Alcohol and Aviation Safety

Abstract

Although the incidence of alcohol-related fatal aviation accidents has shown large decreases over the years and is far below the rate for highway vehicles, some pilots continue to fly while impaired by alcohol. A major safety study carried out by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)’ in 1984 examined fatal accidents during the period 1975–1981 and found no major air carrier accidents where the deceased pilot tested positive for alcohol, but did find that 6.4% of commuter airline, 7.4% of on-demand air taxi, and 10.5% of general aviation fatal accidents involved alcohol. This was a decline from the early 1960s when 30–40% of fatal aviation accidents were found to be alcohol positive.’ A more recent NTSB reporta shows a continuing reduction in alcohol-related fatal accidents. Through 1988 there still had not been a fatal scheduled commercial carrier accident in which the pilot tested positive for alcohol, no commuter airline fatal accident from 1982–1988 involved a positive-alcohol test of the pilot, and the alcohol-positive rate for on-demand air taxi accidents declined to 1.8%. General aviation fatal accidents during the 1982–1988 period had a 6.7% positive-alcohol rate. There is little evidence regarding the rate of alcohol involvement in nonfatal general aviation accidents since blood tests are rarely carried out in such situations.KeywordsBlood Alcohol ConcentrationFatal AccidentPilot PerformanceAviation SafetyGeneral AviationThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.