I briefly entertained flying planes as a hobby. I live next to a small-ish local airfield and a coworker of mine got his license there. Then I learned more about it, and there's way to many accidents like these for me to be comfortable with the risk I'd be taking.
I have no issue with flying commercial planes, but I guess I don't trust myself _and_ the smaller planes enough to do this.
I had a similar decision to make (pilot or motorbike) and the fact that 60%+ of aviation deaths are pilot error and something like 60%+ of motorcycle crashes are NOT the rider's fault - led me to be a pilot. At least then I can try to make good decisions, e.g, DO NOT FLY INTO WEATHER.
MC rider. Many accidents occur during the early years, particularly as the new rider gets comfortable. There's a transition period where your muscle memory kicks in for basic riding skills, but not developed enough to keep you out of trouble. It is an incredible feeling of false confidence that makes you feel invincible. It's possible to be 'smart' and reduce risk during this period, but I'm not advocating people generally go out and start riding either.
I got my glider license at 16 and private at 17. Majority of accidents are human error. Though yes an accident with a plane is much costlier than one with a car.
I encourage you to read NTSB accident reports. The work the investigators do and the reports they assemble are unparalleled. There are also good parallels to complex systems in general.
It seems like unjustifiable hubris to assume that I'm significantly less susceptible to human error than the average person that decides to become a pilot.
I think you can take steps to inoculate yourself to some extent.
My father subscribed to a newsletter that summarized NTSB general aviation mishap reports when he got his Private Pilot license back in the late 80s. I read them too and was astonished at how many mishaps were very bad judgement calls made by pilots-- flying when the weather wasn't fit, not checking fuel levels, flying after having experienced engine trouble, etc.
I think it should be required reading for every new pilot.
If you're even thinking about the danger, it's absolutely justifiable to believe you're above the average already. The average person has zero regard for their own safety; governments have to literally force people to wear seatbelts in cars or helmets on motorcycles because they won't do it without threat of financial penalty.
OTOH, there are those, particularly those who actually get training and practice in the high-performance zone, who realize the physics of the situation, and feel positively naked driving out without a seatbelt/harness, or helmet where appropriate.
Typically, in places like NTSB reports (or GA - private aviation - accidents in general), it often is human preventable. But the thing is different people have very different tolerance limits.
Pilot A might skip flying if the weather looks bad. Pilot B might go "well the storm's actually only at x location on my route, I'll fly around it". Pilot C might insist on more fuel but take the flight.
I'm not pretending it's possible to avoid (all) accidents with enough care - but if you look at NTSB stats, a vast majority of accidents were things that were quite easily avoidable.
Getting an instrument rating, flying in a plane with a weather radar that can go high (pressurized, beyond 40,000 feet or whereabouts), having another spare pilot and spare engine, and following the "big boy" scheduled airline (part 121) protocols and rules and minimums will almost certainly help avoid 50%+ (very conservatively) of GA accidents causes.
Yes, you still need to be careful and not fall victim to things like Get-there-itis (which pushes pilots to fly when they shouldn't because they want to get there). However... it's a swiss cheese model of accident avoidance. Remove as many factors from your side as you can, do your checklists, IMSAFE etc, and you're very likely to be (physically) okay.
Oh, and get a Cirrus with a parachute while we're at it. They've got auto land on their new planes too iirc.
I think it's important to multiply "likelihood of the human making a mistake" by "how many times the human must avoid a mistake". If your hobby presents 100 avoidable-but-life-threatening mistakes an hour, it's a dangerous hobby.
Driving a car presents 100 avoidable-but-life-threatening-potential-mistakes an hour. I'm personally exceptionally risk-averse and avoid cars for that reason, but I don't think that level of risk aversion necessarily needs to be typical. It's certainly worth pointing out that a safety-conscious person can significantly reduce the risk of a given activity, even if they can't eliminate it completely. And, to be honest, I'd rather encourage risk-aware pilots to take up the hobby! Airliner pilots have to come from somewhere, and I'd prefer if my airline pilot was one who considered the risks of flying and did it anyways rather than having an airline pilot who is totally reckless and simply doesn't care about risks.
June 8: A Gulfstream G200 crashed while landing at La Romana International in the DR, it was on the way to pick up former MLB player Yadier Molina, but it had to make an emergency landing. Both pilots, the only occupants, died.
June 10: A Pakistan Army Aviation Mi-17 helicopter crashed near Muzaffarabad. All 22 on board perished.
June 11: Turkish Airlines Flight TK2430, a Boeing 777-300ER, collided with a ground radar antenna while taxiing to its gate after landing at Antalya Airport when the aircraft turned onto a taxiway too small for 777's. Despite the damage to the aircraft, only 1 of 267 souls aboard were injured.
June 11: United Airlines Flight 1275, a Boeing 737, was delayed after a swarm of bees stuck to its right wing. The pilots decided to take off with the insects still on said wing; they all cleared off once the aircraft got airborne. No bees entered the aircraft and no injuries were reported.
June 11: A Piper PA-36 collided with a tower near Barrelman Airport and crashed. The former president of the National Agricultural Aviation Association (NAAA), Rick Boardman, died.
June 11: A Cirrus SR20 crashed into a house after taking off from Portsmouth, Ohio. Only the pilot was killed, and both occupants of the home escaped uninjured.
June 11: A Zhonglian F-27 light helicopter suffered a tail-boom failure and crashed during a test flight in Jiangsu. The pilot and passenger survived with non life-threatening injuries.
June 12: SriLankan Airlines Flight UL-606, an Airbus A330, had its engine struck by lightning just after takeoff from Colombo International; the plane landed safely and no injuries were reported.
June 13: Singapore Airlines Flight SQ114, a Boeing 737-800, suffered burst tires upon landing at Kuala Lumper International; the plane managed to stop on the runway, and no injuries were reported.
June 13: An Indian Air Force An-32 crashed while attempting to land Jorhat Air Force Base in Assam. 5 of the 6 people on board died, with the co-pilot, as of writing, claimed to have been the only survivor.
June 13: A US Marine Corp F/A-18 Hornet Crashed in Washington State near Rimlock Lake. The pilot safely ejected and survived.
June 14: Two helicopters collided mid-air over Brazil. All six people on board both helicopters perished, including American songwriter and rapper, Oliver Tree.
June 14: A Pacific Aerospace 750XL, N221BN, crashed shortly after takeoff from Butler Memorial Airport in Butler, Missouri. The pilot and 11 skydivers on board perished.
June 14: A Piper PA-28, N15564, crashed shortly after takeoff from Key West, Florida. Initially, 5 people were reported to be on board, but it was found out that only 2 people were; both survived.
June 14: Delta Airlines Flight 2905, a Boeing 737-900, collided with a catering truck at Seattle-Tacoma International; no injuries were reported.
June 15: A Russian Tu-22 bomber crashed in Siberia during a training flight. As of writing, everyone on board has been reported to have ejected and survived.
June 15: A Pakistan Air Force trainer aircraft crashed in Pakistan's Mardan district. As of writing, both of the pilots were killed, and at least three motorists were injured.
June 15: A Van's RV-3A crashed into a cow field about 15 miles north of Lakeland, FL. The pilot was killed.
There were some more in the last three days as well...
I clicked a news article a few months ago about a crash... Google has since decided I need to know about all future aviation accidents. I was surprised how frequent it happens. Two brothers were killed in a Cessna just the other day.
I suppose it's a combination of lower maintenance standards and pilot experience, definitely doesn't make me want to hop in a small plane anytime soon.
Counterintuitively, it's probably the unrealistically high maintenance standards that lead to 1) no available qualified mechanics, and 2) incredibly high prices, resulting in 3) deferring whatever is possible to defer. This is the situation in the US; I imagine costs are doubly impactful in a country like France.
Aviation is in a huge rut. A major issue is that innovation is nearly dead. Want to bring a new aircraft to market? Got 5-10 years to get it certified while not being able to sell it to a market size of....? How about a new engine? In GA we fly 80yo designs around not because they are great, but because nobody can innovate to bring in the better stuff. I have a lot of hope for electric aviation because a new regulatory space and simpler designs may mean faster certification which could lead to real innovation in the space.
Every now and then there are some people who try to innovate in this space. Example: The guys from corsairpower (https://corsairpower.com/) who put a marine engine in a Cessna 172.
However, it seems like they get stuck because of small market size, regulations and incumbents who don't want the status quo to change.
It's certainly possible to maintain GA aircraft to a high standard and not break the bank. For example, a flying club I'm in has Cessna 172s for $116/hr wet with no-compromises maintenance.
If you're not directly involved in the maintenance, I am skeptical. For example, many flying clubs only exist because they have members who are A&Ps / IAs, who maintain the plane in consideration of membership. That's a workaround for the problem I'm presenting. I won't say it's impossible, but it's increasingly difficult and location-dependent.
The vast majority of GA crashes are pilot error directly or indirectly (taking off without fuel is "technically" a mechanical issue but really pilot failure).
THere are parachutes for small aircraft these days. If I were flying one and had their money I would get that installed. Of course that doesn’t protect against crashing into mountainsides or losing ones orientation, but it does help against engine failure at altitude.
probably a hobby but a 421 is a high performance dual engine with a pressurized cabin... that's a lot of plane and dual engines are difficult to fly with a lot of technical knowledge and practice to handle an engine out procedure safely. this kind of plane very commonly kills doctors and other high earning individuals that don't have the time to keep their time in the plane to stay recent.
a lot of time people do buy multi engine planes for travel so it's not certain it was just a hobby.
I worked for a small successful company in the pharmaceutical industry. One of their founders died in a crash in his small personal aircraft. He was a really nice guy and very charismatic. I was not working there when the accident happened, but I was sad to hear about it.
However, often if you’re handling things well, loosing an engine isn’t the end of the world.
A lot of accidents happen very close to the ground, at height wear a parachute wouldn’t necessarily be helpful anyway.
A parachute, a great solution for some scenarios, but for many, it’s not going to change the outcome. Such examples would be mid collisions, low altitude spiral dives, fires, or anything related to a shortage of oxygen. You also need to consider that during a lot of accidents, other factors, such as weather might be impacting the decision matrix of the pilot, and that might prevent them from using a parachute until it’s too late.
The parachutes are also another maintenance item in increasing the cost of running the plane, and generally, the airframe won’t survive the accident, so people are hesitant to deploy them.
Funny, I put parachutes on my airplanes in kerbal space program (as a safety feature) but never considered what the real-life analogue to that would be. Turns out it's very similar!
Other than the fact that the crash happened, there doesn't seem to be any more detailed news yet, so the headline says pretty much what there is to know at this time.
This sort of thing is one of the reasons Elon became so important at Tesla. The other key players died in a freakish plane crash, apparently hitting transmission lines at low altitude which is not something parachutes would likely have helped with.
I briefly entertained flying planes as a hobby. I live next to a small-ish local airfield and a coworker of mine got his license there. Then I learned more about it, and there's way to many accidents like these for me to be comfortable with the risk I'd be taking.
I have no issue with flying commercial planes, but I guess I don't trust myself _and_ the smaller planes enough to do this.
RIP Claude, horrible way to die.
I had a similar decision to make (pilot or motorbike) and the fact that 60%+ of aviation deaths are pilot error and something like 60%+ of motorcycle crashes are NOT the rider's fault - led me to be a pilot. At least then I can try to make good decisions, e.g, DO NOT FLY INTO WEATHER.
And a lot of the pilot deaths are not because of in-the-moment skill deficiencies.
Stick and rudder skills aren't that useful with fuel exhaustion and bad weather planning. It's much easier to stay safer in a plane vs motorcycle.
I wish people treated cars and motorcycles properly, especially in the US. Until then, no motorcycles for me either :(
MC rider. Many accidents occur during the early years, particularly as the new rider gets comfortable. There's a transition period where your muscle memory kicks in for basic riding skills, but not developed enough to keep you out of trouble. It is an incredible feeling of false confidence that makes you feel invincible. It's possible to be 'smart' and reduce risk during this period, but I'm not advocating people generally go out and start riding either.
The stakes get even higher if you fly a plane with your entire family in it. One bad error and you will almost certainly have killed them all.
I got my glider license at 16 and private at 17. Majority of accidents are human error. Though yes an accident with a plane is much costlier than one with a car.
I encourage you to read NTSB accident reports. The work the investigators do and the reports they assemble are unparalleled. There are also good parallels to complex systems in general.
It seems like unjustifiable hubris to assume that I'm significantly less susceptible to human error than the average person that decides to become a pilot.
I think you can take steps to inoculate yourself to some extent.
My father subscribed to a newsletter that summarized NTSB general aviation mishap reports when he got his Private Pilot license back in the late 80s. I read them too and was astonished at how many mishaps were very bad judgement calls made by pilots-- flying when the weather wasn't fit, not checking fuel levels, flying after having experienced engine trouble, etc.
I think it should be required reading for every new pilot.
If you're even thinking about the danger, it's absolutely justifiable to believe you're above the average already. The average person has zero regard for their own safety; governments have to literally force people to wear seatbelts in cars or helmets on motorcycles because they won't do it without threat of financial penalty.
Indeed most of them wont do it without threat
OTOH, there are those, particularly those who actually get training and practice in the high-performance zone, who realize the physics of the situation, and feel positively naked driving out without a seatbelt/harness, or helmet where appropriate.
Too many people read "human error" as "human preventable" rather than "a thing you will also do because you are human"
Typically, in places like NTSB reports (or GA - private aviation - accidents in general), it often is human preventable. But the thing is different people have very different tolerance limits.
Pilot A might skip flying if the weather looks bad. Pilot B might go "well the storm's actually only at x location on my route, I'll fly around it". Pilot C might insist on more fuel but take the flight.
I'm not pretending it's possible to avoid (all) accidents with enough care - but if you look at NTSB stats, a vast majority of accidents were things that were quite easily avoidable.
Getting an instrument rating, flying in a plane with a weather radar that can go high (pressurized, beyond 40,000 feet or whereabouts), having another spare pilot and spare engine, and following the "big boy" scheduled airline (part 121) protocols and rules and minimums will almost certainly help avoid 50%+ (very conservatively) of GA accidents causes.
Yes, you still need to be careful and not fall victim to things like Get-there-itis (which pushes pilots to fly when they shouldn't because they want to get there). However... it's a swiss cheese model of accident avoidance. Remove as many factors from your side as you can, do your checklists, IMSAFE etc, and you're very likely to be (physically) okay.
Oh, and get a Cirrus with a parachute while we're at it. They've got auto land on their new planes too iirc.
I think it's important to multiply "likelihood of the human making a mistake" by "how many times the human must avoid a mistake". If your hobby presents 100 avoidable-but-life-threatening mistakes an hour, it's a dangerous hobby.
Driving a car presents 100 avoidable-but-life-threatening-potential-mistakes an hour. I'm personally exceptionally risk-averse and avoid cars for that reason, but I don't think that level of risk aversion necessarily needs to be typical. It's certainly worth pointing out that a safety-conscious person can significantly reduce the risk of a given activity, even if they can't eliminate it completely. And, to be honest, I'd rather encourage risk-aware pilots to take up the hobby! Airliner pilots have to come from somewhere, and I'd prefer if my airline pilot was one who considered the risks of flying and did it anyways rather than having an airline pilot who is totally reckless and simply doesn't care about risks.
It is the same reason I decided against getting a motorcycle (I also decided against getting a PPL as well).
My Dad, a flight instructor, loves to remind me that there are bold pilots and old pilots. But there are no old bold pilots.
Chuck Yeager seemed pretty bold and died at 96.
Yay, one old bold pilot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Yeager
Chuck Yeager was a very skilled pilot with inhumanly good vision and ridiculously good luck. He's also a good demonstration of survivorship bias.
Similarly, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48608732
Bad two weeks for aviation.
Hmm? What else did I miss?
The other replies were big stories, as was this B-52 crash:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_United_States_Air_Force_B...
Oliver Tree is a musician who died in a helicopter crash recently too.
Joshua Baer, founder and CEO of Austin's Capital Factory VC firm, killed in plane crash near Laredo, Texas.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
From here https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/s/cZE1TCwb2B
June 8: A Gulfstream G200 crashed while landing at La Romana International in the DR, it was on the way to pick up former MLB player Yadier Molina, but it had to make an emergency landing. Both pilots, the only occupants, died.
June 10: A Pakistan Army Aviation Mi-17 helicopter crashed near Muzaffarabad. All 22 on board perished.
June 11: Turkish Airlines Flight TK2430, a Boeing 777-300ER, collided with a ground radar antenna while taxiing to its gate after landing at Antalya Airport when the aircraft turned onto a taxiway too small for 777's. Despite the damage to the aircraft, only 1 of 267 souls aboard were injured.
June 11: United Airlines Flight 1275, a Boeing 737, was delayed after a swarm of bees stuck to its right wing. The pilots decided to take off with the insects still on said wing; they all cleared off once the aircraft got airborne. No bees entered the aircraft and no injuries were reported.
June 11: A Piper PA-36 collided with a tower near Barrelman Airport and crashed. The former president of the National Agricultural Aviation Association (NAAA), Rick Boardman, died.
June 11: A Cirrus SR20 crashed into a house after taking off from Portsmouth, Ohio. Only the pilot was killed, and both occupants of the home escaped uninjured.
June 11: A Zhonglian F-27 light helicopter suffered a tail-boom failure and crashed during a test flight in Jiangsu. The pilot and passenger survived with non life-threatening injuries.
June 12: SriLankan Airlines Flight UL-606, an Airbus A330, had its engine struck by lightning just after takeoff from Colombo International; the plane landed safely and no injuries were reported.
June 13: Singapore Airlines Flight SQ114, a Boeing 737-800, suffered burst tires upon landing at Kuala Lumper International; the plane managed to stop on the runway, and no injuries were reported.
June 13: An Indian Air Force An-32 crashed while attempting to land Jorhat Air Force Base in Assam. 5 of the 6 people on board died, with the co-pilot, as of writing, claimed to have been the only survivor.
June 13: A US Marine Corp F/A-18 Hornet Crashed in Washington State near Rimlock Lake. The pilot safely ejected and survived.
June 14: Two helicopters collided mid-air over Brazil. All six people on board both helicopters perished, including American songwriter and rapper, Oliver Tree.
June 14: A Pacific Aerospace 750XL, N221BN, crashed shortly after takeoff from Butler Memorial Airport in Butler, Missouri. The pilot and 11 skydivers on board perished.
June 14: A Piper PA-28, N15564, crashed shortly after takeoff from Key West, Florida. Initially, 5 people were reported to be on board, but it was found out that only 2 people were; both survived.
June 14: Delta Airlines Flight 2905, a Boeing 737-900, collided with a catering truck at Seattle-Tacoma International; no injuries were reported.
June 15: A Russian Tu-22 bomber crashed in Siberia during a training flight. As of writing, everyone on board has been reported to have ejected and survived.
June 15: A Pakistan Air Force trainer aircraft crashed in Pakistan's Mardan district. As of writing, both of the pilots were killed, and at least three motorists were injured.
June 15: A Van's RV-3A crashed into a cow field about 15 miles north of Lakeland, FL. The pilot was killed.
There were some more in the last three days as well...
Personal aircraft. The great equalizer.
I clicked a news article a few months ago about a crash... Google has since decided I need to know about all future aviation accidents. I was surprised how frequent it happens. Two brothers were killed in a Cessna just the other day.
I suppose it's a combination of lower maintenance standards and pilot experience, definitely doesn't make me want to hop in a small plane anytime soon.
Counterintuitively, it's probably the unrealistically high maintenance standards that lead to 1) no available qualified mechanics, and 2) incredibly high prices, resulting in 3) deferring whatever is possible to defer. This is the situation in the US; I imagine costs are doubly impactful in a country like France.
Aviation is in a huge rut. A major issue is that innovation is nearly dead. Want to bring a new aircraft to market? Got 5-10 years to get it certified while not being able to sell it to a market size of....? How about a new engine? In GA we fly 80yo designs around not because they are great, but because nobody can innovate to bring in the better stuff. I have a lot of hope for electric aviation because a new regulatory space and simpler designs may mean faster certification which could lead to real innovation in the space.
Every now and then there are some people who try to innovate in this space. Example: The guys from corsairpower (https://corsairpower.com/) who put a marine engine in a Cessna 172. However, it seems like they get stuck because of small market size, regulations and incumbents who don't want the status quo to change.
Don't forget that the incumbents will fight to keep regulatory barriers high.
I'd read this blog post.
You just did.
It's certainly possible to maintain GA aircraft to a high standard and not break the bank. For example, a flying club I'm in has Cessna 172s for $116/hr wet with no-compromises maintenance.
If you're not directly involved in the maintenance, I am skeptical. For example, many flying clubs only exist because they have members who are A&Ps / IAs, who maintain the plane in consideration of membership. That's a workaround for the problem I'm presenting. I won't say it's impossible, but it's increasingly difficult and location-dependent.
what's the club buy in and annual fee? I instruct out of a 150 and $125/hr is the cheapest I can justify charging.
Citation needed. Afaik they mostly crash from pilot error, not technical problems caused by too little maintenance.
The vast majority of GA crashes are pilot error directly or indirectly (taking off without fuel is "technically" a mechanical issue but really pilot failure).
Equipment failure is pretty low on list.
THere are parachutes for small aircraft these days. If I were flying one and had their money I would get that installed. Of course that doesn’t protect against crashing into mountainsides or losing ones orientation, but it does help against engine failure at altitude.
“Doctor killer” for a reason.
It can be monotonous and degrading, but commercial air is the safe way to travel.
It was a Cessna 421 so its not really about travel but flying as a hobby most likely.
probably a hobby but a 421 is a high performance dual engine with a pressurized cabin... that's a lot of plane and dual engines are difficult to fly with a lot of technical knowledge and practice to handle an engine out procedure safely. this kind of plane very commonly kills doctors and other high earning individuals that don't have the time to keep their time in the plane to stay recent.
a lot of time people do buy multi engine planes for travel so it's not certain it was just a hobby.
There's a saying among pilots that on a twin piston (which the 421 is) the second engine is there to get you to the crash site faster.
I worked for a small successful company in the pharmaceutical industry. One of their founders died in a crash in his small personal aircraft. He was a really nice guy and very charismatic. I was not working there when the accident happened, but I was sad to hear about it.
I agree with OP's sentiment.
Seems aircraft have been hard on tech this week.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Guillemot
Why don't planes have parachutes? like a huge parachute that pops on stall to slowly descent the plane?
Some do. Sr-22 for example.
However, often if you’re handling things well, loosing an engine isn’t the end of the world.
A lot of accidents happen very close to the ground, at height wear a parachute wouldn’t necessarily be helpful anyway.
A parachute, a great solution for some scenarios, but for many, it’s not going to change the outcome. Such examples would be mid collisions, low altitude spiral dives, fires, or anything related to a shortage of oxygen. You also need to consider that during a lot of accidents, other factors, such as weather might be impacting the decision matrix of the pilot, and that might prevent them from using a parachute until it’s too late.
The parachutes are also another maintenance item in increasing the cost of running the plane, and generally, the airframe won’t survive the accident, so people are hesitant to deploy them.
Some do:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_Airframe_Parachute_Syst...
Funny, I put parachutes on my airplanes in kerbal space program (as a safety feature) but never considered what the real-life analogue to that would be. Turns out it's very similar!
Just so its clear, Kerbal is the analog.
Some do [1]. But in GA the costs to fly are so high that adding yet another cost means it is impractical for most GA pilots.
[1] https://brsaerospace.com/
memento mori
Non paywall source: https://www.reuters.com/world/ubisofts-co-founder-claude-gui...
Thanks, we've changed to that from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-20/ubisoft-c... above.
Paywall there for me, or "allow ads."
Other than the fact that the crash happened, there doesn't seem to be any more detailed news yet, so the headline says pretty much what there is to know at this time.
This sort of thing is one of the reasons Elon became so important at Tesla. The other key players died in a freakish plane crash, apparently hitting transmission lines at low altitude which is not something parachutes would likely have helped with.
https://www.wired.com/2010/02/plane-crash-kills-tesla-employ...
And he doomed tesla which was earlier soaring to become a trillion dollar company
So many nerds here in Silicon Valley love to fly small aircraft, it’s an autistic comorbidity. You’ll never catch me acting so foolish.
I would argue it has a much closer intersection with wealth.
"autistic comorbidity"
Wtf haha. Everything's autism nowadays isn't it.
Perhaps it's just an alignment of having the money to buy a small plane and being interested in planes.