The NTSB will hold a safety forum this week on “Humans and Hardware,” from 9 to 5 Eastern Time on Wednesday, to address loss of control, which is the number-one cause of fatal crashes in fixed-wing general aviation aircraft. The event will be streamed live online at the NTSB website. The forum will comprise four panels — industry and government perspectives, human performance and medical issues, pilot training solutions, and equipment and technology solutions — followed by a wrap-up and discussion from 4 to 5. The forum video also will be archived and made available online and on YouTube for viewing anytime.
The panels will include pilots, instructors, industry representatives, and GA advocates as well as officials from the NTSB and FAA. During the last hour, all the panelists will join in a roundtable discussion of the issues and summarize the day’s findings. NTSB board member Earl Weener told AVweb he’s especially looking forward to that discussion, which is something the board hasn’t done before. “The participants at this forum are the people who can really do something about this problem,” he said. All of these segments of GA, from industry to educators to regulators, are all getting on board and ready to seriously address this issue, he said. “We’ve been pushing for recognition of this issue for several years, and now is really an opportune time to see some changes that will reduce the number of these loss-of-control accidents.” A full agenda for the meeting has been posted online (PDF).
