CAP fatalities vs federal LE

[RiverAux]

As we're discussing pensions in other threads, I thought it might be worthwhile to bring up some interesting statistics on CAP fatalities in comparison to those of various federal law enforcement agencies (since I used police pensions as part of that thread).  The CAP information is based on examanation of CAP News, CAP Volunteer, and the Safety Sentinel from 1997-2007.  The LE information is based on information at the Officer Down Memorial page.

Line of Duty Deaths  1997-2007
Civil Air Patrol: 25
DHS - Customs and Border Protection - Air and Marine - 3
DHS - Customs and Border Protection - Border Patrol - 28
DOJ - ATF - 1
DOJ - DEA - 1
DOJ - FBI - 6
DOJ - Marshall's Service - 2
USAF - Security Forces - 7

Keep in mind that all of these agencies are huge in comparison to the number of CAP members participating in flying activities (which account for 24/25 CAP deaths).  So, the actual risk of a member of a CAP aircrew dying in a given year is probably much higher than that of a federal law enforcement agent being killed in the line of duty.

There are statistics available on local police and firefighter deaths, however, without any info on the total number of firefighters in the US its not really possible to do much of a comparison though my suspicion would be that on a per-captia basis, CAP risk of death wouldn't be very far behind since the number of police officers is probably hundreds of times more than CAP members (I think NYPD has more officers than all of CAP, for example).

I am only bringing this up as a comparison of risk.  There may be other more appropriate comparisons out there that I am not aware of. 
 

[RRLE]

I am only bringing this up as a comparison of risk.

Do you know the causes (NTSB reports etc) of the deaths? It very might well be more a comparison of negligent operation rather then the inherent risky nature of the mission. I know from my own research that all but one of the fatal USCG Aux Air crashes were pilot negligence. The only one that was not had no final determination since the body was lost at sea and never recovered.

Also all of the USCG Aux boat crew deaths were negligent operation and/or violation of current policy when they occurred.

It would be hard to justify a pension for CAP or the Aux based on the deaths of the membeship when the cause of the deaths was the negligence of the same membership.

[BuckeyeDEJ]

RRLE, even if you said half of River's CAP total is negligent, that's still a number bigger than most of the agencies he listed.

How many fatal mishaps did those other agencies have? Maybe to bolster River's contention, those figures need to be dug up -- no pun intended. Let's ensure we're not comparing apples and oranges.

Just sayin'.

[Cecil DP]

As we're discussing pensions in other threads, I thought it might be worthwhile to bring up some interesting statistics on CAP fatalities in comparison to those of various federal law enforcement agencies (since I used police pensions as part of that thread).  The CAP information is based on examanation of CAP News, CAP Volunteer, and the Safety Sentinel from 1997-2007.  The LE information is based on information at the Officer Down Memorial page.

Line of Duty Deaths  1997-2007
Civil Air Patrol: 25
DHS - Customs and Border Protection - Air and Marine - 3
DHS - Customs and Border Protection - Border Patrol - 28
DOJ - ATF - 1
DOJ - DEA - 1
DOJ - FBI - 6
DOJ - Marshall's Service - 2
USAF - Security Forces - 7

Keep in mind that all of these agencies are huge in comparison to the number of CAP members participating in flying activities (which account for 24/25 CAP deaths).  So, the actual risk of a member of a CAP aircrew dying in a given year is probably much higher than that of a federal law enforcement agent being killed in the line of duty.

There are statistics available on local police and firefighter deaths, however, without any info on the total number of firefighters in the US its not really possible to do much of a comparison though my suspicion would be that on a per-captia basis, CAP risk of death wouldn't be very far behind since the number of police officers is probably hundreds of times more than CAP members (I think NYPD has more officers than all of CAP, for example).

I am only bringing this up as a comparison of risk.  There may be other more appropriate comparisons out there that I am not aware of. 

Using the CAP News, National Final Salute and Volunteer magazine reflect deaths from all causes. The Officer Down listing should show only those who died in the line of duty. That should account for the vast differences in your numbers.

[RiverAux]

Using the CAP News, National Final Salute and Volunteer magazine reflect deaths from all causes. The Officer Down listing should show only those who died in the line of duty. That should account for the vast differences in your numbers.

Actually no.  The CAP fatalities are for those incurred on CAP duty not those monthly listing of CAP members who have passed away (we have 10-20 of those a month).  From what I can tell from various articles on CAP safety in those publications, every one of those deaths were included in our safety stats, so it is a valid comparison. 

It would be hard to justify a pension for CAP or the Aux based on the deaths of the membeship when the cause of the deaths was the negligence of the same membership.

I don't think you want to go there because then we would also have to start digging into all the LE fatalities and see which of them were because the officer didn't do something right.  Perhaps they got shot because they didn't search the subject for example. 

All CAP deaths I recorded were the results of accidents, but the end result was the same -- they died while serving CAP and their country.  Risk is risk. 

[Pumbaa]

News flash... Any type of "accidental/ line of duty" death is due to some form of negligence PERIOD.  ANY death is due to negligence of some sort, however small, it is what we call acceptable risk.

Maybe they had not enough sleep because they were called out at 4 AM... Maybe they flew at 1000 AGL when fate dictated they instead fly1100 AGL.

Many firefighters die because they did not get out in time...  Many cops died because they were in the line of fire... simple we can call that 'negligence ' as well.

Many pilots die because they got to the crash site...

What I wrote may sound trite and sarcastic, but it is neither.. Think about it...  What we do in the air, what firefighters do while entering the building, or cops walking/ driving down the street, has inherent risks.. ALL of those risks involve some sort of negligence when there is death, injury, etc...

Where humans are involved there will always be some factor that contributes to the death that 'could' be called negligence.  That's the downside of being human.

You can say, well they did everything right...  nope... you can NEVER do everything right, we are fallible, error prone flesh and blood.

[Ned]

So you are saying that there is no such thing as a "negligent" death because if you dig down far enough "every death is negligent?"

If that's true, then why bother with a safety program?

[isuhawkeye]

Negligence is a very specific legal term whose components are

Duty

Breach

Causation

Damages

With out all of these you do not have a case of negligence

[RiverAux]

If that's true, then why bother with a safety program?

Well, because hopefully the safety program will reduce the number of deaths.  Just because you know that despite everything you do to prevent it, some people are still going to to end up getting killed, doesn't mean that you don't try to prevent the deaths that you can.  You learn what you can from those that happen anyway and do what you can to make sure no one makes the same mistake again.   

[Pumbaa]

BINGO isuhawkeye!!!!  My point!

Would you call it negligence that some of the firefighters in the trade towers decided to keep going up to help trapped people, when they in fact heard the call to withdraw?  We call them hero's.

How about the cop that leaves hard cover when he rushes to grab the woman caught in the crossfire?  He is a hero.

In the purest sense they were negligent and caused their own death when it could have been prevented.  But our sensibilities will not allow is to go there.  When you look at what these types of jobs are, what these tasks involve you have to bend what normally you would/ could never do.  That's what sets true heros apart from the rest.   THose who died for CAP were in my mind heros.

Now, change that to, he/ she was drunk, on drugs, etc... you have a different story.

My point being that no matter what we do, the risk and the 'perceived' negligence is there.  Look at what caused the crashes of the airplanes.. ALL of those accidents could have been prevented, but the risk that was taken was there to save a life.  That is not negligence.

You can check all of the safety boxes.. and things will still happen.. planes will still crash and people will still die...

[RiverAux]

I found some stats on occupational deaths per 100,000 individuals

Loggers: 128
Fishermen: 123
Aircraft pilots: 83
Construction: 41
Truck drivers: 28
Roofers: 28
Farming: 27
Firefighters: 18
Police: 14
All occupations: 5

Now, I did a similar calculation based on an 11-years average of 2.3 CAP member deaths a year. 
If we assume the CAP "population" is all senior members that would give us an average fatality rate of 7 per 100,000, which isn't much higher than seen by anyone that is working. 

However, if we use a figure of about 9,000 CAP aircrew members (rough estimate based on CAP's homeland security page stats -- can't get exact without knowing the number of overlaps between pilot, observer, and scanner), we would have a fatality rate of 26 per 100,000. 

So, we're doing a pretty dangerous job -- and perhaps doing it better than pilots in general.  The overall pilot rate is 3 times higher than the rate for CAP aircrew members overall and if we factored in that many of the CAP members that died were not pilots it would be even better. 

But we also have to factor in that CAP members spend less time on CAP work than someone doing a full time job -- that CAP pilot may only spend 30-40 hours a year in the air on CAP work while these other folks are doing it full time. 

FYI, this topic may have been better placed in the Safety board....

[Flying Pig]

Were all of the deaths you listed in your initial post death from aviation related accidents or Federal LE deaths overall?

[Eclipse]

The assumptions made to get to your numbers don't even make them accurate enough for conversation's sake.

You don't know what actually killed them, how many members there were at the time, there is no definition of "in the line of duty", for whatever reason you've decided to eliminate ground personnel from your figures, even though there is no indication in the comparative statistics as to who makes up the "whole" (does an LE secretary involved in a fatal typewriter accident get included in the LOD deaths for that agency?).

I'm personally aware of a number of CAP traffic fatalities while transporting CAP equipment to or from an activity.  Is that LOD?

[RiverAux]

You're right, my CAP mortality rate figure is not 100% acccurate, but it is probably very close as far as the rate for all senior members.  If one cared (and I do not), you could figure out the annual mortality rate for CAP senior members based on CAP annual report membership figures and the number of deaths for that year and then come up with an average annual mortality rate for the period in question.  The rate for aircrew members is a lot more speculative, but is probably in the ballpark. 

In every single case of a CAP death the articles I consulted said that they were on CAP duty and how they died (not the forensics details), but close enough. 

I did make a mistake in that it was 23/25 CAP fatalities were aviation related.  One of the ground fatalities did involve ground team work (hit by train while driving on a SAREX).  The other involved a vehicle accident in a CAP van while driving back from an event.  The 2 ground mortalities were included in the mortality rates that I figured. 

The numbers for federal LE deaths were for all causes of death. 

[RiverAux]

CAP line of duty deaths by year, 1997-2008 (figured on a Jan 1-Dec 1 basis):
1997  2
1998  3
1999  2
2000  0
2001  0
2002  5
2003  4
2004  1
2005  3
2006  0
2007  5
2008: 0 that I am aware of.

Average (including 2008 so far): 2.1/year

[Pumbaa]

What's up with 2007?  What was the cause of such a drastic jump after a few down years?

[♠SARKID♠]

What's up with 2007?  What was the cause of such a drastic jump after a few down years?

If I remember correctly, three of those deaths came from one incident when one of our planes crashed during a missing person search.  I believe the other two came from the crash that killed Colonels Ed Lewis and Dion DeCamp.

[Flying Pig]

You're right, my CAP mortality rate figure is not 100% acccurate, but it is probably very close as far as the rate for all senior members.  If one cared (and I do not), you could figure out the annual mortality rate for CAP senior members based on CAP annual report membership figures and the number of deaths for that year and then come up with an average annual mortality rate for the period in question.  The rate for aircrew members is a lot more speculative, but is probably in the ballpark. 

In every single case of a CAP death the articles I consulted said that they were on CAP duty and how they died (not the forensics details), but close enough. 

I did make a mistake in that it was 23/25 CAP fatalities were aviation related.  One of the ground fatalities did involve ground team work (hit by train while driving on a SAREX).  The other involved a vehicle accident in a CAP van while driving back from an event.  The 2 ground mortalities were included in the mortality rates that I figured. 

The numbers for federal LE deaths were for all causes of death. 

Then this is apples and oranges.  How many CAP members were killed by gunfire?  Or by assault from a suspect or during a search warrant or prisoner transport?   Why are you even making this comparison?  And why did you choose to compare CAP deaths to that of Federal Law Enforcement?  Why not compare it to law enforcement as a whole then if your going to just relate things that have nothing to do with each other.
For some reason your attempting to show that CAP as a whole can get as just many people killed in a 10 year period in a volunteer peace time, non-law enforcement role as  6 Federal Law Enforcement agencies and 1 military police agency.  I dont get it?  And then for some reason you decided to just throw in USAF Security Police?   What about USMC, Navy, and Army and CG if you going to use it.

I think you may find it eye opening to research how the law enforcement officers were killed, and then compare that to the way the CAP members died, and you'll find most of the LE deaths probably relate in no way to anything CAP does or would be involved in.

[Eclipse]

Most CAP fatalities I have read about involve some level of negligence or ignorance of safety procedures - fuel starvation emergencies, flying below minimums or in marginal conditions, failure to properly complete pre-flight checklists, or driving beyond your physical limits and falling asleep.

Death or injury due to negligence means the member ignored procedures provided to make the job safe(r) and decided he "knew better" or was simply improperly trained.  Neither makes the actual job inherently dangerous.

The only way you could make that connection would be to find deaths or injuries directly related to the actual duties, such as:

Cutting the red wire instead of the blue wire on an ELT and having it explode.

Hypertension or diabetes caused by eating too many donuts in mission base.

Blindness caused by Cadet Highspeed pointing his new 500-chip LED flashlight in your eye.

Puncture woulds caused by insignia flying at supersonic speeds when the last button on the service coat lets go during dinner.

When a fireman runs into a burning building, it collapses and he's killed - that's a direct LOD death related to his job, and a legit reason why his job is dangerous.

If he points a firehose at his head and turns it on, well...

When a policeman kicks in a door and is shot by the guy on the other side - that's a direct LOD death related to his job, and a legit reason why his job is dangerous.

If he's sitting in his patrol car, looking into the barrel of his gun to see if its loaded, well...

And if a CAP pilot runs out of gas because "he knows the gauge is broken and he's got plenty...", well...

In the "Goofus" examples above, all three are dead, and should be recognized for their service with a nice plaque, but none of those examples constitutes situations which would contribute to making those jobs statistically more (or less) dangerous.

[tarheel gumby]

In reference to CAP Line of Duty Deaths I have  four words
" That Others May Live"
Seems just as appropiate for CAP as it dose for Pararescuce.