A new ATSB report into the last decade of aviation incidents in Australia points a worrying finger at the safety record of General Aviation.
The ATSB statistical report, entitled ‘Aviation Occurrence Statistics, 2001 to 2010’, examines aviation accidents and incidents between 2001 and 2010 across all aviation types in Australia and concludes that the rate of fatal accidents in GA is 3½ times higher than for air transport activity.
During the past 10 years, there were 236 people killed in 147 fatal accidents in General Aviation in Australia. The report defines GA as including all VH-registered flying activities except scheduled and charter passenger and freight operations.
Within General Aviation, private/business flying accounted for the highest accident and fatal accident rate and the greatest number of fatalities (135 people) between 2001 and 2010.
This is followed by aerial work and flying training. In aerial work, the accident and fatal accident rate is similar for fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters. In contrast to this, flying training and private operations helicopters have a higher accident rate than fixed-wing, but overall are associated with a smaller number of total fatalities.
ATSB Chief Commissioner Martin Dolan said anyone involved in General Aviation, and private pilots in particular, should take heed of these findings.
“This report is a startling reminder of the dangers facing private pilots and General Aviation as a whole,” Dolan said. “What’s more, many of these tragedies could have been avoided with simple risk management procedures.”
Dolan says the ATSB is focussing more effort on targeting General Aviation with safety messages due to the high number of accidents in this area.
“We’ve been preparing a series of publications for General Aviation and private pilots,” he continues. “We have drawn graphic attention to the consequences of doing risky things such as low flying, which has led to a series of fatalities over time.
“We are also assisting private pilots to better assess the set of risks they are facing and how to deal with this risks.”
It should be noted that for a whole raft of reasons – including the experience and training levels of GA pilots versus that of RPT pilots, and the fact that the latter are much more closely scrutinised by both an employer and CASA – it is inevitable that GA will have a higher accident rate than the air transport sector.
(Sydney Metro Airports)
