Since that first day you poked your nose through a flight school’s door, you’ve probably heard that training is one of the safest activities in general aviation. Instruction accounts for a smaller percentage of accidents than hours flown, and instructional accidents are less often fatal.
The Air Safety Institute released a comprehensive analysis of training accidents (www.aopa.org/training_report). This report expands on earlier efforts in two significant ways: It distinguishes primary from advanced instruction, and contrasts fixed-wing and helicopter training.
In airplanes, two-thirds of all training accidents occur during primary instruction—and two-thirds of those are on student solos. (Don’t be alarmed: Only 3 percent of solo accidents cause any serious injuries.) The majority of accidents during dual lessons, however—about 60 percent—happen in advanced training, where the person being taught already is a certificated airplane pilot. Nearly two-thirds of all fatal training accidents, including more than 70 percent of those on dual flights, occur during advanced instruction.
In helicopters, advanced training accounts for just more than half of all accidents, fatal and nonfatal alike, and just one-quarter of those during primary instruction happen on student solos. Student pilots left to their own devices make up four times as large a share of instructional accidents in airplanes (44 percent versus 11).
The explanation may lie in different approaches to the presolo phase. Fixed-wing programs typically are geared toward soloing students quickly. By contrast, students training in Robinson helicopters are required by regulation to receive at least 20 hours of dual before the first solo, and schools using other models adopt similar practices. Much of that time is spent learning to manage the machine with reasonable precision close to the ground—and of course, a helicopter’s control authority doesn’t depend on airspeed. Since 80 percent of solo airplane accidents occur during takeoffs, landings, or go-arounds—close to the ground and slow, with diminished control authority—postponing solo flight until later in the curriculum might pay safety dividends.
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