I'm sorry, but a quick Google finds less than a dozen in the US this year. I couldn't find a definitive list, but searching "small plane crash 2015" found mostly the same events.
A puddle-jumper being flown by a certified commercial pilot shouldn't be a whole lot more dangerous than a commercial flight.
But yes, a small aircraft flown by someone who just got their license? You're taking your life into your hands, especially if there's a chance of poor weather.
An airliner's resistance to weather, its ability to out-climb (it's pressurized) turbulence and ice, its ability to still fly with half of its engines destroyed, is something that doesn't exist in general aviation aircraft. An airliner can only be flown with 2 crew members, pilot and copilot, so that one being incapacitated doesn't end the flight right there. Such measures don't exist in general aviation.
Even airports are different. Big airports have control towers and radars to avoid midair collisions, excellent weather reports. The places I go to sometimes don't have either, I have to overfly the runway at 500 feet to look at the windsock and make an informed guess.
USA, 2014, Airplanes only, Fatal accidents only -- This returned 147 results of fatal accidents, the majority of which were Pipers / Cessnas / Beechcraft..
Expanding the list to include non-fatal accidents returns 310 results.. So not quite 1 per day, but still a lot of plane crashes.
I did a quick search, but there's more information there than I could sort through quickly.
guess how much those hours cost.
i lost count of how many times I've flown just for the hell of it with friends getting those hours for a few hundred bucks.
But this is a fascinatingly grey area. If you were to fly from airfield A to B and back, taking a different passenger each time, how would you characterise the transaction?
I can see taking my kids up in an airplane of a friend of a friend, and handing over a hundred or whatever for fuel. But "some guy". Hard to imagine.
You would need at least a commercial pilot license for this type of transaction. (A CPL is a lesser license than an airline transport pilot license, which is what you need to work for an airline. The former only requires 100 hours of time.)
* If I fly my friends with me to the beach for the weekend, they can chip in and cover their share of expenses. Legal for me to do as a PPL under FAR 61.113(c).
* If I fly myself to a conference for work, my employer can reimburse me for my expenses. Legal for me to do as a PPL under FAR 61.113(b)(1).
BUT.
* If I take a coworker with me to the conference, I can't be reimbursed as a PPL. I must either fund it out of my own pocket or must have a CPL under FAR 61.113(b)(2) as held by the Mangiamele opinion (which I can't find the original PDF of right now, unfortunately).
> You would need at least a commercial pilot license for this type of transaction.
And a class 2 medical certificate, which may be difficult to get.
This is, IIRC, what the Mangiamele opinion held. If our common purpose is business, even if it's non-aviation business, the second person is considered a paid passenger when the pilot is reimbursed.
I get what the FAA is trying to do - they're trying to keep PPLs from running charters, air taxis, under-the-radar airlines, etc. But some of the 61.113 rules and opinions are just silly, and that section really needs a complete rewrite.
I don't need a CDL to drive my coworker with me to the conference, even if I am reimbursed by my employer. I shouldn't need a CPL to make that same trip in an airplane.
>When you rideshare a single-engine piston plane, there is a question of your life.
And that's pretty obvious. People are adults they can make decisions for themselves.
The only legitimate (IMO) concern that the FAA has in this is that there will be some people who will try to operate their own little mini-illegal charter service. The path of least effort for the FAA is simply to prevent anything that has even the slightest whiff of commerce.
You just described flytenow.
Charter Flight Service: We have ATP rated pilots who will take you in our aircraft which are inspected and maintained per FAR Part 135 (at least as well as anyone else is); including carrying the right amount of insurance.
Flytenow: A brokering service for some dudes who have their own airplanes and will take you along for a ride if your schedules and destinations intersect, and if you pitch in a few bucks. Also probably has a bit of insurance, though I couldn't begin to imagine how they'd get it.
The pilot, has to in near-constant disaster-drilling mode and flying regularly.
Without those, which is most cases, I'm not stepping foot in said bug-smasher, because you're gambling with your life with someone whom may not be both experienced and competent enough to survive failure, no matter how well-intentioned or seemingly confident.
Either way, it's orders of magnitude more dangerous than commercial aviation (not something you can say for Uber vs buses) and one thing guaranteed to increase that risk is GA pilots trying to reach specific destinations at specific times to satisfy their paying customers.
Which reminds me, I've got a GA "flight experience" to pick a date for ;-)
It seems to me that the only relevant statistic is likelihood of death per embarkation.
The big picture is that the FAA doesn't want the public to confuse the safety record of an airline with somebody flying a puddle-jumper (daily crashes in USA). The flying public just expects to get there without doing a risk evaluation, and puddle-jumpers are far riskier than airlines.
When you rideshare with Uber, there is a question of insurance.
When you rideshare a single-engine piston plane, there is a question of your life.