Too Dumb To Fly
Editorial in the Sept-Oct issue of AOPA's magazine , Australian Pilot. "A group of us was standing around the other day discussing the death of a fellow pilot in a crash. The newspaper story on the accident which took the pilot's life (and that of his passenger), told the usual story about what a great bloke he had been and how he had died "doing what he loved." We all made the appropriate noises about how terrible the whole thing was for the man's family, especially for the family of the passenger who died. Then one member of our group muttered that the crash had not come as a surprise to him and that he would never have flown with the pilot. "He was an accident waiting to happen, that bloke," he said. Others mumbled their agreement, obviously reluctant to speak of the dead. I hadn't knowm the pilot and so pressed them for more information. Gradually, the members of the group who had known the dead pilot, admitted more and more information...