Everybody likes a good mystery. Perhaps you are partial to the Mickey Spillane’s tough, hard hitting detective Mike Hammer. Or, maybe you tend to be more cerebral, enjoying instead Arthur Conan Doyle’s sleuth, Sherlock Holmes. Regardless of the style of mystery-solving you enjoy the most, if you are involved as a pilot in the realm of General Aviation, you will want to be well versed in SHERLOCK HOLMES AND CESSNA 208 TRAINING.
“The thing is,” Jason Wolcott, Vice President of TURBINE TRAINING in Manhattan, Kansas, noted, “there are, of course, a number of General Aviation crashes a year, but, for the most part they are pretty minimal.”
To Jason’s point, ten years ago, in 2006, there were 1523 crashes. That year there were 23,963,000 hours flown, equating to only one crash per 15,734 hours flown. There were a total 308 fatalities that year.
“I know that sounds like a lot,” Dale Wolcott, TURBINE TRAINING’s President, noted, “but statistics show flying is immensely safer than driving.”
Dale’s right. That same year there were 42,708 fatalities on the nation’s highways.
One of the main issues that the FAA has to deal with, of course, is determining the cause of each crash and that’s where the “Sherlock Holmes” part comes in. According to journalist and crash investigator Christine Negroni, in most cases, by applying the principle of Occam’s razor (when there are many explanations the simplest is the most likely) that research can be minimized.
“There have been studies done,” Dale added, “that indicated most crashes are the result of several particular causes.”
These causes include, but are not limited to:
- Loss of control in flight while maneuvering
- Loss of control in flight during initial climb
- Aerodynamic stall or spin while maneuvering during low altitude flying
- VFR encounter with IMC during enroute
- Loss of Control in flight during enroute cruise
- Collision with terrain or an object while maneuvering during low altitude flying
To learn more about TURBINE TRAINING go to:
www.turbinetraining.com
(To learn more about this topic, research “General Aviation Crashes”)