Here's an emerging safety story that hasn't received much attention: Fatal accidents caused by weather are declining. Nobody should be popping Champagne bottles just yet, but there is enough data to suggest a steady downward trend over the past few years. What's the cause of this encouraging course reversal? There are probably many, but the increasing use of datalink weather in the cockpit deserves serious attention. Over the past 10 years, the number of pilots flying with some type of cockpit weather, typically either ADS-B or SiriusXM, has exploded. Portable ADS-B receivers in particular really took off about five years ago, right around the time the fatal weather accident rate started declining. Datalink weather is hardly a miracle cure, as the National Transportation Safety Board and FAA have frequently reminded pilots, but the data certainly is suggestive. The limitation we constantly hear about is that radar is not real-time: Those images are delayed, sometimes by as long as 20 minutes, so they should not be used for close-in storm avoidance. That's critical to remember during thunderstorm season, but unfortunately, the government drumbeat about this minor limitation has obscured the huge increase in safety that's possible with this increasingly advanced equipment.
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