It's A Good News, Bad News Year For General Aviation

The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association's (AOPA) Air Safety Foundation (ASF) released its annual Joseph T. Nall Report this week. The ASF conducts in-depth statistical research of GA accidents and publishes them every year in its Nall Report.

ASF researchers say it was a good news -- bad news year for GA.

In a bit of good news, the report shows a decline in the number of fatal weather-related accidents for 2005.

A spike in the number weather- and thunderstorm-related accidents in 2004 prompted action by the foundation in 2006. It rolled out an online course, Weather Wise: Thunderstorms and ATC, to educate pilots about these accidents.

Now for the bad news: while weather-related accidents decreased, the overall 2005 accident rate increased to 7.2 accidents per 100,000 flight hours, compared to 6.5 the year before.

The rate of fatal accidents also increased in 2005, from 1.3 to 1.4 per 100,000 flight hours.

"While the sky certainly isn't falling, the record that we chalked up in 2005 could stand some improvement," said Bruce Landsberg, executive director of the AOPA Air Safety Foundation.

Because ASF believes pilot education is the best way to help reduce the number of GA accidents, the foundation plans to produce a new online course about maneuvering flight in 2007 to combat an increase in the number of fatal maneuvering flight accidents.

FMI: www.aopa.org, Click here to read the full Nall Report