Do women pilots crash more than men? What the data shows

NEWSWEEK

Alongside sectors such as construction and engineering, aviation remains among the most male-dominated industries in the U.S.

A 2022 report from Data USA showed that the U.S. aviation workforce, including pilots and flight engineers, totaled 201,604 people. Of this, 12,257, or 6.1 percent, were women. This proportion has remained relatively steady for almost a decade, despite the overall workforce growing by more than 50,000 since 2014.

Most studies, including data from the National Transportation Safety Board, do not specifically focus on crashes by the pilots’ gender, but earlier studies by aviation safety organizations and research bodies have painted a picture, albeit a complex one, of the relationship between aircraft crashes and pilots’ gender.

One notable study, conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and published in 2001 in Aviation Space and Environmental Medicine, examined NTSB reports on general aviation crashes of airplanes and helicopters between 1983 and 1997.

The study, which adjusted for the gender disparity in the number of pilots, found that a loss of control during takeoff or landing was the most common cause of crashes, constituting 59 percent of crashes with female pilots and 36 percent for males.

Most crashes involved some form of pilot error—95 percent for women and 88 percent for men. The most common error—mishandling aircraft controls—was more frequent among female pilots (81 percent) than males (48 percent).

However, male pilots were more prone to risky behavior, inattention and poor decision-making, such as flying in bad weather or with known mechanical issues. While female pilots were more likely to lose control of an aircraft, they tended to be more cautious than their male counterparts.

Crashes involving male pilots were also more likely to be fatal. The study found that 19 percent of male pilots’ crashes resulted in at least one death, with an additional 12 percent resulting in serious injury, compared to 15 percent and 7 percent, respectively, for female pilots.

A 2011 paper published in Accident Analysis and Prevention specifically focused on aircraft accidents that were caused by pilot error and came to similar conclusions.

By examining accidents by the pilots’ gender and controlling for the level of experience each pilot had, it found no statistically significant difference in the likelihood that errors by male or female pilots would lead to a crash.

The study concluded that there was “no evidence” to support the notion that accidents caused by pilot error could be tied to the pilots’ gender.

In a 2018 article titled “Why There Aren’t More Female Pilots,” Condé Nast Traveler interviewed dozens of female pilots who strongly refuted the notion that any gender-based differences would affect a pilot’s ability to navigate, steer or interface with a flight deck.

In its annual report, the Federal Aviation Administration’s Women in Aviation Advisory Board said the biggest barrier facing women in aviation was the industry’s culture.

The board urged Congress to address the gender biases that plague aviation, which include the notion that women were less capable of piloting commercial jets.

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