Aviation Consumer reports on LSA Safety

[Jack Tyler]

I'm sure some/many of you have already caught the article on LSA Safety that appears in AC's November issue. Their intro reads:

"LSA Accident Survey: Low Fatals, High Overall
Seven years worth of data show that landing accidents among LSAs are higher than for GA as a whole, but fatal accidents match the overall average.

"When the light sport aircraft rule was busy being born a decade ago, it was intended to be a poster child for inspired innovation driven by reduced regulation. While there’s no argument that LSA has ignited a bushel of new designs, not much has been said about safety and crashworthiness. Is it reasonable to assume that a 1320-pound airplane will be as safe as one weighing 300 or 500 pounds more?

"...And some models are much worse than others. We also confirmed another trend we’ve heard anecdotally: Some LSAs break a lot. Amidst the accident reports are incidents of broken gear legs, missing wheels and surprise collapses of landing gear components. In some cases, these were the cause of accidents, but they [also] result in others."

AC only evaluated accidents involving the top 10 selling LSA mfgrs. And they call their conclusions provisional because the estimated flight hours is still quite small (just shy of an estimated 1 Million hours). But some of the data, about specific models both pro and con, do make interesting reading. LSA fatal accident rates (1.4/100,000 flight hrs) are about the same as GA rates overall (1.2) and 4 LSA brands had no fatalities: Skycatcher, Jabiru, Flight Design and AeroPro. One possible explanation is that the overwhelming majority of LSA accidents are runway loss of control (R-LOC) events, which are rarely fatal. By contrast, 10 of the 14 LSA fatalities occurred in just 3 LSA brands: Remos, Evektor and Czech Aircraft Works

In an attempt to compare LSA apples with Part 23 Apples, AC noted that the still-ubiquitous Cessna 150/152's fatality rate is .19/100,000 hrs. (Estimated 150/152 hrs was 7 times greater, so that fatality rate is a pretty solid measure).

On the 'accident' side of things, Jabiru and Skycatcher stand out as having by far the fewest accidents per registration numbers, while Tecnam and Flight Design have some of the higher accident rates. But not as high as the problem children, which are Remos, Evektor and CAW. Here's AC's concluding statement, which you folks flying LSAs probably already chant as a mantra:

"For the time being, we think the LSA accident record is neither laudable nor alarming, but middle of the road. The takeaway from our research is this: If you fly an LSA, the best way to avoid your own NTSB entry is to keep your landing skills razor sharp and leave it in the hangar when the wind is gusting above 20 knots."

Charts & graphs are also included in the article. It's nice to see someone trying to take a stab at the relative performance of LSAs.