Female pilots and accidents

[Bede]

I was doing some thinking. Can anyone think of any time a female captain of a major airline has ever had an accident? I can't think of a single one. I know there are not that many females compared to males, but you'd figure if the distributions were the same, there would at least be a few.

Can anyone think of any? Any idea's why?

[esp803]

Correlation does not imply causation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candi_Kubeck

[YYZSaabGuy]

I can think of a fairly recent occurrence: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-0 ... nding.html

[JDW]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Midwest_Flight_5481

....wasnt exactly her fault though

[FL410]

Pretty sure the Southwest 345 accident at LGA had a female captain.

[photofly]

Source for statistics for women in aviation:
http://www.womenofaviationweek.org/five ... did-we-do/

"Furthermore, the U.S. Department of Labor reports that only 4.3% of the population that reports making a living as a pilot or flight engineer is female. "

That's in the US - probably the country with the highest proportion of female pilots.
I don't have figures but I'd suggest that the representation of women at the level of seniority needed to captain a transport jet at a major is much lower than 4.3%. I don't have any figures but I'm going to guess 1%.

So you might expect to see 1 in 100 recent air disasters involving a female captain. Have there been 100 such incidents recently to draw any conclusions from?

[Buzz Lightyear]

What about the one that crashed in the Everglades, Valuejet I think. Again not much they could do on that one.

[Meatservo]

meh. the guy about four posts below this one is right. Who cares?

[CpnCrunch]

How about gay pilots? Black pilots? Christian pilots? How about left handed pilots?

Perhaps you might want to study some basic biology before making ignorant statements like that (presumably based on an unwarranted sense of political correctness).

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=female+male+%20pilots+accidents

[pdw]

Really I could not help but to say.

WHO CARES

who ever is interested in female pilot Captain crashes needs a life.

Nobody does. But thinking about that a little ... ie in a news flash "Local pilot of crashed plane ... age whatever etc .. injuries not serious (or otherwise) it's immediately a "he" ... and then in accident reports it's about the pilot did this and the pilot did that (and you might be feeling empathy for the plight already what "he" got himself into) and then the narrative nearing the end switches-to and identifies "she" and then suddenly you're left asking yourself does it make a difference somehow , and the answer of course is no ... but it might have seemed important at that point for some reason whether the pilot was F or M, just for the sake of knowing .. maybe ... but definitely isn't important at all ... think about it ... nil ... no difference ...

[Illya Kuryakin]

The term "female pilot" bothers me as much as "male nurse"! You are a pilot. You are a nurse. Why is this so hard? While I'm at it, WTF is an "aviatrix"?? Everybody wants to be treated equally. I get that. So drop the gender prefix.
Illya

[Changes in Latitudes]

I guarantee females have their share of accidents, they are just a little more discrete about it. Males, on the other hand, tend to brag when they soil themselves.

Drink too much water, enter a hold below 10,000? Gambled and lost on a fart? Bean medley crew meal? We've all had our share of accidents, and that's ok.

[ahramin]

I can't think of any off hand that haven't already been posted BD.

As for who cares, the US Army for one.

http://time.com/8404/army-women-helicopter-pilots/

But I'm sure you guys are all smarter than the leadership there.

[EPR]

Critter 592 comes to mind, but male or female...would have made no difference in the outcome of this one!

[Nark]

I can't think of any off hand that haven't already been posted BD.
As for who cares, the US Army for one.
http://time.com/8404/army-women-helicopter-pilots/
But I'm sure you guys are all smarter than the leadership there.

US Army aviation isn't the poster child for safe flying.
We are asked to go out and do stupid things.

My favorite rebuttal to Apache pilots? At least I can fly in the clouds.

[everythingiscavok]

Pretty sure if I kept flying, I would be one of the stats! I was great at talking on the radio and nav. As my husband said, "the perfect FO". Thank goodness that worked perfectly for ATC

[stol701]

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/gener ... cts/gender

However, females are more likely than males to be killed or injured in crashes of equal severity, although gender differences in fatality risk diminish with age.

I bet there is something related between this fact and the smaller number of accidents with women pilots as women will tend to be more protective of themselves (on average). Men will also do less risky things in the presence of a woman as they would know she would have less chance of survival if something happens.

[GyvAir]

Men will also do less risky things in the presence of a woman as they would know she would have less chance of survival if something happens.

I think if men cut down on risky activities in the presence of a woman, it has more to do with the fact that if she does survive and he does too, he has to live it down for an undetermined, but probably very, very long length of time!

[Sheldoncooper]

Yes if the distribution were equal, chance, failures, faults, and pilot error would probably distribute the accidents statically equal. But being a female pilot myself, please stop as we Equally hate having to waste our time talking about gender.

[stol701]

In an online forum like this the more time waste something creates the better it is.

But also where you see gender differences I think 90% of the readers will see sex differences, and this makes all the difference
Male pilots just like having the word woman in a sentence and it doesn't matter what the rest of the words in that sentence are

[Bede]

The reason I started this thread was out of a conversation I had with my father in law who worked in mines. He was saying that now, companies tend to prefer female heavy equipment operators because they were a lot easier on the equipment. I was curious if this reasoning applied to aviation as well.

[CpnCrunch]

I'm not sure what all that gibberish means so I'm going to assume you are just offended because you fit in to one of those categories. Just out of curiosity, which one is it?

LOL no. I thought it was obvious that I was offended by your (apparent) misplaced political correctness and ignorance. Of course there is a difference between male and female pilots, and of course there is no difference in the others you posted.

Anyway, if you click on that google search I posted, the top two results give the research into female/male accidents for airline and GA.

I would have posted a more useful analysis of the accident stats rather than a mocking reply if you hadn't trolled in the first place, but that's avcanada for you.

[Gear Jerker]

Here's some research on the subject.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 8396000126

Personally, I know of some really bad, and some really good female pilots. Same goes for male pilots.

I know I wouldn't want to be a female pilot, simply because I wouldn't want to be outnumbered 10:1 by males and therefore have to deal with a certain amount of sexual harassment.

It would be interesting to see some research on accident rates in Canadian 703 for male vs female pilots. I wonder if they would be any different than 704 or 705.

[newbiewings]

Just my thoughts on the subject...

Female/male, doesn't really matter. You're a pilot.

You've been through similar training, and have learned rote methods to take in a given situation. These methods are generally developed as a direct result of prior incidents/accidents.

What is key, has to do with the fact that we are individuals. Every one of us learn, process and act to a situation as such, individually.

Will a right-handed female with 5,000 hours PIC react differently than a left-handed male with 400 hours PIC in the same scenario? More than likely...

Reverse the gender/right-left handed/hours PIC and will they react differently? Probably.

What if they are flying together? Will that change any of the dynamics? Do they like/respect/desire each other?

The reason I started this thread was out of a conversation I had with my father in law who worked in mines. He was saying that now, companies tend to prefer female heavy equipment operators because they were a lot easier on the equipment. I was curious if this reasoning applied to aviation as well.

I've also been told that in the oil sands mines, companies like to hire women because they are easier on the equipment and work just as hard. There was an advertised program last fall, specifically aimed at women, to attend a training program to drive a 797 haul truck.

There have also been recruitment drives specifically aimed at women as pilots. There has to be a reason behind it.

It's a topic that can be debated to death, and there really isn't a right/wrong to it.

Just fly safely.

[davecessna]

I would like to speak on behalf of all left-handed pilots when I say we are a proud people and do not consider ourselves inferior to our right-handed brethren.