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Ran across this in my Twitter feed today.

in 2016 of the 412 Aviation Fatalities 386 were GA. Marine Fatalities were the higher and of the 730 Marine Fatalities 701 were labeled as recreational.

Looks like all forms of transportation had a higher fatality rate than Aviation except Pipeline.

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/data/PublishingImages/US-TransportationFatalities2016.jpg
https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/data/PublishingImages/US-TransportationFatalities2016.jpg
US-TransportationFatalities2016.jpg
 
The numbers really arent' comparable. THere's like 200,000 GA aircraft compared to over 11 million recreational boats. We don't even know how may recreational boat drivers there are as anybody can legally drive a boat.

None of those numbers is a rate. They're absolute quantities. To have a rate, it would have to be expressed against some other measurement (hours, miles, etc...).

I can pretty much guess however that none of the grade crossing fatalities involved airplanes.
 
More people died from trespassing on railroads than from all of aviation.

That’s a weird one.
 
I see your point Flyingron...I wasn't looking at it as the fatality rate of a population from participation in a particular activity, just a snapshot of where the most fatalities occurred related to the transportation categories. Also, it doesn't tell us if the Aviation fatality was during flight ops or was it a taxi event, someone who fell of a wing or ladder while refueling etc...just because there was an aviation related fatality doesn't mean it was a pilot or passenger.
 
I'd guesstimate there are around 450,000 GA pilots, and in 2015 there were 229 fatal accidents. That's roughly one fatal accident per 2000 GA pilots. That's not encouraging.

Maybe the numbers will be slightly better for 2016, but they've been stuck in a range for the last few years.
 
I still don't get why people obsess over something that is inevitable. If you are reading this you are here, and alive enjoy your life while you still can.
 
The next time someone tells me how dangerous flying little airplanes is, I'm going to tell them twice as many people die riding "pedalcycles"
 
Norman said:
Nothing weird about it. A lot of them are suicides.
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I have a friend who just retired from Union Pacific. He said even a lot of the cars that get hit by trains are suicides. This can really affect the engineers. They can't stop, so these people are forcing them to kill them.
 
I'm pretty sure the fatality rate in aviation is the same as for everything else: one death per person, sooner or later.
 
I like that contrarian thinking.

[BEGIN FAKE NEWS STORY] An NRA Spokesman announced today that if people had proper gun training, guns could kill more Americans every year than automobiles. We are committed to developing and selling that training. [end fake news story]
 
luvflyin said:
That's not what 'pipeline' is about.
https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pipeline/Pages/default.aspx
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Interesting. Here's an example (although no one was killed in this one):

"On December 11, 2012, at about 12:41 pm EST, a buried 20-inch diameter natural gas transmission pipeline owned and operated by Columbia Gas Transmission Corporation ruptured just over 100 feet west of Interstate 77 in Sissonville, West Virginia. About 20 feet of pipe was separated and ejected from the underground pipeline and landed more than 40 feet from its original location. Three homes were destroyed by the fire after the escaping high-pressure natural gas ignited; no one was seriously injured."
​
I guess that's considered a transportation accident because the contents of the pipe were being transported.
 
Palmpilot said:
Interesting. Here's an example (although no one was killed in this one):

"On December 11, 2012, at about 12:41 pm EST, a buried 20-inch diameter natural gas transmission pipeline owned and operated by Columbia Gas Transmission Corporation ruptured just over 100 feet west of Interstate 77 in Sissonville, West Virginia. About 20 feet of pipe was separated and ejected from the underground pipeline and landed more than 40 feet from its original location. Three homes were destroyed by the fire after the escaping high-pressure natural gas ignited; no one was seriously injured."
​
I guess that's considered a transportation accident because the contents of the pipe were being transported.
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Stuff is being transported, that's for sure. Not really what the NTSB's original mission was but it makes sense. There were probably enough pipeline accidents that the need was felt to do something about it. An industry investigating itself usually doesn't work to well. State, local and even federal entities subject to partisanship, lobbying and campaign contributions ain't much better. It would have been a natural for someone to say "I got an idea, let's give it to the NTSB."
 
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Does this fall under the motor vehicle or pipeline category (melted the pavement and siding on houses a block away)
 
Ravioli said:
Highway fatalities were more than gunshot fatalities in 2016? Where's the outrage against vehicles?
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Outrage is usually caused by bored housewives (soccer moms) who have nothing better to do than cry wolf and write letters to shut down airports, gun ranges, race tracks etc. Think of the children!
They like their minivans so why would they write letters to get their cars and themselves off the roads? Hypocrisy at its best, if you think about it. :)
 
Lowflynjack said:
I have a friend who just retired from Union Pacific. He said even a lot of the cars that get hit by trains are suicides. This can really affect the engineers. They can't stop, so these people are forcing them to kill them.
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Precisely. I'm a rail fan in my spare time and have a few contacts with local railroaders. Those deaths can affect train crews for years afterward.
 
BigBadLou said:
Outrage is usually caused by bored housewives (soccer moms) who have nothing better to do than cry wolf and write letters to shut down airports, gun ranges, race tracks etc. Think of the children!
They like their minivans so why would they write letters to get their cars and themselves off the roads? Hypocrisy at its best, if you think about it. :)
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True, a gun range in my home town has just been ordered closed due to made up violations.
 
luvflyin said:
That's not what 'pipeline' is about.
https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pipeline/Pages/default.aspx
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I know what pipeline is about, I did mapping for what was at the time the nation's largest liquid products pipeline company about a decade ago.

And I also knew a pipeline flyer for us who had survived 3(!!!) crashes. Other harrowing stories as well from other flyers. I actually started my flight training back then with plans of flying for us then got scared off. When something goes wrong at 500 AGL and slow, not many options. Sure the pipeline right of ways are usually tree free but they're narrow and hilly depending where you are.

Hence my point of the irony, pipelines are very safe, yet pipeline patrol flying is one of the more dangerous types of flying.
 
I read where around 10% of fatal air crashes are also believed to be suicide. I have read several NTSB reports where the plane does a descending turn into the ground immediately after takeoff. No mechanical issues found.
 
GRG55 said:
The next time someone tells me how dangerous flying little airplanes is, I'm going to tell them twice as many people die riding "pedalcycles"
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I read something once upon a time that alleged that more people are killed worldwide annually by donkeys than by airplanes. Wish I could find that reference. I hope it wasn't the Onion.
 
GRG55 said:
The next time someone tells me how dangerous flying little airplanes is, I'm going to tell them twice as many people die riding "pedalcycles"
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Be sure that you also tell them that more people die flying little airplanes than playing Russian Roulette.
 
Ken Ibold said:
I read something once upon a time that alleged that more people are killed worldwide annually by donkeys than by airplanes. Wish I could find that reference. I hope it wasn't the Onion.
Click to expand...

Sounds like something The Onion would publish but if you're a farm boy you know to either give horse's azzes a wide berth or be close enough they can't get their hoof in good contact with you.
Palmpilot said:
Be sure that you also tell them that more people die flying little airplanes than playing Russian Roulette.
Click to expand...

I know of a few who have played that game with a semi-autonomic. The medical examiner said they were a mess.
 
Norman said:
Sounds like something The Onion would publish but if you're a farm boy you know to either give horse's azzes a wide berth or be close enough they can't get their hoof in good contact with you.
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So I did some research and this claim appears to have been made up by an aviation safety expert decades ago who was stating it as hyperbole. But in the course of said research, I found stats that say four times as many people are killed by falling coconuts than sharks. Now, I knew beach vending machines kill more than sharks, but now we need to have coconuts and vending machines face off ...
 
Check out death by hammers. Those things are deadly and should be banned.

;)

More deaths by hammers each year than all types of rifles combined.



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The train "trespassing" thing is obviously railroad crossing accidents. We all still see people do some crazy things when those RR crossbars come down. Many years ago l drive my wife's Suburban one day and asked her why the hood had a huge scratch across the top of it. She hesitated and one of the kids shouted out that the crossbar came down on the Suburban as she tried to outrun it coming down.

I would be interested in seeing the fatality rate of motorcycles. That mode of transportation just seems to be by far the riskiest method of transportation. I have come upon several motorcycle accidents and it is really hard to have a "minor" one of those.
 
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