Summary Report on the National Transportation Safety Board's General Aviation Crashworthiness Project Findings

The National Transportation Safety Board conducted a general aviation crashworthiness study from 1981 to 1985. Three reports were published that 1) validated crashworthiness investigative techniques; 2) defined the impact severity and potential injury prevention for survivable accidents; and 3) defined acceleration loads and velocity changes of survivable accidents. The Safety Board was also able to define the extent that post-crash fires affect survivability. This paper contains extensive excerpts from the three Safety Board reports and is intended as an overview of the Safety Board's effort. The original reports contain more detailed discussions of the points raised here.