The nature and costs of civil aviation flight training safety occurrences

Abstract

The continuing growth of the aviation industry will see robust demand for more qualified pilots in the coming years. To meet the standards required to qualify as pilot, individuals must undergo extensive training. Flight training, like all other parts of aviation, is not without risks. Previous research that examined the nature and costs of accidents and incidents within the general aviation industry has put little emphasis on flight training. The present work explores the nature and costs of incident, serious incidents, and accidents within the Australian flight training industry between the 1st of January 2000 and the 31st of December 2019. This study of 7863 flight training safety occurrences is the single largest study of the phenomena to date. This has facilitated the confirmation of some previous noted results, as well as refuting some others. All flight training data categories are statistically significantly different relative to all general aviation occurrences, as reported to the ATSB. It was noted that safety occurrences during landing and approach phases are significantly higher for flight training than previous studies. Occurrences during climb and standing resulted in more injuries and fatalities than expected. While solo instructional flights were found to be less fatal, the probability of an accident or serious incident or aircraft damage being from solo operations has increased over the period of the study. Of particular concern is that the accident and occurrence rates have increased over the period examined. The fact that the safety of flight training has not significantly improved is further shown by the extremely high costs that have resulted from these incidents and accidents.