It’s not uncommon for three or four pilots to share ownership of an aircraft. For years, owning an aircraft as “partners” was the norm. That form of ownership, however, carries with it some liability considerations.
An aircraft owner loans his plane to a friend. The plane crashes and a passenger is injured. It turns out the crash was caused by the negligence of the aircraft’s mechanic. Can the crash victim hold the aircraft owner liable for the mechanic’s faulty work?
This question comes up a lot. In fact, it comes up
An instrument rating entitles a pilot to legally navigate an aircraft when the weather is bad enough that he can’t see outside. A pilot who is not instrument-rated must always stay out of the clouds. If the weather is such that he can’t do that, he must stay on the ground.
The training required to obtain an instrument rating is extensive. In most cases, it takes a pilot longer and costs him more to obtain the rating than it did for him to get his pilot’s license in the firstContinue Reading Cirrus Crash Near Agua Dulce: Pilot Not Instrument-Rated
According to the NTSB, most aviation accidents are caused by pilot error. But av
iation lawyers know that as many as half the cases that the NSTB says were the result of "pilot error" simply weren’t.
The NTSB does its best to get an accident’s probable cause right. The trouble is that, in almost every one of
The Cirrus aircraft is loaded with advanced safety features lacking in older "legacy" aircraft. Yet, the Cirrus safety record appears to be no better — and perhaps even worse — than that of the legacy fleet. How can this be?
I’ve written before that "risk homeostasis" may be one factor at work. I suggested here and here that pilots might tend to use the advanced features of the aircraft to fly into more challenging conditions than they otherwise would. While using the features in that fashion might increase the utility of the aircraft, it necessarily undercuts many of the features’ safety benefits.
It turns out that that three human factors experts have published a short article (see below) on riskContinue Reading Cirrus Safety and Risk Homeostasis
I was sitting in my aircraft at the approach end of the runway at San Carlos, waiting to be issued an instrument clearance. A Beech BE65 Queen Air taxied down to the runway and took off ahead of me. Sadly, it crashed 30 seconds later into a lagoon north of the airport, killing the three aboard.
Some questions raised in the various news accounts:
Why was the aircraft headed north on the “Bay Meadows” departure, when its ultimate destination was to the south?
I heard the pilot – or whomever was handling the radios — tell the ground controller that he was going to fly along the ridge line west of the airport and then to South County airport. TheContinue Reading Witness to the Final Flight of Queen Air N832B
Bill King
Vice President of Business Administration
Cirrus Aircraft
Duluth, Minnesota 55811
Dear Bill:
I own one of your aircraft. There are some nice things about the Cirrus. But a few things, from a safety standpoint, really suck. First, the doors don’t stay closed. Second, too many pilots and passengers are getting killed when pilots try to land the thing. Third, the fuel gauges don’t work.
I read your comments on each of these issues in today’s Duluth News Tribune. Considering that they come from a company that prides itself on “celebrating safety,” I found some of the comments disturbing.
The doors.
Bill, they pop open. A lot. It’s always a distraction when it happens. If they pop open at a bad time, it can spell real trouble. More on that here.
I read how you flew from one airport to another a few weeks ago with a door that wasn’t shut, andContinue Reading A Letter to Cirrus Aircraft: Please Fix Your Plane
The pilot of the Otter that crashed in Alaska on Monday, killing Senator Stevens and three other passengers, encountered some very bad weather. Low ceilings. Fog and rain. Gusty winds.
Rugged terrain only complicated things. Fortunately, the pilot had tons of experience — tens of thousands of hours. According to the Alaska Dispatch, had any less talented pilot
Cirrus N146CK crashed on August 4 at Deer Valley, Airzona. The pilot was killed. Just before the accident, the aircraft’s door popped open. We know that because the pilot reported to air traffic control that his door was open and that he needed to return to the airport to close it. Plus, surveillance cameras confirmed that the pilot’s door was indeed ajar.
The plane’s door popped open? What’s with that?
The Cirrus doors are poorly designed. It’s that simple. They just don’t stay shut in flight.
The plane flies okay after a door pops open. But the distraction can be dangerous, and can lead to a loss of control, as demonstrated by this 2009 Cirrus crash. Following the 2009 accident, JohnContinue Reading Cirrus Crash at Deer Valley, Arizona: Door Opened (Yet Again. . .)
An FBO is not supposed to rent an aircraft to a pilot who the FBO knows isn’t competent to complete the planned flight safely. If it does, and a passenger is hurt or killed by the pilot’s mistake, the victim or his family can hold the FBO responsible. That’s the law of "negligent 
entrustment."
A