Comment by user_7832
3 hours ago
Typically, in places like NTSB reports (or GA - private aviation - accidents in general), it often is human preventable. But the thing is different people have very different tolerance limits.
Pilot A might skip flying if the weather looks bad. Pilot B might go "well the storm's actually only at x location on my route, I'll fly around it". Pilot C might insist on more fuel but take the flight.
I'm not pretending it's possible to avoid (all) accidents with enough care - but if you look at NTSB stats, a vast majority of accidents were things that were quite easily avoidable.
Getting an instrument rating, flying in a plane with a weather radar that can go high (pressurized, beyond 40,000 feet or whereabouts), having another spare pilot and spare engine, and following the "big boy" scheduled airline (part 121) protocols and rules and minimums will almost certainly help avoid 50%+ (very conservatively) of GA accidents causes.
Yes, you still need to be careful and not fall victim to things like Get-there-itis (which pushes pilots to fly when they shouldn't because they want to get there). However... it's a swiss cheese model of accident avoidance. Remove as many factors from your side as you can, do your checklists, IMSAFE etc, and you're very likely to be (physically) okay.
Oh, and get a Cirrus with a parachute while we're at it. They've got auto land on their new planes too iirc.
I think it's important to multiply "likelihood of the human making a mistake" by "how many times the human must avoid a mistake". If your hobby presents 100 avoidable-but-life-threatening mistakes an hour, it's a dangerous hobby.
Driving a car presents 100 avoidable-but-life-threatening-potential-mistakes an hour. I'm personally exceptionally risk-averse and avoid cars for that reason, but I don't think that level of risk aversion necessarily needs to be typical. It's certainly worth pointing out that a safety-conscious person can significantly reduce the risk of a given activity, even if they can't eliminate it completely. And, to be honest, I'd rather encourage risk-aware pilots to take up the hobby! Airliner pilots have to come from somewhere, and I'd prefer if my airline pilot was one who considered the risks of flying and did it anyways rather than having an airline pilot who is totally reckless and simply doesn't care about risks.