Pilot Age and Geographic Region of Commuter and Air Taxi Crashes: a Case-Control Study

The authors examine risk factors in commuter airline and air taxi crashes. Applying a case-control design, the authors assess the relationship of pilot age to total flight time (a marker of pilot experience) and geographic region in studying United States commuter airline and air taxi crashes occurring between 1983 and 2002. A total of 2,033 such crashes are identified using the National Transportation Safety Board’s aviation crash database. Randomly selected crash incidents from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) aviation incident database are used as a control. Results show that, after adjusting for geographic region and total flight time, commuter airline and air taxi crashes are less likely to occur when pilots are under 30 years of age. Pilot error, however, is almost 13 times more likely to occur, especially in Alaska, due to challenging geographic and weather-related conditions.

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/00956562
• Authors:
  • Rebok, George W
  • Qiang, Yandong
  • Baker, Susan P
  • Li, Guohua
• Publication Date: 2011-2

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: References; Tables;
• Pagination: pp 111-115
• Serial:
  • Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine
  • Volume: 82
  • Issue Number: 2
  • Publisher: Aerospace Medical Association
  • ISSN: 0095-6562
  • Serial URL: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/asma/asem

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Age; Air pilots; Air taxi service; Air transportation crashes; Areas and regions; Commuter airlines; Empirical methods; Flight time; Risk assessment; Weather conditions
• Uncontrolled Terms: Pilot error; Pilot experience
• Geographic Terms: Alaska; United States
• Subject Areas: Aviation; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01333621
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Mar 21 2011 2:14PM