Top crash involved airplane under control with little downward component and resulted in two minor injuries. Bottom crash involved high downward component and resulted in one fatality and one serious injury.

-by Pat Veillette

There are two ways to prevent serious injuries in aviation. The first and most obvious is preventing the accident in the first place. The second way is to protect aircraft occupants through accident survival design features and procedures.

It’s a sad but unfortunate statistical fact that many good pilots will suffer accidents. All pilots – even those who are meticulous and conservative in their decision making – need to be versed on how to prevent serious injuries during an imminent impact. This is a topic that receives scant attention during initial and recurrent training, but is obviously important. …