Mid Morning Concurrent Sessions: Human Factors: Human Error and Cockpit Automation: Presentation: Accident-Precipitating Factors for Crashes in Turbine-Powered General Aviation Aircraft

Abstract

Verbatim from Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons. Not paraphrased, not summarized.

General aviation (14CFR Part 91) accounts for 83% of civil aviation fatalities. While much research has focused on accident causes/pilot demographics in this aviation sector, studies to identify factors leading up to the crash (accident-precipitating factors) are few. Such information could inform on pre-emptive remedial action. With this in mind and considering the paucity of research on turbine-powered aircraft accidents the study objectives were to identify accident-precipitating factors and determine if the accident rate has changed over time for such aircraft operating under 14CFR Part 91. The NTSB Access database was queried for accidents in airplanes ( The “Checklist/Flight Manual Not Followed” was the most frequent accident-precipitating factor category and carried an excess risk (OR 2.34) for an accident with a fatal and/or serious occupant injury. This elevated risk reflected an over-representation of accidents with fatal and/or serious injury outcomes (p In conclusion, our study is the first to identify novel precursive factors for accidents involving turbine aircraft operating under 14CFR Part 91. This research highlights areas that should receive further emphasis in training/recurrency in a pre-emptive attempt to nullify candidate accident-precipitating factor(s).

Authors

• Boyd, Douglas Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
• Stolzer, Alan Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Keywords

• general aviation accidents
• accident-precipitating factors
• turbine aircraft
• Aviation
• Aviation Safety and Security