250scp
A rebuttal to the argument you used under several different titles that implies younger pilots are safer than older ones. Granted a pilot 90 is safer than one 40, but is there a quantifiable difference between 61 or 65 yr old pilot versus a 30 yr old or 40 yr old. This study would indicate there is no medical evidence or empirical data to justify such a claim. I enjoyed reading your thoughts though, unemotional with some detail & thought. Just wanted to give another opinion on the "safety" issue.
May 22, 2003
MEDIA CONTACT: Karen Blum
PHONE: 410-955-1534
E-MAIL:
kblum@jhmi.edu
Older Pilots Ok to Fly, Study Shows
An airplane pilot's experience is a better indication of crash risk
than his or her age, Johns Hopkins researchers say.
They found in a study of 3,306 commuter plane pilots that those
with more than 5,000 hours of flight experience had less than half the
risk of a crash
than less experienced counterparts. Results are published in the
May 15 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.
During the study period, the pilots flew 12.9 million flight hours
and had 66 aviation crashes, yielding a crash rate of 5.1 per million
pilot flight hours.
Crash risk remained stable as the pilots aged from their late 40s
to late 50s. One hundred and five study subjects died, 27 of whom were
fatally injured
in aviation crashes.
"Federal aviation regulations prohibit airline pilots from flying
beyond the age of 60, but the relationship between pilot age and safety
had never been
rigorously assessed," says Guohua Li, M.D., Dr.P.H., lead author of
the study and professor of emergency medicine and of health policy and
management. "Performance in most flight-related tasks such as
decision-making, tracking, takeoff and landing does not differ
significantly between older
and younger pilots. The lack of an association between pilot age
and crash risk may reflect a strong 'healthy worker effect' from the
rigorous medical
standards and periodic physical examinations required for
professional pilots."
Among the pilots studied by Li and colleagues, 99 percent were male
and 69 percent were ages 45 to 49. On average, the pilots had 9,749
hours of
total flight time and 287 flight hours in the six months prior to
the start of the study. The majority of pilots (86 percent) did not have
any health problems
although 68 percent required corrective lenses for distant or near
vision.
Researchers tracked their exposure to flight and safety performance
from 1987 to 1997, using records from the Federal Aviation
Administration, the
National Transportation Safety Board and the National Death Index
as guidelines.
"Our study indicates that chronologic age by itself has little
bearing on safety performance," says Susan P. Baker, co-author of the
study and professor
of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School
of Public Health. "What really matters are age-related changes, such as
health
status and flight experience."
The study was supported by the National Institute on Aging. Other
authors were Jurek G. Grabowski, Yandong Qiang, Melissa L. McCarthy and
George W. Rebok.
- -JHMI- -
Li, Guohua et al, "Age, Flight Experience and Risk of Crash
Involvement in a Cohort of Professional Pilots," American Journal of
Epidemiology, Vol. 157, No. 10, pages 874-880.
Links:
Johns Hopkins' Department of Emergency Medicine
http://www.acenet.jhmi.edu/emerg/index.html
American Journal of Epidemiology
http://aje.oupjournals.org/