Spinal fractures are most common injury in light-aircraft crashes

Spinal injuries are the most common injury in light-aircraft accidents, followed by soft tissue injuries and rib fractures, a new study shows.

The study was conducted over nine years at a level one trauma unit in Johannesburg and involved 52 people – just eight of whom were women – admitted to the unit after crashing in a small plane.  

The study covered only crashes involving privately owned light aircraft and helicopters that operate in the general aviation sector. No commercial operators were involved.

While noting that transportation disasters were rising in the 21st century, the authors said information on injuries sustained by air crash survivors was lacking.

“As the number of commercial and noncommercial flights is increasing, healthcare facilities are faced with a rise in the number of patients with air crash injuries,” the study said.

All patients needed hospital admission, with 21 patients admitted to the ICU.

“All our patients were occupants of civilian, noncommercial, powered aircraft,” said the study authors.

“All patients needed hospital admission, with 21 patients admitted to the ICU.”

Four patients died after admission, three of them from burns sustained during the accident, while more than 60% of the crash victims needed surgical intervention.

The average number of diagnoses was 3.5 per patient, and their average hospital stay was 10 days.

The study found that in most crashes in which there were fatalities, the patients died at the scene.

However, as safety standards and medical management improved, more patients were surviving aviation accidents.

Fixed-wing aircraft accounted for 63.46% of accidents, followed by helicopters at 21.15% and 7.69% were in microlight aircraft.

The study also found that 69% of the patients were Caucasian.

“This is in keeping with the economic distribution patterns in SA,” the authors said.

“These subgroups of patients are most likely to afford private fixed-wing or helicopters, which would explain the injury distributions.”

The study used data gleaned from accident reports and investigations around the world.

The high incidence of spinal injuries, for example, was likely the result of energy being directly transmitted to the passengers through the aircraft body “going upwards along the axial skeleton causing vertebral column injuries that are coming with air crash patients”.

Athol Franz, editor of local aviation magazine African Pilot, said the kind of injuries caused in plane crashes and their severity depended on multiple factors.

“If you’re in a car on the road, the injuries will depend on your speed and what protection there is in the car,” he said.

“In a plane it depends on how you hit the ground, whether in a controlled or uncontrolled manner.”

The study raised interesting statistics, Franz said.

“Spinal injuries are certainly the most common, followed by head injuries,” he said, adding the former were consistent with the aircraft’s stopping suddenly as it hit the ground

This was usually followed in rapid succession by facial and head injuries where the occupants were not correctly restrained with seatbelts.

“Usually if a person is ‘flung out’ of the flying machine, they do not survive.”

Burn injuries were usually fatal if the occupants were unable to escape from the aircraft after crashing, he added.