In short, All light planes are "safe". Mostly it is the pilot that makes them unsafe. When you get to the point where you strap the plane on and go bore holes in the sky you have it made. Cheers.

In short, All light planes are "safe". Mostly it is the pilot that makes them unsafe. When you get to the point where you strap the plane on and go bore holes in the sky you have it made. Cheers.

Haha!! Then you haven't flown in junk like I have! :( :(

Haha!! Then you haven't flown in junk like I have! :( :(

Then you shouldn't have accepted the aircraft if you felt that way about it. It is, after all, your own rear end in that plane. As eriksenp alerady said, it is only as safe as you are. So for the original poster, there is no answer for him except that as a pilot, it will only be as safe as he is.

From reading the report and examining the stats if you are a pilot that will not be flying in weather above your abilities, will not run out of fuel, will not be doing buzzing of friends, check your fuel, the statistics go down even further.

So for the original poster, there is no answer for him except that as a pilot, it will only be as safe as he is.

I'm sure any pilot who ran out of fuel or flew into dangerous weather, was thinking, until that point, that running out of fuel or ending up into dangerous weather could not possibly ever happen to him...Marco

....could not possibly ever happen to him...Marco

Which is exactly the mindset that causes accidents. The pilots that generally survive to an old age are those that think things can happen to them.

Which is exactly the mindset that causes accidents. The pilots that generally survive to an old age are those that think things can happen to them.

That's correct. But the statistics given by mgh still remain.I'm sure of all the pilots you've ever known, meet, or heard of, those (few) died in air crashes are still more than those died in car crashes, despite they probably spent a comparable (or less) time flying than on road vehicles.Marco

That's correct. But the statistics given by mgh still remain.I'm sure of all the pilots you've ever known, meet, or heard of, those (few) died in air crashes are still more than those died in car crashes, despite they probably spent a comparable (or less) time flying than on road vehicles.Marco

I'm not sure I understand what this has to do with the statistics. For a pilot or would-be pilot to ask "how safe is flying" is kind of meaningless. And to point at statistics to try and answer that question is even more meaningless. A pilot is in control of his own fate. He can either die flying or he can die in his sleep and have a 100% safe flying record. For a pilot, it is either 100% safe or 0% safe. Maybe a better way for the original poster to ask that question is "how mechanically reliable are airplanes?" What are his chances of dieing in a plane crash due to the machinery falling apart and failing him catastrophically. The original poster asks the question he asks because he is still of the mindset of the passenger. The passenger has no control over his fate once he climbs aboard an aircraft. And is thus subject to the probablities of both sudden, catastrophic mechanical failure and the probabilities of his pilot being one who thinks nothing can happen to him.For a pilot to accept some statistic of X% safety, means that he accepts that there is a X% percent chance that he will do something stupid to kill himself each time. If a pilot has been properly trained, approaches his flight with the proper mental attitude, then his probability of doing something stupid to kill himself will be much less than any of the statistics that have been posed in this thread, if not 0%. If a pilot has a tendency to push his fuel, push the weather, and push his capabilities, then his probabilities of crashing are much worse than any of the statistics that have been posted as well.Maybe mgh can look up the statistics of crashes due to mechanical failures. I'm sure he has them. But for somebody who does fly airplanes, the only relevant answer to how safe is flying is how safe am I. He can choose to be one of those pilots that make it into the statistics of those who've crashed from pilot error or not. And that is a determination only a pilot can make for himself each day and nothing that any amount of statistics can shed light on.

That's correct. But the statistics given by mgh still remain.I'm sure of all the pilots you've ever known, meet, or heard of, those (few) died in air crashes are still more than those died in car crashes, despite they probably spent a comparable (or less) time flying than on road vehicles.Marco

Marco-As for these stats-one must look a little closer.How many GA pilots achieve 100,000 hours in their lifetime of flying? If it takes 100,000 hours to have a 1.18 chance of fatality (as a pilot) what is the odd for a typical GA pilot with a typical logbook time that is far less than 100,000 hours over his lifetime. The one pilot I know who has a little over 25,000 hours in his logbook started in WWII and is now almost 90 years of age. So he hasn't even reached that 1.18 chance yet. Hours wise most people spend much more in cars-so even though the stats for cars are per million hours, over a lifetime perhaps the actual odds are not quite so different? At the rate I am going when I reach 40 years of flying and probably give up both flying and driving I will probably have 3000 hours of flying-v.s. 100,000 hours or more of driving. Now how do the two stats relate and the relative odds now relate?Now look at the Nabb report. Take the number of fuel exhaustion, weather over a pilot's experience, people that don't maintain their aircraft, flying drunk,suicide (there are usually a couple a year here) and performing mini airshows for friends. Read the reports of the pilot's who have gotten weather briefings where flight has not been advised and gone anyway with dire results.In my case-I have been nearly killed twice in car wrecks, and have personally known about 4 people that have met their ends in cars or by cars(none of the accidents or mine our faults but the other drivers').I personally haven't known anyone in 20 years of flying have a fatal air crash. I do know thru the grapevine of a few though-one had alzheimger's and no valid medical but decided to go flying at 88 years of age, one was known as a "daredevil"-took off with his plane overloaded and the c.g. too rearward and pulled into an "airshow" takeoff for friends and spun in, one decided to take a trip in severe ifr conditions with icing though only ifr rated, one bought an aircraft that had been sitting for years, started it up and tookoff with dire results.The real difference is in an airplane-you pretty much are responsible for yourself and your decisions. In a car-you delegate much of your trust to the other driver who may be literally a foot away in an opposite lane or next to you on a highway-and hope that driver is not deciding to text message at that moment.So like all statitistics ,I think one has to look a little deeper at the numbers. I think a close look at the nabb report I submitted above should give one great confidence in flying. If I recall-for a Beech Bonanza a fatal crash caused by engine failure is only about 3%....and that 3% does not take into account whether the plane was maintained. Most of the crashes after examining statistics are caused by bad decision making.Despite that-the op wanted to know his chances-and they are 1.18 per 100,000 hours. I bet he has about 3 now..In any case-to get to my 1.18 chance of a fatality I'd have to live another 150 years to get my 100,000 hours....By the way-I found some states that based the fatal rate per mile instead of hours...Auto=69,974 miles per fatalityGA=6,151,918 miles per fatalityUS airlines=71,241,050 miles per fatalityThat kinda goes with my personal experience.

Auto=69,974 miles per fatalityGA=6,151,918 miles per fatality

Geofa,This number above for GA is about correct but your Auto number is severely skewed. You missed some zeros big time.From the NTSB statistics it is something close to 1-3 fatalities per 100 million road miles traveled (depends whether rural or interstate highways) soin effect it is close to tens of millions of miles per fatality - not your mere <100,000 miles per fatality. Lets keep the numbers in the ballpark andnot be afraid of some honesty, shall we :( Flying in GA is roughly 6-8 times more dangerous than driving your automobile on the same distance. It is about as dangerous as driving a motorcycle.I absolutely agree that bad GA statistics are primarily caused by us pilots - but so is the case with the road accidents - bad drivers dominate the statistics. I agree with everything Kevin said - whether in the air or on the road in vast majority of cases we are in control of our own fate unless someone wants to bring God into the equation. So Pierre should not be afraid of an engine blowing up or a propeller separating from the shaft - primarily he should be afraid of himself whileflying.

Geofa,This number above for GA is about correct but your Auto number is severely skewed. You missed some zeros big time.From the NTSB statistics it is something close to 1-3 fatalities per 100 million road miles traveled (depends whether rural or interstate highways) soin effect it is close to tens of millions of miles per fatality - not your mere <100,000 miles per fatality. Lets keep the numbers in the ballpark andnot be afraid of some honesty, shall we :( Flying in GA is roughly 6-8 times more dangerous than driving your automobile on the same distance. It is about as dangerous as driving a motorcycle.I absolutely agree that bad GA statistics are primarily caused by us pilots - but so is the case with the road accidents - bad drivers dominate the statistics. I agree with everything Kevin said - whether in the air or on the road in vast majority of cases we are in control of our own fate unless someone wants to bring God into the equation. So Pierre should not be afraid of an engine blowing up or a propeller separating from the shaft - primarily he should be afraid of himself whileflying.

I just pulled these stats from another site. I think one has to compare hours to hours and miles to miles. The stats above compared the flight rate per hour vs. cars per mile. These stats translate the average hour of flight into miles and compare miles to miles Some people take exception to a compare like this as an airplane travels obviously so many more miles in an hour-neverless they are the stats.Neverless-I have always heard the motorcycle analogy-and I agree that is probably correct.However, when one corrects for bad judgement which I suspect is also the case with a large number of motorcycle accidents one can skew the statistics even more in ones favor.

This snippet gives you the number for 2008 (1.28 fatalities per 100 million miles) but also gives you a link to the NTSB pdf document.http://blogs.findlaw.com/injured/2009/04/r...n-the-rise.html

This snippet gives you the number for 2008 (1.28 fatalities per 100 million miles) but also gives you a link to the NTSB pdf document.http://blogs.findlaw.com/injured/2009/04/r...n-the-rise.html

Might want to compare it to the ntsb report comparing air miles (not hours) (I'll try to find a ga one but the stats I put above are the compare of miles to miles:http://www.ntsb.gov/aviation/Table5.htmand here is an interesting article from aopa which by the way states then when comparing miles an auto is 8 times more at risk of having an accident than an aircraft. The same point is made that the rate can even be taken much lower if one shows good judgement.http://www.aopa.org/asf/asfarticles/sp9604.html

I'll try to find a ga one but the stats

Again, this data is Part 121 operations - these statistics are definitely better than road statistics. But GA and Part 121 are world apart, lets not muddle the issue.GA rate is about 1.4 fatalities per 100,000 hours. The data you presented for air data was never wrong - it was your highway data that was completely messed upby a few factors I hope you realize that ...

Again, this data is Part 121 operations - these statistics are definitely better than road statistics. But GA and Part 121 are world apart, lets not muddle the issue.GA rate is about 1.4 fatalities per 100,000 hours.

I am not-you are quoting the rate of hours compared to auto miles. I am quoting flight miles compared to auto miles. Check out the aopa link I listed above.

Check out the aopa link I listed above.

Geofa,Give me a break please. This is AOPA and they have their own agenda. I respect them but please... don't spin the numbers for me.I rather go straight to the source - the NTSB which has both air and ground (GA too) and you can easily translate hours flown into miles -100 KTS or even 300 KTS - take your pick, take the number that looks better to you. Anyway, I am going to state one more time and I am done - I never questioned your GA data in your original post above, I questioned only your "Auto" data which was off by about ... 1000 times. :(