Training Flight Accidents: An Explorative Analysis of Influencing Factors and Accident Severity

Civil aviation is broadly categorized into two sectors: air transportation and general aviation. While the former sector is considered to be ultrasafe the latter requires a stronger focus on safety improvement. There has been considerable research examining the causes of general aviation accidents with a view to improving safety. However, there has been very limited research specifically focused on accidents involving training flights and associated causal factors. A total of 293 training flight accident reports, comprising 111 fatal and 182 nonfatal accidents were reviewed and analyzed to identify causes of training-flight accidents. The study found that based on the odds ratio, if a fatal accident involving training flights occurred it was 4.05 times more likely to be a dual training flight. Other findings included that most accidents occurred during the landing phase and the majority of accidents related to skill deficiency (e.g., an improper/inadequate flare). This was a major causal factor in nonfatal accidents in both dual and solo training flights. However, on dual training flights there were more fatal accidents involving decision deficiencies and mechanical malfunctions (e.g., loss of engine power). A previous study suggested that lack of supervision of student pilots by flight instructors was found to be a main causal factor and thus flight instructor training and recurrency requirements need to be reviewed.