It is kind of comical how every airplane accident is thoroughly investigated and systemic changes immediately proposed and implemented, while mothers of dead children have to petition for a stop sign. And I don’t mean airliners, I mean people in their little 2-4 seater Cessnas who took off when it was clear and couldn’t find the runway when the weather changed.
Then I remember that everyone in those little planes are really rich and it all makes sense.
Yup, and what sounds crazy, when those thourough investigations happen the investigators focuse on what “external factors” could have lead to the crash. Not automatically assuming pilot error/fault or negligence right away.
Once those factors are found, systemic changes are immediately proposed and implemented as you noted. Which leads to that same error not being repeated once again.
The path to safe infrastructure is usually not just “remove all barriers” but instead “control the flow of traffic”
For example when a car hits a building, which happens pretty much daily in North America, it’s automatically “driver fault”. No changes are implemented to the area, nothing restricting another car or vehicle from hitting the exact same building again. No “barriers” implemented to control the flow of traffic.
European countries on the otherhand, when collisions happen the investigation generally leans more towards what caused the driver to collide with something. Not automatically assuming the driver intentionally collide with something.
A lot of those changes involved restricting who can get a pilot’s license in the first place.
If you have an unresolved mental illness, or had an unexplained loss of consciousness ever in your life, you can’t become a pilot. You also go through a 6 to 14 month course focusing mostly on planning and managing personal risk to get your license.
If we had a similar amount of education and alternative options for getting places without driving, it works make sense to stop automatically assuming the driver was tired or otherwise at fault.
You don’t investigate the things where you know you’ll get an answer you don’t like reducing the size and weight of cars, invest in other means of transportation, change zoning.
I wouldn’t say the NTSB thoroughly investigates every small GA crash. There are quite a few where the they don’t even go to the crash site and just do it via phone interview. They’ll send investigators out when there’s something to learn that might affect airworthiness of the other existing aircraft of the same make & model. But if it’s fairly apparent that the pilot just fucked up, they often don’t send investigators out.
Could be related to the fact that life insurance companies typically pay out like 4x for common carrier deaths (e.g. planes, buses, trains, roller coasters)
Depends on the plane, I remember having a shop class teacher who had a plane that they flew on the weekends.
It’s not cheap, but definitely doable for someone who was roughly middle income in the early 2000s, dunno about now. It’s comparable to another car, especially if you can do a lot of the maintenance yourself.
Maybe it’s like owning a horse or a boat, can be cheap or expensive depending on locality. Just checked prices in my ritzy area, and a outdoor tie down is less than $200/month–not too bad.
I found a 27 year old Cessna single engine for sale for $300,000, and that I believe is a standard starter plane, though if the wind doesn’t bother you, I also see an open cockpit cub for $80k.
You can get way cheaper than that. trade-a-plane.com has Cessnas from the 60s and 70s under $40k, some of them air-worthy with no additional work! $300k is “brand new airplane” money and that’s not what most people get their license with.
Back in like 2010 one of my friends bought a Cessna for $50k pretty much right after graduating high school. I wonder if prices have really gone up that much, or if he got a sweet deal back then.
Granted his dad was also a pilot and they shared a grass strip with some neighbors way out in the country, and had their own hangar. So besides the plane, there wasn’t really any additional cost for him.
But he did buy it himself. Dude was a hustler, buying, fixing, and flipping go karts, boats, motorcycles, cars, etc since he was like 13. So makes sense planes were next on that list.
Guy i play soccer with is a pilot. He went in with 4 other pilots and they all share the cost and basically have to check it out/reserve it when they want to fly.
Im not sure what kind of plane it is, but its large enough they also run a little side hustle using it like an air taxi as a supplemental income to support their hobby
It is kind of comical how every airplane accident is thoroughly investigated and systemic changes immediately proposed and implemented, while mothers of dead children have to petition for a stop sign. And I don’t mean airliners, I mean people in their little 2-4 seater Cessnas who took off when it was clear and couldn’t find the runway when the weather changed.
Then I remember that everyone in those little planes are really rich and it all makes sense.
Yup, and what sounds crazy, when those thourough investigations happen the investigators focuse on what “external factors” could have lead to the crash. Not automatically assuming pilot error/fault or negligence right away.
Once those factors are found, systemic changes are immediately proposed and implemented as you noted. Which leads to that same error not being repeated once again.
The path to safe infrastructure is usually not just “remove all barriers” but instead “control the flow of traffic”
For example when a car hits a building, which happens pretty much daily in North America, it’s automatically “driver fault”. No changes are implemented to the area, nothing restricting another car or vehicle from hitting the exact same building again. No “barriers” implemented to control the flow of traffic.
European countries on the otherhand, when collisions happen the investigation generally leans more towards what caused the driver to collide with something. Not automatically assuming the driver intentionally collide with something.
A lot of those changes involved restricting who can get a pilot’s license in the first place.
If you have an unresolved mental illness, or had an unexplained loss of consciousness ever in your life, you can’t become a pilot. You also go through a 6 to 14 month course focusing mostly on planning and managing personal risk to get your license.
If we had a similar amount of education and alternative options for getting places without driving, it works make sense to stop automatically assuming the driver was tired or otherwise at fault.
You don’t investigate the things where you know you’ll get an answer you don’t like reducing the size and weight of cars, invest in other means of transportation, change zoning.
I wouldn’t say the NTSB thoroughly investigates every small GA crash. There are quite a few where the they don’t even go to the crash site and just do it via phone interview. They’ll send investigators out when there’s something to learn that might affect airworthiness of the other existing aircraft of the same make & model. But if it’s fairly apparent that the pilot just fucked up, they often don’t send investigators out.
Yeah but then there’s investigation whether something could be done to reduce the chance of that specific fuckup
And then they issue a recommendation which goes into the FAA’s backlog that is thousands long.
Could be related to the fact that life insurance companies typically pay out like 4x for common carrier deaths (e.g. planes, buses, trains, roller coasters)
Depends on the plane, I remember having a shop class teacher who had a plane that they flew on the weekends.
It’s not cheap, but definitely doable for someone who was roughly middle income in the early 2000s, dunno about now. It’s comparable to another car, especially if you can do a lot of the maintenance yourself.
Maybe it’s like owning a horse or a boat, can be cheap or expensive depending on locality. Just checked prices in my ritzy area, and a outdoor tie down is less than $200/month–not too bad.
I found a 27 year old Cessna single engine for sale for $300,000, and that I believe is a standard starter plane, though if the wind doesn’t bother you, I also see an open cockpit cub for $80k.
You can get way cheaper than that. trade-a-plane.com has Cessnas from the 60s and 70s under $40k, some of them air-worthy with no additional work! $300k is “brand new airplane” money and that’s not what most people get their license with.
Back in like 2010 one of my friends bought a Cessna for $50k pretty much right after graduating high school. I wonder if prices have really gone up that much, or if he got a sweet deal back then.
Granted his dad was also a pilot and they shared a grass strip with some neighbors way out in the country, and had their own hangar. So besides the plane, there wasn’t really any additional cost for him.
But he did buy it himself. Dude was a hustler, buying, fixing, and flipping go karts, boats, motorcycles, cars, etc since he was like 13. So makes sense planes were next on that list.
Guy i play soccer with is a pilot. He went in with 4 other pilots and they all share the cost and basically have to check it out/reserve it when they want to fly.
Im not sure what kind of plane it is, but its large enough they also run a little side hustle using it like an air taxi as a supplemental income to support their hobby