How safe is a new teenaged pilot?

In article , Montblack wrote:
Recommendation was not hysterical in nature - especially if measured against
your terse response. A young man recently slipped under the waves (while
talking to 911) on a cold, dark and windy night, after ditching in Lake
Michigan -
don't fly over the lakes at night 17 year olds.

It wasn't really relevant to this discussion. If we want to go into
'what ifs' I could write a 20,000 word list of 'what ifs', the vast
majority being irrelevant. I highly doubt these people are going on a
lake-crossing cross-country, it's much more likely they are going for a
45-minute local flying trip that won't cross a body of water larger than
someone's swimming pool.

I've known plenty of old men to cross bodies of water at night with no
survival gear, too. This kind of thing isn't limited to younger people.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"