going to pay the penalty.

 

It's as was posted above. The aircraft are reliable. The engines are reliable. Even the whole concept of flying a recreational aircraft is perfectly reliable. In most cases, the reliability breaks down with the pilot.

 

The drink driving and speeding issues on our road show pretty plainly that increasing the penalties for rule breakers achieves diddly squat. People still drink and drive. People still speed. They KNOW it's wrong, but they do it anyway.

 

Perhaps the only way to change that thinking is re-education. Not just a simple biannual flight review, but going right back to basics every few years. Going over preflight inspections, basic maintenance, general theory, and the like. Reeducate the pilot, and you might have them rethink their decisions before making them.

 

Personally, I HATE that sort of stuff. Totally bores me to tears, and I get enough of it with work. But it does achieve it's aim, which is keeping people current, and their knowledge and skills base updated.

 

There will be people out there who won't like it, I'm sure. But if the choice is between keeping the freedoms we already have, or being bogged down totally in red tape and administration in the future, I'll vote for the reeducation anytime.

 

Scotty

 

 

[Guest terry]

boys boys boys emotive comments and opinions lacking facts only results in knee-jerk regs to try to control people. This is not something new but a human response to a situation not to our liking. I for one like very much the freedoms that we as aviators enjoy under raa and wouldn"t like to lose that because of a lack of tack by some in trying to deal with it. My thoughts are, what"s needed is swift honest analysing of all incidents involving fatalities and publishing the results as quickly as is possible so that all pilots can learn from the accident while the emotion of the death of a friend or at the very least a fellow aviator is fresh in our minds. Forums like this one I think are excellent for dispersing information but the lead must be taken by the governing body in this case raa. An attitude of education rather that regulation or the threat of it should prevail in all cases even if this means helping someone with something you think they should already know. Anyway thats my two bobs worth. Have a good day.

 

 

[poteroo]

I'm going to start at the other end of the unhappy chain of events.

 

Before dismissing lack of, or currency in, stick & rudder skills, maybe we need to know whether the forced landings should have been survivable - if handled with 'average' skills. Lots of pilots & pax survive in unbelievably rough terrain, because they managed to get down in the few square metres of cleared space. If the answer is...probably, then maybe we need to revisit the teaching and currency of forced landing skills.

 

Now I have reason to believe that there is some weakness there. I do quite a few GA AFR's every year, and the F/L is one not handled very well, especially from < 1000ft agl. With probably 50% of reviewees, ( with a spread of hours from 100-1000, it's necessary to re-fly the exercise several times for them to get it up to some reasonable standard. Interestingly, a lot of the problem seems to be a reluctlance to slow the aircraft down, and to execute late turns to adjust to conditions, But worst of all is a perhaps fatal pre-occupation with doing check list after checklist - when the situation calls for some positive, even aggressive, flying.

 

It might be part of the solution anyway,

 

 

[Guest Redair]

Thoughts

 

Greetings each, well having read through all this, I would just like to chuck in my two penneth.

 

Firstly, I would be interested to know, the average age of people who are taking up ultralight flying. The reason being, that when you consider comercial, GA and forces pilots, you find that the majority of them start their flying at an earlier age, where they have, in general, faster reactions, and a better ability to take on new and high stress tasks, couple this with the tens, hundered and even thousands of hours spent training and practising even the most common tasks, it would seem that even a dedicated ultralighter will never reach the same level of airmanship. That's not to say that they aren't taking the matter seriously, far from it, but it surely must be more difficult for someone who flies once or twice a week, or even once a month to be aware of the many possible problems that could start a chain reaction, which unfortunately results in an accident. It would be a tall order for instructors to be able to cover every possible eventuality which could lead to a crash, but a couple of sugestions to help with educating pilots could be:

 

1. emailed accident reports from RAA to all members, including FULL details of how when what and where, (names do not have to be included of course) together with a clear "What not to do" section at the end to avoid the same situation.

 

2. an RAA or even TAFE course on basic mechanics which would have to be passed before a flying certificate was issued. (As a mechanic, I have seen some wierd and wonderful things done to cars, by people who thought they had it right, or because their mate had told them how to do it! Many of these problems and their potential for disaster have been totaly underestimated).

 

As for ultralights and the people that fly them having a bad name, the person I work for and for that matter his whole family, are all of the opinion that ultralight means "accident waiting to happen", and this was his view BEFORE the recent spate of accidents. The name Jabiru is now uttered every time he hears that there has been an accident involving an aircraft, whether or not "Ultralight" has been mentioned. This sort of thing cannot be good for recreational aviation, and while people are out there with no understanding or knowledge of aircraft in general, making uneducated remarks, the future of our little corner of the skies will be under threat. Educate the pilots, and the public!!!

 

All for now, Redair.

 

 

[jcamp]

If we compare the current RAA accidents as per the press with the private GA situation in the 70's it's probably about the same with the only difference being some of the weather stuff being replaced with low level.

 

 

[sain]

I dont think its just RAA having a problem at the moment - a lot of GA planes seem to be going in as well. Some of the "ultralight crashes" reported on the news have been VH registed light aircraft, which I dont think helps our cause much either.

 

 

[Guest brentc]

There have been at least 6 deaths in this last financial year in RA-Aus that I can think of from my short term memory. I'd say that was a problem. I highlighted some of those in my covert post earlier. I'd say that there is a problem that indeed needs strategic action.

 

 

[Yenn]

It seems we are all worried about curtailment of our activities so we have to act. If you see someone doing something stupid. Speak up and say what you think, it may go down better than you expect from my experience.

 

Talk to RAA about our aim for the future and also about giving out details of accidents. They don't kneed to have names or even locations or dates.

 

Lastly try to set a good example of safe flying and recurrent training.

 

 

[Guest TOSGcentral]

A bit of a spin ball here - read it and ponder.

 

These are the words of John Donne - there is a lot of truth in them.

 

"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness.

 

...No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

 

The answer to flight safety is not in stricture nor regulation it is in attitude and our flight culture. If we act more as a self supporting congregation, with wise teachers, then watch the accident rate drop.

 

Aye

 

Tony

 

 

[Guest Rocko]

Basic mechanics is a good idea!

 

Some time ago at an airfield, while working on my plane, I overheard another pilot who had landed at the airstrip bitching that his muffler bolts kept coming loose, and allowing the muffler bracket to separate from its mount. It was apparently just supported by the clamps to the engine itself with normal, non-nyloc nuts, and wasn't wire tied.

 

I said to him "Try putting some Loctite on them."

 

His reply was "Whats Loctite?"

 

I said "You know....Loctite! Thread locking stuff"

 

"What's that do?", was the reply.

 

So, I got out the tube I keep in my kit, and showed him how to use it. Stuck some on his bolts, loaned him my torque wrench and helped him torque them up, and he went on his merry way.

 

True story.

 

Perhaps a basic mechanics course as part of the flight training would be a very good idea, as Redair suggested.

 

Especially for those people planning on working on their own engines.

 

"What's Loctite" indeed!

 

Scotty

 

 

[Guest Fred Bear]

Scotty, scary thing is there are people like this all over the shop. Believe it or not I have seen them personally too. You just think "It's only a matter of time". I agree with the comments about notifying the RAA in confidence. That may work.

 

 

[dreemhi]

I don't think the answer is more and more rules and regs, although they do have a place. It really comes down to attitude and in flying that means airmanship. Few of us are as good as we think we are so if we try to be better we might actually end up as good as we thought we were.

 

David

 

 

[Guest micgrace]

Hi

 

Wasn't there supposed to be on at some time courses for aircraft maintenence and that was cancelled?

 

Be very good idea if such was actually available, even though, couldn't really turn someone into, say, an engine mechanic in a few short lessons.

 

But at least would point out some of the shortfalls in your own work and provide some grounding as well.

 

The backyard owner horror repairs I've seen in Qld on road vehicles wouldn't want to be translated to a/c.

 

Virtually all A/C I've looked at here were maintained to a high standard, and if the owner didn't know he soon found someone who did.

 

Micgrace

 

 

[Guest David C]

I don't think the answer is more and more rules and regs, although they do have a place. It really comes down to attitude and in flying that means airmanship. Few of us are as good as we think we are so if we try to be better we might actually end up as good as we thought we were.David

I've been giving this subject a lot of thought since the initial posting , and keeping quiet because I have been trying to view it from all different angles . Almost all accidents are caused by human error . The same applies whether it is boating , driving , walking down the street or flying airplanes . I think the quote from dreemhi above puts it all in perspective . You can fly a perfectly maintained plane , in tip top condition , but if your airmanship is not of the same standard , you will probably come unstuck one day .

 

Dave C

 

 

[Guest Redair]

Thoughts 2

 

The media is not helping this situation, because of the need, (their perceived need, not the public's) for more dramatic headlines and news footage, even the smallest of incidents seem to get blown out of all proportion. Take the recent Blackhawk helicopter crash, replayed again and again on every news bulliten. There are people inside these aircraft, some survive, others are less fortunate, and would any of us be happy to see the last moments, or even the aftermath of an accident which had claimed the life of one of our relatives, replayed countless times just for ratings and sensationalism? I agree that there is probably very little we can do to stop the media vultures trying to grab peoples attention, but as has already been said, most, if not all accidents can be traced back to human error. So the answer is more to be found with us, than with the media... don't give the buggers the chance to make you part of the headlines! More care, more time spent, and more professionalism in every aspect of flying, from rebuilding an engine right down to cleaning the widows. Airmanship isn't just about the flying and navigating, it's about the attitude we should all have in every aspect of aviation. (This of course includes GA, commercial and forces pilots).

 

It is a wise man that learns from his mistakes, but it is a wiser man that learns from the mistakes of others.

 

Redair.