[sokoloff]

> the vast majority of GA accidents could be completely avoided with slightly better avionics.

Reading accident reports or the annual summary McSpadden Report (previously called the Nall Report), I get a different view: if pilots would keep fuel in the airplane and flowing to the engine(s), not fly into weather beyond the capability of the airplane and crew, and divert or not takeoff at the onset of signs that an aircraft is not airworthy, would reduce serious accidents by half or more. Better avionics has relatively little to do with that (other than the proper use of a fuel totalizer or better).

Complacency kills more pilots than weak avionics.

[aeternum]

Most cars give you significant warnings that you're about to run out of gas and as a result very few people do.

Improved avionics could warn you that you're flying into a storm or that the airplane is not airworthy or that you are converging with other traffic.

Complacency kills because it sneaks up on pilots, but it doesn't have to be that way. We should not accept that the FAA's answer is an IMSAFE checklist. Pilots should not have to die simply because they didn't realize they were feeling slightly stressed or emotional prior to takeoff and forgot to check a single one of the 40+ items on the preflight/runup/takeoff checklists.

Of course good pilots should check it all anyway but just as NHTSA requires safety warnings for cars, we could save many more lives if we required low fuel warnings, terrain warnings, gear warnings, speed warnings, etc. in aircraft avionics.

[NovemberWhiskey]

>Most cars give you significant warnings that you're about to run out of gas and as a result very few people do.

You will see accident reports where the problem is that the pilot just completely failed to put enough fuel in the airplane and then flew it until it ran out; but that's not the typical thing.

What's much more common is that the pilot takes off with what seems like ample fuel, gets halfway there, discovers weather that is worse than expected, has to fly lower than planned, burns a lot more fuel as a result, discovers that they will have to refuel, can't find an airport with good weather at which to land, and ends up flying a graveyard spiral into a fatal crash caused by disorientation in conditions for which they are not trained.

The majority of accidents are traceable to poor planning or decision-making once airborne; and I tend to agree with the other poster that improved avionics are not going to make a really big difference.

[lovecg]

If you’re about to run out of gas in a car it’s usually not a big deal - you find the nearest gas station and go there. Usually. There are exceptions like driving 100 miles of desert with no gas stations in sight and forgetting to put enough gas in. If that was the common driving scenario I’d bet way more people would run out of gas, and no warning light will help.

Flying a plane is often sort of like that - planning mistakes tend to become problems with large time windows where a warning light is way too late to affect the outcome. Flying into a long narrow canyon is another example where your fate can be sealed minutes before you actually fly into the mountain.

All of this can and should be made better with technology, but a lot of flying hazards are more complex than “warn the user about something happening in the next few seconds”.

[bluGill]

People run out of gas all the time (there are a lot of drivers, probably most never will in their lifetime, but that still leaves a lot that do). However in a car running out of gas is much easier to recover from - most of the time you can safely and easially coast to the side of the road. In an airplane there rarely is an airport nearby to coast into, so you end up looking for a place that might or might not be a good option - roads have power lines that you won't see until it is too late, fields sometimes have large holes (wet spots) that if you into at landing speed will flip the plane.

Low fuel warnings wouldn't really help in an airplane - from what I can tell most who run out of fuel know they are low for a while but are unable to get someplace to fill up.

[sokoloff]

I agree there is room for improvement and smarter airplane equipment is undoubtedly part of that.

I do not believe that “slightly better avionics will completely avoid the vast majority of GA accidents.”