The spate of accidents and associated thread led me to review the accident summary Lee Metcalfe sent around this summer.  (Thanks Lee...great resource!)  This document reviews all Lancair accidents in the NTSB database from 8/89 through 5/04.  I reviewed each accident and marked each one with PE (pilot error), ME (maintenance error) or AC (accident due to "bad luck"), according to my own judgement based on Lee's summary.  I did this solely by reading the summary without looking at whether a fatality was involved.

My classifications are of course my own and are subjective.  They may also reflect any interpretation implicit in Lee's summary.  I am a conservative pilot and therefore my definition of pilot or maintenance error might be someone else's definition of "bad luck."  I have no clue how a safety expert would classify the accidents.  However, from my own personal point of view, I was charitable (i.e. expansive) in the way I defined "bad luck."

Lee's database (as of 4/26/04) reports 85 accidents, 36 of which involved fatalities.  One involved disappearance at sea, for which there is no information, so I threw that one out.  By my personal classification, 17 of the remaining accidents and 5 of the remaining fatal accidents might be attributable to "bad luck."  Of the 5 fatal accidents due to bad luck, one was a heart attack, something that could happen while driving your car.  Another involved water in the carburetor float bowl (perhaps this could have been detected during preflight???).  A third appears to have involved a stall/spin upon loss of power, which might have had a better outcome.  Another involved an engine fire, and another the failure to reach the runway while trying to return to the airport after loss of power.

I do not find the fatal accident rate in Lancairs associated with "bad luck" (admittedly my own definition) alarming.  What is alarming is the extent of pilot and maintenance error.  For a conservative pilot like myself, the amount and types of errors are truly astonishing.  I am not so arrogant as to believe that I never make mistakes.  But there are many many mistakes in the database that a conservative pilot with good training will almost never make.  There are other mistakes for which steps should have been taken to better manage the risks.  Perhaps some think this perspective is arrogant.  I can only suggest that you read Lee's summaries and judge for yourself.

My take on this (and I hope I'm right) is that the overwhelming majority of the accidents are due to bad decision-making of one type or another.  The Cirrus had the same problem in its first year with a plane that is probably more pilot-friendly than Lancair kitplanes (with the possible exception of the ES).  With better pilot training over the last year or two, they seem to have turned things around.  Many on the list have suggested that training is the biggest issue, and after reading through Lee's summaries, it's hard to disagree.