The ‘where’ and the ‘why’ of Cross-country Vfr Crashes: Database and Simulation Analyses

General Aviation (GA) accidents involving ‘VFR into IMC’ continue to be a major source of fatalities with a fatality rate more than four times greater than for GA accidents in general. We report two studies into the causes of cross-country weather-related accidents. In the first study we analyse the records of 77 New Zealand crashes where it could be determined that the aircraft was on a cross-country flight. We compared the characteristics of crashes that occurred after externally-driven events such as enginefailures with crashes where the pilot maintained on-going control over the aircraft. Significant differences were found for distance into the flight, visibility, altitude, crash severity and for the pilots’ age and recent flight time. In the second study, 18 qualified GA pilots completed two simulated cross-country flights involving several commonly encountered weather conditions with or without the use of GPS. Detailed measures of decision making, risk assessment and situational awareness were collected during the flights. We discuss the implications of the findings for training and flight safety in general aviation.