Pilots make a deal with the devil

The people willing to own and fly a single-engine airplane have made a deal with the devil. That deal does sort of involve eternal souls, as the motif implies, but more specifically puts everyone onboard the single-engine airplane at risk. Ask anybody you meet what happens when the only engine on an airplane fails and they all get the answer right. The airplane comes down. no piece of machinery, electronics or structure can possibly meet that standard the certification and operational rules have been created to require multiple backups for everything necessary to continue flying after a failure. I can hear some of you yelling at your screen,

“What about Sully Sullenberger and

Jeff Skiles; of the Miracle on the Hudson fame?’ They couldn’t continue

flying after a failure.”

The airlines have essentially solved the safety problem. However, at what cost?

You are right. However, has the loss of both engines in a transport category jet happened more frequently than once in a billion flights? Since I can’t think of another episode, absent crew mismanagement of a failure, where all power was lost in a transport jet, I think the one in a billion goal was satisfied. Which makes the Miracle on the Hudson even more of a once-in-everyone’s-lifetime event. My point is that as an industry, an activity, we in aviation know how to take the devil out of flying. What is required is significantly higher cost and loss of convenience.

The cost of near total safety is obvious in the number of engines, systems and structural redundancy required. However, less apparent are the necessary operational restrictions. For example, do you wish to fly your ‘safe’ airplane by yourself? Sorry. A single pilot comes up short on essential redundancy. Want to use that nearby, but shorter runway airport? Nope. You must have enough pavement to safely abort or continue a take-off after an engine failure at the worst possible moment and you must certainly have enough runway with large margins for stopping on landing. Don’t want to feed and maintain another engine ‘just in case?’ Sorry. That also misses the maximum safety goal.

So, for personal aviation to continue and deliver the convenience and even recreation, many of us want, we must still make that deal with the devil. I believe most pilots are aware of that risk trade-off and most make conscious choices of what risk to take and how to minimise all risks to the greatest extent possible. I know this because reader surveys showed year after year that stories about safety, accident analysis, handling weather and all other forms of risk management always ranked at the top.

Airline and corporate flying have reached a level of safety none of us could have imagined even 30 years ago. As an industry, we know how to essentially eliminate fatal accidents. As pilots flying for our own reasons, we can learn how the big boys did that and adapt as many of the lessons as we can afford, or decide are worth the required trade-offs. We still must make our own deal with the dark side to fly our own airplanes for our own reasons by ourselves, but I hope we are making the best and most informed deal we can.