Oh, I've got plenty of those stories. I have one about running out of
fuel. http://pad39a.com/gene/breathe.html Compared to this one it was
a non-event because it was daylight, good weather, and over flat land.
An event many years before taught me to be very leery about combining
weather, night, and hostile terrain. Seperately they can be managable,
even if you do something stupid. Combined they can be deadly, even if
you do everything right.

Not sure how luck works in aviation. I hear that the next ball on a
roulette wheel is just as likely to be black, even if the last 50 have
been red. I am doing my best to keep the necessity for luck out of my
flying equation as much as possible. I have done foolish things that I
will never do again. Nevertheless, those things have contributed to my
education in a poignant way that all my instructors' warnings could not
have done. Fortunately, I have survived the first 28 years of my
education. Some aren't so "lucky".
--
Gene Seibel
Confessions of a Pilot - http://pad39a.com/publishing/
Because I fly, I envy no one.