I’ve worked with enough pilots to understand they are the harshest critics of their own kind when it comes to accidents. I already know what they will be saying about Randy Brooks, pilot of a light plane that crashed into Lake Powell last weekend, but UNCoRRELATED has language standards so I won’t repeat opinions here. This is what happened, according to Rulon Gardner (yes, the Gold Medal Olympian):

Randy, who according to Gardner has 3,000 hours of flying experience, decided to drop down close to the water. Too close, as it turned out.

"Hey, watch your wheels!" Leslie told his brother, a split second before the left wheel struck the water.

The plane veered left and skipped off the water again, this time stopping the propeller. The plane struck the water again and came to a stop.

"We went from 150 miles per hour to zero in about one second," Gardner recalled.

I only got three hours of stick time but I know enough to not put my gears near the water. If a pilot wants to be foolhardy by himself, that’s one thing, but they have an obligation when they have passengers to use their heads. I am surprised they weren’t killed in the initial crash. The fact that they spent a couple of hours in forty degree water then spent the night in below freezing weather is a testament that God looks after babies and fools.

Sometimes.

Early in my career I worked with a fighter pilot, a Lt Col by then, who told me of a young lieutenant killed in Vietnam when his F-4 collided with the ground. The Colonel told me he was the one who had to write the letter to the young pilot’s parents to tell him about how well he served his country. What he couldn’t tell them was this pilot was trying to air drop COOKIES to a buddy at an Army post. I don’t know how you do that with an F-4 and apparently the lieutenant didn’t either.