AMEN JIM..

You guys who think flying GA is safer than driving are, without a doubt, wrong.

I use to say that, as well. However, after my mild night incident, I've studied everthing I can on GA safety and statistics, as well as emergency landing techniques and options. I've equiped my plane to be the safest plane for my experience and mission that is available - IMO and within reason.

The following is from http://www.meretrix.com/~harry/flying/n ... iving.html

It is a very well thought out comparison. It does not break out motorcycles and I can't find my report that did, but I will - I have it here somewhere. I won't quote the full article below, but the crux is this:

Of course, the next hurdle we face is that our flying accident rate is based on the number of hours, while the driving accident rate is based on miles driven. To directly compare them, we have to either pick an average speed for GA aircraft and compare by hours, or else pick an average speed for cars, and compare by miles. We'll try both of these approaches.

GA flying covers small training aircraft capable of cruising at 100mph, and business jets capable of cruising at several hundred miles per hour, so choosing an average cruise speed is difficult, but for the sake of argument, we'll choose 150mph. This gives us a comparison of:

GA: 7.46 fatal accidents and 13.1 fatalities per 100M miles
driving: 1.32 fatal accidents and 1.47 fatalities per 100M miles
So when compared on a mile to mile basis, flying has 5.6 times as many fatal accidents, and 8.9 times as many fatalities (these number would be even worse for flying if we took out motorcyle and pedestrian fatalities).
How about if we compare on an "hour to hour" basis? That requires an assumption of an average speed for autos. We'll choose 40mph. This leads to the following numbers:

GA: 11.2 fatal accidents and 19.7 fatalities per million hours
driving: .528 fatal accidents and .588 fatalities per million hours
On this basis, flying has 21 times the number of fatal accidents and 33.5 times the number of fatalities per hour of operation.

Flying in a corporate jet is way more safe than driving, flying in an SR22 is way more dangerous.
Flying with a conservative, regulation abiding, experienced pilot in an SR22 is way more safe than flying with a wreckless, scofflaw in a corporate jet. Just saying....

....Flying can be safe if you make it that way. The choice is yours.

This entire debate boils down to a couple questions: Did the Lancair pilot chose to land where he did? And if he did have a choice, was it reasonable for him to believe he may kill someone on the beach?

If he had no choice except to land on the beach, he should not face criminal charges. Even if he did choose the land on the beach, he should not be prosecuted if he could not reasonably have foreseen that people would be endangered by his landing on the beach.

On the other hand, if he chose to land on the beach, and if it was reasonable to believe that people would have been on the beach, his conduct could be considered reckless under the law and he might face criminal charges.

As a prosecutor and criminal defense attorney I've been involved in scores of homicide investigations, prosecutions and trials. I can predict that if the pilot here is investigated for his conduct, how prosecutors answer these two questions will decide whether he faces charges.

There has been some confusion evident in this thread, so I'll just say that manslaughter is a criminal charge. It is distinguished from a wrongful death suit, which is brought in civil court. (Remember OJ Simpson? He was acquitted on criminal charges but found liable in a civil wrongful death claim.)

The two camps on this thread are divided between those who think the pilot had a choice and made a bad decision and those who think the pilot had no choice and that the entire affair was an accident or act of God.

I already stated my belief: that the pilot chose to land on the beach and should have known he might hit someone. To me that is reckless conduct. You are free to disagree.

Now Jason has taken a lot of heat here, some of it very mean-spirited and personal. (Even I have been accused of posting here so that I could drum up business—which is so absurd that I won’t even respond.) But if you read through Jason’s posts you will see that what he is suggesting is that the pilot in command is . . . in command. Rather than giving a knee-jerk defense to a fellow pilot, which is tempting, Jason is suggesting that the pilot made a command decision, that the decision was poor, and that because of it someone is dead.

It may well be that panic shrunk the Lancair pilot’s brain to the size of a pea, as someone suggested. And certainly he was stressed out, and prosecutors should take that into account. Admittedly we don’t know everything about this incident, and when I said I would charge him with manslaughter I thought I was speaking casually among friends, venting some anger, and not giving a binding legal opinion. If investigation shows the man really had no choice, I’ll support him one hundred percent.

But the facts we do already know suggest this pilot, while stressed, was not panicked. He made decisions, as PIC, and he had several minutes to make those decision while descending from FL130. By all accounts the beach was if not crowded then populated. His statement about oil on the windshield is not corroborated by the picture of the plane. Bottom line: he was forced to land, yes, but he was not forced to land on the beach. I think his decision to land on the beach was reckless, but if you disagree I’m not going to tell you to quit flying or that women think you’re ugly.

If you read the non-aviation coverage of this incident you will find a lot of people are outraged by this. As GA pilots need to be mindful that we are seen as dangerous cowboy menaces by a lot of people, and this incident confirms a lot of folks’ rational and irrational fears about us and what we do.

You missed the point. I think they were saying that flying is safer, but ONLY, if all aicraft would be equipped with hand held compressed air horns and/or PA systems that could play (maybe a separate button on the pilots yoke) Dukes Of Hazzard themes or some good old Wagnerian Marchs (I love the smell of napalm in the morning?)
If the NTSB feels that simply "yelling out" when making a dead stick landing, might have helped, the horn thing makes even MORE sense. Seriously.

Amen, Scott!

I have several rules for me and my flying:

- never fall into the gotta-get-there rush.
- don't skimp on maintenance.
- don't run out of gas.
- don't buzz.
- don't fly at night.
- stay proficient with instrument flying.
- avoid ice.
- stick with my personal minimums for go / no-go decisions.
- don't fly without XM unless CAVU.

I can still be killed flying, but if I abide by my own rules it is less likely.

If evidence exists that this thing was misting oil on the way to Florida, and he knew it, and elected to try to get back to his shop or mechanic, he should be tried and convicted, at least for negligent homicide. That is the operative decision I think should affect his criminal culpability, not beach or water.

Not likely a prosecutor is going to be that sophisticated.

I have stayed out of this but following an offline discussion with a good friend of mine who knows this pilot, I no longer can.

Does it change anyone's mind regarding how he approached the whole scenario if he did a full crosswind, downwind, base, and final looking at the beach and saw no one there?

Is that "due diligence" enough? If not, then how can we say "good job" to the guys (including those here on BT) who've looked for the clear spot between cars on a highway when deadsticking it in, rather than taking to the trees? What if they hit a motorcyclist they couldn't see? Wanton disregard for public safety there too? That's crazy.

I would have a very hard time passing up an apparently clear beach if I had loved ones aboard, realized my lack of real experience ditching compared to innumerable practice dead-sticks into fields and airports, and knew how poorly ditched airplanes can deal with water impact. And that does not mean I have a reckless disregard for life. Sorry, the love for my wife and kids trumps all else, whether or not they "signed up for this." They also signed up for me using my best skills to keep them alive, and the beach it would be.

Ok, wait, I think, if clearing turns were made, then he did take reasonable care.

See, an awful lot of stuff is unknown, and much of it can affect the outcome.\\

Yes, Jason did make some reasonable remarks. He also made some that went sailing over the moon....no offense Jason. The issues also get clouded because different people are responding to different subjects and the topic goes around like a roller coaster. Ebbs and flows like the tide.
Werent we having an LOP chit chat and this just took off? I cant remember now.
Oh yeah...Jason? Forget the Baron. Forget Beech. You are a perfect candidate for a Cirrus. Im not making a joke either. I understand that your concerns are as valid to you as mine are to me. The ballistic parachute was created for people that are as concerned about the harm we can do to others or their passengers as you are.
Im not saying the rest of us are not concerned, maybe we just take a more philosophical approach to it, which I do coupled with my history and experience.
You dont have to give up something you love to do. Unless your a "if I cant fly Beech I wont fly" kinda guy. ?

Robert,
Thanks for that calm composition. I wish it all would have started that way here 3 days ago...

I do disagree with your conclusion that he be charged, as I don't think we have nearly enough information to make that judgement, based on the following:

- we don't know if he knew what beach he was landing on.....Hilton Head or deserted island.
- we don't know if he could see the beach; I doubt that a picture of a plane that was pulled from the sloshing waves answers that oil-on-the-glass claim definitively.
- we don't know how many people were on the beach: was the victim the only guy within a half-mile? Or was he part of a crowd of thousands?



OTOH, planes do emergency landings on beaches (I don't know how often, but it is not rare), and I don't recall hearing a story like this death any time recently. And, planes land on Interstate highways all the time, and certainly could hit a car or could cause an accident when a car is avoiding the plane. The Interstate pilot definitely knows there could be cars there; if someone dies, should he be charged criminally there too?

Is there such evidence?

Amen, Scott!

I have several rules for me and my flying:

- never fall into the gotta-get-there rush.
- don't skimp on maintenance.
- don't run out of gas.
- don't buzz.
- don't fly at night.
- stay proficient with instrument flying.
- avoid ice.
- stick with my personal minimums for go / no-go decisions.
- don't fly without XM unless CAVU.

I can still be killed flying, but if I abide by my own rules it is less likely.

You said it better than I did above.