Abstract
This paper discusses an analysis that was undertaken to identify the causes, contributing factors and associated issues of weather-related general aviation (GA) accidents to aid in the development of cockpit-based, aviation weather information (AWIN) systems. A total of 1520 GA accidents from 1995 to 1998 that reported at least one weather condition as a cause or contributing factor were selected from the NTSB Aviation Accident/Incident Database. The accident variables examined were accident year, injury severity, phase of operation, probable causes, contributing factors, meteorological and light conditions, pilot ratings and pilot experience. Results suggest the most prevalent factors in fatal weather accidents are low ceiling (20%), fog (14%), wind (10%), and night (9%). VFR to IMC flight and flight into adverse weather during the cruise phase are the most common probable causes of fatal weather accidents. Several scenarios primarily responsible for fatal weather accidents are identified and recommendations for AWIN system design are also presented.