What amazes me is that people never tire of lamenting how bad it "could have
been". Small planes crash every day, and by now we know what the result is.
And it's bad enough too - we have to keep working to maintain the improvement
we've already registered. But - "if everything had been different from what
it really was" if for some reason this particular one had been unlike the
last thousand or so, then just think of how bad it could have been...

"If the playing field had been swarming with kids that day..." Of course no
one stops to think that in the mind of a pilot, looking for a spot to put it,
"a field swarming with kids" does not have the same value as " a large, empty
field". There may be an element of luck in that there were no injuries, but
it's also because the pilot did what we are all trained to do. A majority
(yes, over 50%) of light aircraft accidents produce no significant injuries,
and minimal property damage. The number of innocents on the ground injured by
these accidents is so small it is statistically inexistent.

Trees fall on moving cars every day, usually with dramatic results. People
are struck by lightning every day, and hundreds are slaughtered daily on the
nation's roads, yet Skylunes and journalists spend their waking hours
dreaming about how bad a GA accident "could be" someday, somewhere - reverie
completely unsupported by a massive and comprehensive statistical record.

GF