A flight instructor and student in the cockpit at Van Nuys Airport, both wearing headsets

Sourced Numbers, Not Reassurance

Is Learning To Fly Dangerous?

The FAA's 2025 General Aviation Safety Fact Sheet estimates 0.68 fatal accidents per 100,000 general aviation flight hours in FY2024 — 195 fatal accidents and 337 fatalities. General aviation carries more risk per flight hour than airline flying, and the FAA ranks Loss of Control In Flight as the leading fatal accident risk factor, which is a handling problem and therefore a training problem.

0.68 fatal accidents per 100,000 hrs, FAA FY2024Loss of control is the leading risk factorYour instructor is legally pilot in command355 flyable days a year at Van Nuys

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0.68GA fatal accidents per 100,000 flight hours, FAA FY2024 estimate

195GA fatal accidents in FY2024, FAA General Aviation Safety Fact Sheet

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100 hrsinspection interval for instruction-for-hire aircraft, 14 CFR 91.409(b)

The Short Answer

Is Learning To Fly Dangerous?

General aviation carries real risk, and the honest way to state it is with the published rate. The FAA's 2025 General Aviation Safety Fact Sheet gives an estimated fatal accident rate of 0.68 per 100,000 flight hours for fiscal year 2024, from 195 fatal accidents and 337 fatalities. The AOPA Air Safety Institute's Richard G. McSpadden Report, working from NTSB records, counted 929 non-commercial fixed-wing accidents in 2023, 156 of them fatal, across an estimated 28.4 million general aviation flight hours — a fatal accident rate of 0.65 per 100,000 hours for that narrower category.

Those numbers describe general aviation as a whole: owners flying their own aircraft, night cross-countries in weather, aerobatics, back-country strips and everything else. They are not a rate for a student flying circuits at a towered Class D field with a commercial-rated instructor in the right seat. We looked for a published accident rate specific to dual instruction and could not find one we were willing to stand behind, so this page does not give you a number for it. A figure we cannot source is worse than no figure.

What the FAA does publish is the cause. Across 2014 to 2023 it ranks Loss of Control In Flight as the top fatal accident risk factor in general aviation. Loss of control means the aircraft departing controlled flight — most often a stall in a turn at low altitude. That is not a mystery, it is not mechanical, and stall recognition and recovery is a required area of instruction long before your first solo.

The Published Record

What Do The Accident Statistics Actually Say?

Three sources, what each one measures, and where they disagree.

The FAA Figure, And What It Counts

The FAA's General Aviation Safety Fact Sheet is the agency's own annual summary. Its FY2024 estimate is 0.68 fatal accidents per 100,000 flight hours, from 195 fatal accidents and 337 fatalities, and the FAA's stated goal is to reduce that rate by a further one percent a year. The denominator is an estimate of general aviation flight hours, which is itself survey-derived, and that is worth knowing when you compare years.

The AOPA Figure, And Why It Is Different

The AOPA Air Safety Institute's Richard G. McSpadden Report narrows the category to non-commercial fixed-wing flying. For 2023 it recorded 929 accidents, 156 of them fatal, a total accident rate of 3.86 and a fatal accident rate of 0.65 per 100,000 flight hours, against 28.4 million general aviation flight hours flown that year.

Two published rates that look similar are not the same measurement. The FAA figure covers all of general aviation including helicopters and experimental aircraft; the AOPA figure covers non-commercial fixed-wing only. Anyone quoting a single number without saying which population it describes is not telling you very much.

The Comparison To Driving, And Why This Page Does Not Make It

Road fatality rates are published per 100 million vehicle miles travelled. Aviation accident rates are published per 100,000 flight hours. Miles and hours are different denominators, and an aircraft covers far more ground in an hour than a car does, so converting one into the other changes the answer by whatever factor you choose for cruise speed.

Every version of the flying-versus-driving comparison you have read involved somebody choosing that factor. We are not going to choose one for you. If a flight school hands you a comparison that makes flying look safe, ask which denominator they used.

Published Rates

How Safe Is General Aviation Compared With Airline Flying?

Every figure below is from the named source and measures what the row says it measures. Rates are per 100,000 flight hours unless stated.

What is being measured	Source	Period	Figure
General aviation fatal accident rate	FAA General Aviation Safety Fact Sheet, 2025	FY2024, estimated	0.68
General aviation fatal accidents	FAA General Aviation Safety Fact Sheet, 2025	FY2024, estimated	195
General aviation fatalities	FAA General Aviation Safety Fact Sheet, 2025	FY2024, estimated	337
Non-commercial fixed-wing total accident rate	AOPA Air Safety Institute, McSpadden Report	2023	3.86
Non-commercial fixed-wing fatal accident rate	AOPA Air Safety Institute, McSpadden Report	2023	0.65
Non-commercial fixed-wing accidents, of which fatal	AOPA Air Safety Institute, McSpadden Report	2023	929, of which 156
General aviation flight hours flown	AOPA Air Safety Institute, McSpadden Report	2023	28.4 million
Leading fatal accident risk factor	FAA General Aviation Safety Fact Sheet, 2025	2014–2023	Loss of Control In Flight

What is deliberately not in this table: any accident rate for dual instruction, any rate for this school, and any comparison with driving. We do not have a source for the first two that we would be willing to have quoted back to us, and the third depends on a denominator conversion that anyone can rig.

What Reduces The Risk

What Actually Makes Flight Training Safer?

Six things, each of which is either a regulation or a decision a school makes. None of them is a slogan.

The Instructor Is Legally Pilot In Command

On every training flight before your solo, the flight instructor is the pilot in command. That is not a formality. It means a commercial or airline transport rated pilot holding a current medical makes the weather call, the go-around call and the decision to stop the lesson. You are flying the aircraft; they are responsible for it.

Stall And Loss-Of-Control Training Comes Early

The FAA names Loss of Control In Flight as the top fatal accident risk factor in general aviation for 2014 to 2023. Stall awareness, recognition and recovery is a required area of instruction, and 14 CFR 61.87 requires an instructor to find a student proficient in stalls and emergency procedures before endorsing them for solo.

You Do Not Fly Solo Until Somebody Signs For It

14 CFR 61.87 requires a pre-solo aeronautical knowledge test, flight training in every listed manoeuvre, and a logbook endorsement for the specific make and model, given within the preceding 90 days. No student in the United States soloes on their own judgement.

Instruction Aircraft Are Inspected More Often

14 CFR 91.409(b) requires an aircraft used for flight instruction for hire to have a 100-hour inspection in addition to its annual. A privately owned aircraft flown by its owner needs only the annual. Our fleet is owned by the school and maintained on our own schedule rather than a broker's.

The Weather At Van Nuys Removes A Whole Category Of Pressure

Our NOAA study of twelve months of hourly observations counted 355 flyable days a year at Van Nuys against a 3,000 ft ceiling and 5 statute miles visibility. Weather pressure — the temptation to go anyway because the aircraft is booked and the next slot is three weeks away — is a real accident factor, and it is much weaker at a field that flies most days.

The Simulator Lets You Fail Safely

Engine failures, instrument work and emergency procedures in the Redbird MCX full-motion simulator, $189 a session, can be repeated until they are automatic. The aircraft is a poor place to practise something for the first time, and the simulator never cancels for weather.

The Honest Part

What Is The Most Dangerous Part Of Learning To Fly?

Not the parts people are afraid of.

It Is Very Rarely The Engine

Most people picture engine failure. It is a trained-for event: you fly the aircraft, pick a field, run the checklist, and a single-engine trainer glides a long way from pattern altitude. Every student practises simulated engine failures repeatedly, and instructors keep practising them for their whole careers.

The FAA's own ranking puts Loss of Control In Flight at the top, not powerplant failure. Loss of control is usually a stall, usually in a turn, usually low and slow, and usually with an out-of-trim aircraft and a distracted pilot. It is a handling and attention problem, which is why it is a training problem.

The Riskiest Period Is After The Certificate, Not During Training

The hazardous decisions in general aviation — pressing into deteriorating weather, flying an unfamiliar aircraft without a proper checkout, night cross-countries when tired, carrying passengers who want to get home — are decisions a certificated pilot makes alone. During training you are rarely alone and never unsupervised.

This is the part most flight school pages leave out because it is not a selling point. The way you reduce risk after the checkride is the instrument rating under 14 CFR 61.65, personal minimums you write down, and a flight review under 14 CFR 61.56 that is a real one rather than an hour of circuits.

What We Will Not Claim

LA Flight School does not publish a safety record, a perfect record, or an accident-free claim. Any school that does is asking you to accept an unverifiable number about the single most important thing you are buying. Ask instead what the school's maintenance interval is, whether it owns or brokers its aircraft, how many hours a month its instructors fly, and what happens when an aircraft goes unserviceable mid-course. Those answers are checkable.

Ask Any School

Four Questions That Tell You More Than A Safety Claim

Useful even if you train somewhere else.

Do You Own The Aircraft Or Broker Them?

An owned fleet is maintained on the school's schedule. A brokered aircraft is maintained on somebody else's, and the school finds out about a squawk when you do.

What Is The Maintenance Interval?

14 CFR 91.409(b) sets 100 hours for instruction-for-hire. Ask what actually happens at 100 hours and who signs it off.

How Many Instructors, And How Long Do They Stay?

Instructor turnover costs you weeks of re-checking. It is also the clearest signal of whether a school is a workplace or a waiting room.

What Happens When Weather Cancels?

A school with a full-motion simulator turns a scrubbed lesson into a procedures lesson. A school without one turns it into a gap in your training.

Start Smaller Than You Think

What Is The Least Risky Way To Find Out If You Like Flying?

One hour, with an instructor who is pilot in command, in an aircraft we own. Nothing is committed.

Discovery Flight For One

$229

60 minutes. You fly the aircraft from the left seat with a certificated instructor beside you. The hour is logged as dual instruction and counts toward the 40 hours in 14 CFR 61.109. Credited in full against any program if you enroll within 24 hours.

Book A Discovery Flight

Redbird MCX Simulator Session

$189

The full-motion simulator on the ground, with a stop button. If the aircraft feels like too big a first step, this is the smaller one.

About The Simulator

Standard Private Pilot

$10,900

40 logged hours, the 14 CFR 61.109 minimum, including 2 hours in the simulator and 3 hours of ground school.

Private Pilot Program

Enrolled students fly at $179 an hour, wet, in a single-engine aircraft. That is the only hourly figure we publish. Financing starts at $2,500 down.

Talk It Through First

If The Risk Question Is The One Stopping You, Start With The Conversation

The free in-person consultation at Van Nuys is with an instructor, not a salesperson, and asking hard questions about safety is exactly what it is for. Call (818) 290-8249 or book a time.

Call (818) 290-8249 Free Consultation

Discovery Flight For One

$229

60 minutes, instructor is pilot in command, credited in full on enrolment within 24 hours

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