CATAWBA COUNTY, N.C. — Across the country, small aircraft crashes have been raising concern.
Dianne Rayfield is among the people feeling the effects. She lives in Catawba County and said an aircraft crashed right into her backyard in late July.
“We're used to small planes that fly in from Laneys Airport right across the road, but never one crashing in our backyard," Rayfield said.
It wasn't the only one.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said it investigates about 1,750 domestic aviation accidents and incidents a year and makes safety recommendations to prevent them from happening again.
In the Carolinas alone, the NTSB recorded at least eight other small aircraft issues over the past month, including in North Myrtle Beach where four passengers and the pilot died.
Sunday, at Lake Hickory, a pilot and passenger lost their lives when their aircraft crashed into part of the lake in Caldwell County, hitting powerlines and leaving more than 18,000 people temporarily in the dark.
While investigations can take more than a year to complete, contributors have ranged from engine issues to pilot errors, according to investigation data from the NTSB.
Richard McSpadden with the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association says it's important to remember that flights are generally safe, with tens of millions taking off each year without issue.
“About 75 to 80% of the accidents we see are pilot error of some kind," McSpadden said. "We've had a tremendous success in dropping our fatal accidents. Of course, we'd like to see it get down to zero.”
Ryan Shepherd, CEO of Victory Lane Aviation in Concord, said, while general aviation pilots aren't trained as extensively as commercial pilots, they do train under different conditions and have to be tested before they can take off.
"They'll train for adverse maintenance conditions," Shepherd said, "if they lost an engine, if there was an engine fire, if there was a loss in navigation.”
In a statement to WCNC Charlotte, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it "looks at specific factors as part of every accident investigation including pilot performance, pilot medical qualifications, the airworthiness of the aircraft and whether any federal aviation regulations were violated."
The statement went on to say, "The FAA participates in the General Aviation Joint Safety Committee, or GAJSC. The continuing collaboration of the GAJSC has been key to reducing the general fatal accident rate. The FAA and the general aviation community have developed mitigations that address several of the leading causes of general aviation accidents including inflight loss of control, engine issues and Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT)."
While large commercial carriers haven't seen issues like small aircraft in the U.S. recently, the aviation community including the FAA and the NTSB have been working to make improvements to safety commercially, after a series of near-collisions earlier this year.
Contact Kayland Hagwood at khagwood@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.