"Terry" wrote:
A terrible tragedy happened yesterday here at my home airport and I
can't get it off my mind as to "why" it happened.

3 people lost their life yesterday. The pilot was a very dear and
wonderful person, 72 years young and a pilot of 24 years.

This is awful. Your pain is obvious and you have my sympathies.

Most of us who have been around aviation even a little while have a
personal connection to one or more of these stories. It illustrates the
paradox about personal flying: it's very safe until one mistake makes it
very dangerous. "How could Joe DO something like that? He was such a
careful, conscientious pilot!" We comfort ourselves that we would NEVER
do such a thing. We're in control of our fates--heck, we're safer
flying than we are driving to the airport! But we keep hearing about
these other folks who apparently don't have as much sense as we do
killing themselves and their passengers.

I don't know the answer to preventing these terrible events, but I urge
all pilots to resist the idea that they are immune to such things, that
flying is somehow safer than driving because they have more control.
This produces a false sense of security that actually contributes to the
number of these tragedies we see each year, I believe.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM