Probabilities for Severe and Fatal Injuries in General Aviation Accidents

摘要

Although accident rates in general aviation have been published, probabilities for sustaining severe or fatal injuries have not yet been sufficiently evaluated. The aim of this study was to develop probabilities for severe and/or fatal injuries in general aviation accidents. Using official German data, the total number of general aviation accidents and severely or fatally injured persons were obtained from 1993 to 2007. The analysis focused on both the average number of injured and average number of killed persons and the probabilities of sustaining severe or fatal injuries. SPSS® was used for statistical analysis with p < 0.05. N = 5259 general aviation accidents were analyzed. Most accidents occurred in the categories for gliders (n = 1930, 36.7%) and single-engine pistons (less than 2 tons; n = 1929, 36.7%). The highest probabilities of sustaining severe injury were found for hot-air balloons (72.9%), gliders (15.2%), and helicopters (12.0%). The highest probabilities of sustaining fatal injury were found for aircraft of 2-5.7 tons (23.1%), helicopters (17.1%), and aircraft less than 2 tons (14.0%). Because of a lack of common denominator data in general aviation, the development of accident statistics is complicated, if not entirely impossible. Probabilities for severe and fatal injuries that could be expected should an accident occur (conditional probabilities) were calculated. These data facilitate the understanding and improvement of aviation safety.