NTSB RELEASES STUDY ON PUBLIC AIRCRAFT SAFETY

Washington, DC - The National Transportation Safety Board today released a safety study that examined the accident rates for aircraft used in certain government operations.
The Board called for improvements in gathering data essential for the monitoring of public aircraft safety.

The congressionally mandated Public Aircraft Study called for the Board to “conduct a study to compare the safety of public aircraft and civil aircraft” and to review safety statistics on aircraft operations since 1993. The Board reviewed accident statistics provided by the Federal Aviation Administration and the General Services Administration for the period 1996-1999. The Board determined accident rates for the period 1996-1999 rather than 1993-present due to the limitations of the FAA statistics available.

The NTSB calculated an accident rate of 3.66 per 100,000 flight hours for all public aircraft operations for the period 1996-1999. Federal public aircraft had an accident rate of 4.64 per 100,000 hours flown. Both of these rates were less than that of general aviation (GA) accidents (7.2 per 100,000 flight hours) but higher than air taxis (3.47) and scheduled Part 121 carriers (0.30).

Public use aircraft operations generally include law enforcement, low-level observation, aerial observation, firefighting, search and rescue, biological or geological resource management, and aeronautical research. Forty-nine percent of the public use flights hours were operated in rotorcraft compared to 1.6 percent of general aviation flight hours.

During the period of 1993-1999, on average, 43 public use aircraft accidents occurred each year, killing 21 people and injuring 28.

For the period 1993-2000, four states, California, Alaska, Florida and Texas, accounted for 46 percent of all public use aircraft accidents. These were also the top four states for GA accidents during the same period.

A higher proportion of fatal public use aircraft accidents involved in-flight collisions (46 percent for public aircraft versus 29 percent for general aviation).

On average, accident-involved public use aircraft pilots were more highly qualified than accident-involved GA accident pilots, holding more advanced flight certificate ratings, according to the data reviewed by the NTSB.

The scope and accuracy of the report were limited by statistical and sampling problems with the data provided by both the FAA and the GSA. Because of this, the NTSB made several safety recommendations to both of these agencies that call for greater accuracy and precision in the gathering and maintenance of flight activity statistics relevant to public use aircraft.

Those recommendations include:

• Revise the General Aviation and Air Taxi Activity Survey data collection system to more clearly distinguish between government aircraft operations that qualify for legal public aircraft status and those that do not;
• Identify and implement methods independent of the General Aviation and Air Taxi Activity Survey that can be used to check the accuracy of nonairline flight hour estimates;
• Revise the General Aviation and Air Taxi Activity Survey form so that aircraft owners can report public aircraft flight hours according to the level of government served (Federal, State, or local) within each purpose-of-flight;
• Develop a new reporting matrix on the General Aviation and Air Taxi Activity Survey form that separates the administrative purpose-of-flight (e.g., personal, business, corporate, regional, air taxi, air tours, sightseeing, public use, air medical services, search and rescue, etc.) from the actual flying activity performed (e.g., transport of passengers, flight instruction, aerial observation, aerial application external load, etc.). Incorporate these changes in published flight hour estimates as well.
• Implement a program that will measure and track the currency of aircraft owner contact information in the Civil Aircraft Registry and systematically improve the currency of this information in a measurable way;
• Remove Civil Air Patrol flight hours from future estimates of public aircraft activity so that the figures are consistent with the current legal definition of public aircraft;
• Collect and maintain aircraft flight hour data from Federal agencies so that it is possible to distinguish public aircraft flight operations from all other Federal government-sponsored flight operations.

A copy of the safety study is available on the Board’s website at www.ntsb.gov <http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2001/SS0101.htm>. Printed copies of the report can be purchased from the National Technical Information Service (800) 533-NTIS.

Media Contact: Keith Holloway, 202-314-6100