Stay the course
Sobering reminders of our aviation realities
By Mike Ginter
When this edition of AOPA Pilot reaches your mailbox, the three tragic aircraft crashes that occurred between January 29 and February 7 will still be fresh in our memories.
On January 29, an American Airlines CRJ700, American Airlines Flight 5342, and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter collided over the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), killing 67 people. Less than 48 hours later, a Learjet 55 on a medevac mission crashed soon after takeoff in Philadelphia, killing all six on board plus one on the ground. And on February 7, a Cessna Grand Caravan, operated by Bering Air, crashed in the Bering Sea while en route to Nome, Alaska, killing all nine passengers aboard plus the pilot. The last commercial airline accident that involved a high number of fatalities in America occurred on February 12, 2009, 16 years ago, when Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed en route to Buffalo, New York, killing all 49 onboard plus one on the ground.
The occurrence of three fatal aircraft crashes in the span of 10 days dominated the news cycles and felt like a punch to America’s gut. The NTSB investigations for these accidents are still ongoing—and it will take months until we know what they reveal—but the immediate emotional results were clear.
When aircraft accidents occur, they receive a lot of media coverage. The dramatic nature of these events can create a disproportionate sense of danger. We know that media coverage can influence public perception and lead to heightened fear and anxiety about flying. This phenomenon is known as the “availability bias,” in which people assess the probability of risks based on how easily examples come to mind rather than on statistical data.
The discrepancy between actual safety records and perceived safety can also be attributed to psychological factors. People tend to fear events that are catastrophic and beyond their control, such as commercial airplane accidents, more than everyday risks like car crashes, which statistically are far more common and deadly. The intense emotional response to aviation accidents can overshadow a rational understanding of just how rare they really are.
My guess is many people reading this column will know someone who is convinced aviation is unsafe. Some of our friends and neighbors will never set foot in an airplane—commercial or private. While general aviation does not include the military or scheduled airlines, we are the largest segment of aviation in this country, and the vast majority of our citizens do not know the difference. They don’t know that this country enjoys the largest, safest, and best regulated aviation system in the world. They don’t know that our system serves more than 200,000 GA aircraft, in addition to the airlines and the military. They do not understand that our aviation system has almost 5,100 public-use airports and more than 3,400 of those are publicly funded by the FAA (appropriated from the Airport and Airway Trust Fund, which is funded by the aviation fuel tax collected when we buy fuel). They do not understand the immense economic benefit of GA to every community with an airport, and they are not aware that our aviation system is highly regulated, including very specific training, maintenance, proficiency, and medical requirements. Despite these sometimes-onerous regulations, our system is the envy of the world—which helps explain the crowded skies near large flight schools creating the next generation of pilots in the United States.
The rate of GA accidents has been trending downward for over 30 years: In 2022, we achieved an overall accident rate of 4.30 per 100,000 hours and a fatal accident rate of only 0.77 per 100,000 flight hours. In 2024, GA experienced 195 fatal accidents—still far too many—but we believe 2024 will set a new record for lowest fatal accident rate in GA (we’ll know after the FAA releases flight hour data in about a year).
While we collectively grieve the loss of so many innocent lives, we are also reminded of the sobering risks inherent in flying. As the AOPA Air Safety Institute learns more about these specific accident chains, we will adapt our educational content and videos to help all GA pilots understand and mitigate the risks which contributed to these accidents.
As we exercise our airman privileges, we must be ever mindful of the basics—the fundamentals that keep us safe on every flight. There are no guarantees when we fly our aircraft—we must depend on good aeronautical decision making during each phase of flight in order to return to Earth with an airworthy aircraft.
Stay sharp and fly safe! 
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