I have been in a crash.
It 100% matched everything we are trained not to do and was competently due to pilot error (mainly fatigue, but add loads of other stuff on top and the camel breaks).
Reading about accidents makes me wiser, not afraid.
We’re crazy fools for defying our design and ascending into the heavens in the first place, so one thing that was missing for me (until I experienced it first hand) was that I didn’t take everyone else’s experience personally, and thought “that idiot”.
Now I’m grateful to read about everyone else’s experiences, good or bad, so that my experience improves and I don’t find myself sweaty and afraid behind the yolk.
I just read the very sad jgmusic crash thread and not only learned a ton, but can relate to so much of it, having flown in the mountains both in Austria and the US.
One thing that really helped me early on was pushing myself to the limits when I was learning to fly.
I once had to make a 90 degree bank turn in the mountains to escape. If I hadn’t pushed myself in clear skies and calm days, I wouldn’t have had the ability to pull out of that situation and would probably not be writing this post right now.
I feel it is a tough balance between pushing one’s limits and staying “safe”.
Watching failures would have prevented me from pushing limits at the beginning due to fear, but now it is seasoning on my steak and arrows in my quiver.
Especially with intelligent dialog as found here surrounding these reports, videos and events.
Thank you all for sharing and providing great insight over the years, I’m blessed to be alive and your experiences have made me a more competent pilot.
I was very interested in accident reports even before doing my PPL, and even well outside the topic of aviation.
In my profession, anaesthesia, reading CIRS reports is a key to avoid mistakes that happened to others and might have harmed or even killed patients. So there is, in my eyes, even a professional and moral obligation to read these reports.
In aviation, my interest is also very strong and reinforced by a sense of self-preservation. In anaesthesia, no matter how bad you screw up, you very unlikely to get harmed yourself. Not so in aviation.
I especially like the AOPA accident case study videos on YouTube. Seen all of them. I often try to think how I would have acted if I were in the same situation as the pilots in question.
Luckily, I am a pure hobby pilot, so all cases were someone has an accident due to “get thereitis” don’t seem applicable to me, nor do those were VFR in IMC happens because I am a fair weather pilot. I try to regularly practice flying an ILS at EDDV via Flight Simulator, which might not replicate the actual experience but at least gives one some theoretical knowledge for a “get out of jail card” in case one is inadvertently stuck above an overcast or similar situations.
