Lifetime odds of dying in a transportation accident
Motor vehicle incidents: 1 in 112
Pedestrian: 1 in 704
Motorcycle rider: 1 in 911
Cyclist: 1 in 4,535
Air and space transport incidents: 1 in 8,015
Source: National Safety Council, Injury Facts, 2015 Edition
U.S. general aviation accidents
Year…Accidents…Fatalities
2013…1,222…387
2012…1,471…440
2011…1,470…448
2010…1,440…457
2009…1,480…479
2008…1,569…496
2007…1,654…496
2006…1,523…706
2005…1,671…563
2004…1,619…559
Source: National Transportation Safety Board
It was a miracle that no one on the ground was injured.
When a single-engine airplane crashed on I-285 this month, killing the pilot and three passengers, it narrowly avoided a greater catastrophe.
The faltering plane coasted over homes, restaurants and car dealerships before slamming onto the busy interstate. Somehow, it missed the speeding cars.
But those in the path of crippled planes aren’t always so fortunate. In one instance, a twin-engine Cessna 310 crashed into a Lawrenceville home in 2009, killing 62-year-old Judith Kirchner.
Areas around Atlanta’s public airports have experienced tremendous growth and development over the last 25 years, making it harder to safely land a plane when something goes wrong.
Small planes taking off from airfields across metro Atlanta can sometimes have little room to maneuver when they run into airborne trouble. They crash-land into houses, backyards and on highways.
Since 1990, the number of people living in census tracts within five miles of public airports has increased 67 percent, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis. Growth around airports has kept pace with Atlanta’s overall population boom.
“These are busy airports in very populated areas. The two are like gasoline and matches in the eyes of residents,” said Ron Dennis, who lives about two miles from DeKalb-Peachtree Airport and previously served on the board of PDK Watch, a community group that monitors the airport.
The Federal Aviation Administration limits development that directly interferes with flight paths near runways. But, for the most part, local governments are left to balance the competing demands of safety and business. Because airports are often a magnet for development, some become “seriously encroached,” said John Collins, the manager of airport policy for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.
Residents and businesses keep coming to areas around airports. In Lawrenceville, 1,142 people per square mile moved in around Briscoe Field between 1990 and 2010. The area around DeKalb-Peachtree, the airport where Greg Byrd departed from May 8 before crashing onto the highway, added 967 residents per square mile in that same period.
“It’s been grown up around,” Collins said. “It is what it is. We can’t go back and change that. Can we make better decisions in the future? Perhaps.”
The airports have little control over their surrounding areas unless they own the land, said Justin Towles, staff vice president of regulatory affairs for the American Association of Airport Executives. Getting property owners to agree to trim trees, for example, can be “tricky,” he said. But, he said, it’s good to have development near airports — that’s what makes them successful.
“Nobody’s OK with several people dying in a plane crash, or planes hitting houses,” he said. “I don’t think it would warrant saying, ‘No, we don’t want development near airports because of safety.’”
Flying is safer than driving. Few people die each year in plane flights, but small planes and business jets are more dangerous than commercial airlines, which rarely crash.
There were 1,222 general aviation accidents and 387 fatalities in 2013, the safest year on record, according to National Transportation Safety Board data. By comparison, nearly 12,000 people died in passenger cars in 2013.
When compared with the danger of car travel, anxiety about plane crashes is misplaced, said Lanny Pruchnicki, a flight instructor and chief operating officer for the Flight School of Gwinnett. Still, finding a clear place to land during an emergency can be a challenge.
“There’s just not as much space” in cities and suburbs, he said.
Most accidents occur at takeoff and landing. As areas around airports continue to be built up, there are “fewer and fewer options of places to go when things go bad,” said Randy Epstein, president of the Experimental Aircraft Association chapter based at Lawrenceville’s Briscoe Field.
“Airports need a large buffer around them to give pilots room for margin of error,” said Jim Regan, the former treasurer of Citizens for a Better Gwinnett, which successfully opposed bringing commercial flights to Briscoe. “It’s poor planning.”
Dennis White, who owns Meat Man near Briscoe, said he has never been concerned about his proximity to the airport. C.W. Matthews Contracting Co. had to build an asphalt plant lower than it normally would to comply with height restrictions, said Executive Vice President Michael Bell. But it had already closed the plant by 2006 when a twin-engine plane crashed short of the runway and slid into the equipment. No one on the ground was injured, but the pilot and two passengers on the plane were killed.
“Development around airports is always problematic,” said Frank Mutz, president of Moncrief Heating and Air Conditioning and a former pilot. “There will be airplane crashes.”
Still, he said, life insurance rates do not go up if someone lives near an airport.
“The odds of falling on my house are slim to none,” he said. “It’s like winning the lottery. … If you’re the one person it happens to, you’re going to be scarred for life.”
Last fall, Greg Woodward, an adult baseball coach, was practicing with his team when he witnessed a close call. A plane cruised beyond the outfield, clipped treetops and bounced off the ground before sliding to a stop on a nearby high school practice field, roughly two miles short of a runway at Falcon Field in Peachtree City. The husband and wife aboard the plane were injured.
“He was lucky he was able to make it to the school area,” Woodward said. “For a while there, whenever a plane would come over, I’d look twice to check to make sure it’s doing OK.”
Homeowners should remember that plane crashes are rare, and accidents often occur close to the runway, without any impact beyond those inside the plane, said Mario Evans, the interim director of DeKalb-Peachtree Airport.
“When a crash does happen, everyone puts the spotlight on it,” Evans said. “The sky isn’t falling.”
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