AI Article Synopsis
- The study analyzed the effectiveness of crashworthiness standards in reducing fatal accidents and injury severity in general aviation aircraft certified under dynamic crash testing regulations.
- The NTSB database was examined for accidents from 2002 to 2012, showing that while aircraft meeting higher standards had lower rates of minor and serious injuries, the fatality rates did not significantly decrease.
- Aircraft subject to dynamic testing had longer flight distances and were involved in more post-impact fires, leading to questions about the correlation between crashworthiness certifications and actual safety outcomes.
Article Abstract
Towards further improving general aviation aircraft crashworthiness, multi-axis dynamic tests have been required for aircraft certification (14CFR23.562) since 1985. The objective of this study was to determine if occupants in aircraft certified to these higher crashworthiness standards show a mitigated fraction of fatal accidents and/or injury severity. The NTSB aviation database was queried for accidents occurring between 2002 and 2012 involving aircraft certified to, or immune from, dynamic crash testing and manufactured after 1999. Only operations conducted under 14CFR Part 91 were considered. Statistical analysis employed proportion tests and logistic regression. Off-airport landings are associated with high decelerative forces; however for off-airport landings, the fraction of fatal accidents for aircraft subject to, or exempt from, dynamic crash testing was similar (0.53 and 0.60, respectively). Unexpectedly, for on-airport landings a higher fraction of fatalities was evident for aircraft whose certification mandated dynamic crash testing. Improved crashworthiness standards would be expected to translate into a reduced severity of accident injuries. For all accidents, as well as for those deemed survivable, the fraction of minor and serious injuries was reduced for occupants in aircraft certified to the higher crashworthiness standards. Surprisingly, the fraction of occupants fatally injured was not decreased for aircraft subject to dynamic crash tests. To shed light on this unexpected finding flight history, airman demographics and post-impact fires for aircraft for which dynamic crash testing is mandatory or exempt was examined. For the former cohort the median distance of the accident flight was nearly 44% higher. Aircraft subject to dynamic crash testing were also involved in a greater fraction (0.25 versus 0.12, respectively) of post-impact fires. Our data suggest that while the more stringent crashworthiness standards have mitigated minor and serious injuries, surprisingly the fraction of occupants fatally injured is unaltered. The unchanged fraction of fatal injuries may reflect partly (a) fatigue associated with longer flight distances and (b) a greater proportion of post-impact fires.
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| http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2015.03.005 | DOI Listing |
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