Flying planes with known mechanical problems, running out of fuel and landing with the gear up were typically male problems, said the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health study released last week. Women's crashes were more often due to incorrect use of the rudder, poor response to a bounce or inability to recover from a stall, the study found. They would rather do something faster even if they don't do it accurately.
Women tend to be more cautious and pay greater attention to details and rules.
The authors said women may have mishandled planes because they had less flight time and experience on average than men. The study in this month's issue of Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine was prompted in part by the more than 30-fold increase in the number of female airline pilots in the United States since 1959. Officials of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration would not comment on the study. Hopkins scholars looked at crashes of civilian, noncommercial planes from 1983 to 1997 involving 144 female and 287 male pilots over 40 years of age. Aircraft mishandling was the most common problem for both men and women, but was blamed in 80 percent of female pilots' crashes and just 48 percent of men's.