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General Aviation and Night Flight

  • Writer: JM
    JM
  • Dec 3, 2025
  • 4 min read

My wife and I regularly tune into several aviation VLOGs that we find fun and informative.  This past weekend, she and I discovered a new episode of one of our favorites and sat down to watch it over dinner.  Several minutes in, the VLOG host made a comment that made my wife and I look at each other in surprise.  The host claimed that “flying at night in a single-engine airplane” wasn’t safe.  Then a conversation ensued about why the FAA would include night flying as part of the required aeronautical experience for a private pilot if the host’s comments were true.  To be clear, this pilot is more experienced than I and is someone I’ve grown to respect a great deal.  Over the years, this pilot’s opinions have proven rooted in fact – and safe – the majority of the time, but this comment initially struck me as controversial.  I desired to know just how much of this assertion was fact and just how much was opinion.


          As previously stated, night flying is something the FAA mandates for both private and commercial pilots in training.  A review of Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) part 109 (private pilot) and part 129 (commercial pilot) includes the night training requirements the FAA levies against candidates pursuing either certificate.[1]  It stands to reason, then, that the FAA wouldn’t mandate flight hours, takeoffs and landings, and certainly not cross-country flights at night unless it felt reasonably confident pilots could fly safely after dark.


          But to believe in the safety of night flight based solely on the above line of reasoning is to accept regulation at face value – a practice I’m not comfortable with.  In aviation we rely on numbers to tell us just about everything, so what do the numbers say about the safety of night flight?  A brief dive into statistics published by the Airplane Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) revealed that:


  • “Night accidents account for only 7 percent of all [General Aviation] accidents. However, fatal night accidents account for 16 percent of fatal GA accidents. This peak in fatal accidents highlights the risks associated with night operations.”[2]   

     

  • “Eighty-four percent of night accidents were in visual meteorological conditions (VMC) and 14 percent in instrument meteorological conditions (IMC). The remainder are unknown. Of the 390 VMC accidents, 103 (26 percent) were fatal. IMC was far more deadly. More than 67 percent of accidents were fatal. Night IMC is highly lethal. Flights occurring during these conditions warrant additional [risk] mitigations.”[3]


The above statistics certainly support the VLOG host’s notion that “night flying” is more dangerous – by just over double.  Combining night flying with IMC conditions adds even greater risk.  But these data points are not limited to the class of airplane a pilot is flying (i.e. single engine vs. multi-engine).  Another look into AOPA’s analyses of FAA accident data revealed a third, relevant statistic:


  • That between 2007 and 2016, 13.1% of single engine, fixed gear airplane accidents were lethal…but 24.4% of multi-engine airplane accidents proved fatal over the same time period.[4]  


While our host did not necessarily state that they felt multi-engine aircraft were safer to fly at night, his comments alluded to as much.  But the above data leads us to a different conclusion:  multi-engine aircraft are twice as fatal per accident in general aviation regardless of the time of day.  By the numbers, additional engines are not a means of mitigating the risk of engine failure and fatality after dark.  Combining the additional risks that nighttime flight and multi-engine operation present to a pilot increases the overall likelihood of an incident or accident. 


          This revelation is also not a basis for claiming one of our favorite VLOG hosts was wrong and so I’ll “hold short” of doing so.  While the data might not support his conclusion, I feel the attitude that compelled him to say so was positive.  In time, every pilot will develop biases based on their unique flying experiences and our host’s remarks were likely a byproduct of some beneficial experience(s) they had accumulated over their long flying career.  While it’s wise to identify and check those biases that might add to risks (i.e. hazardous attitudes), it’s just as wise to cling to those that force us to properly consider the risks we encounter in flying.[5]  In this case, the host was 100% right about hesitating and reconsidering the risks before flying long distances at night.


          This brings our discussion back to the FAA’s aeronautical experience requirements for night flight that I introduced earlier.  The data supports the FAA’s inclusion of night flight training requirements.  And if those requirements are sufficient to safely certify a pilot, it stands to reason that repetition of those same maneuvers ought to keep a pilot proficient.  Night flying increases the risk in aviation, but well planned, regular VFR night flying is – ironically – one of the best ways of acknowledging and mitigating that risk.  Careful planning and consideration are prudent, but so is practice.


          The data also concludes that IFR (i.e. flying in Instrument Meteorological Conditions) at night is an altogether more dangerous endeavor.  Should we also seek to “acknowledge and mitigate” the risks of this mode of flying with some practice?  Possibly, but the increased danger and complication associated with flying into IMC at night warrants another post.  Until then…

 

Fly on Folks,

Josh Meyer   


[2] “Executive Summary:  Accident and Incident Analysis:  Night Flying 2017 – 2021,” AOPA:  https://aopa.org/training-and-safety/air-safety-institute/accident-analysis/night-flying-accident-report/executive-summary

[3] “Flight Conditions.  Accident and Incident Analysis:  Night Flying 2017 – 2021,” AOPA:  https://aopa.org/training-and-safety/air-safety-institute/accident-analysis/night-flying-accident-report/flight-conditions

[5] Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge, FAA, 2023, page 2-5:  https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/04_phak_ch2.pdf

 
 
 

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