"Paul kgyy" wrote in message
oups.com...
I feel sorry for the SW pilots who went through the fence at Midway
last week. Now every edition of the local newspapers runs articles by
lawyers and journalists second-guessing every decision made on a
difficult approach - quartering tail wind, marginal visibility, fair
braking, short runway.

I'd sure hate to have my every flying decision subjected to this kind
of scrutiny.

One of the first things you learn as a professional pilot is that everything
you do with an airplane is subject to scrutiny. Some of it is good, some
bad.
The scrutiny you get from lawyers after a crash is seldom related to the
actual facts involved in the crash.
From the moment of impact, you have lawyers on both sides of the issue
arguing that you either did the right thing, or that you did the wrong
thing. Many times....many, many times, the actual truth is never known and
lawyer who presents the most believable argument and proves to be the better
salesman wins.
The pilot seldom wins.
I was an airshow pilot for many years. There was never a doubt in my mind
that had I somehow suffered a catastrophic structural failure in my aircraft
that resulted in my burying myself in a hole fifteen feet deep in the middle
of an airfield, before the fire was out and what was left of my body removed
from the wreckage, there would have been a hundred lawyers standing at the
edge of the hole looking down and discussing what it was I did wrong to
cause the accident; questioning every onlooker trying desperately to find
someone who could claim they had been injured by my crash, and how what I
did wrong could be turned into income .
Dudley Henriques