Analysis of Air Taxi Accidents (20042018) and Associated Human Factors by Aircraft Performance Class.

Air taxis conduct nonscheduled transport and employ aircraft in various performance categories hereafter referred to as low, medium, and high performance, respectively. No study has yet addressed fixed-wing air taxi safety by performance category. Herein, we compared accident rates/occupant injury across air taxi airplane fleets grouped by performance category and identified human factors contributing to fatal accidents for airplanes in that category with the highest mishap rate. Accidents (20042018) in the United States were identified from the National Transportation Safety Board database. General Aviation/Part 135 Activity Surveys provided annual fleet times. Fatal accident contributing factors were per the Human Factors Classification System (HFACS). Statistics utilized Poisson distributions, Chi-Square/Fisher, and Mann-Whitney tests. There were 269 air taxi mishaps (53 fatal) identified. Over the 15 yr, the accident rate (1.10/million flight hours-all categories) declined 50%, largely due to a reduction in medium/high performance category airplane crashes. However, little temporal change was observed for low performance airplanes (1.5/million flight hours) and injury severity trended higher. At the aircrew/physical environment levels, HFACS revealed decision (improper choices), skill-based (stick and rudder) and perceptual (night, instrument conditions) errors contributing to > 60% of fatal accidents involving low performance airplanes. At the organizational level, failing to correct problems, time pressures, and incentive systems contributed to 16% of fatal mishaps. Safety deficits remain for the low performance category air taxi fleet warranting increased pilot instrument flight training/utilization of the mandatory 3-axis autopilot in degraded visibility. Safety culture improvements to address issues of personnel/equipment/training deficiencies, failing to correct problems, and time pressures/a safety-compromising incentive system all need to be addressed.