C J Campbell wrote:

I wonder what his altitude was when he ran into trouble. Perhaps he was
too low, or maybe he thought he could make an emergency landing safely.
Guess we will have to wait for more details.

Or he was working on the problem and neglected to actually fly the airplane.
That was the story behind some airline crash in Florida, if memory serves.

But, as you say, we don't know enough to do more than guess wildly.

I suppose I should go with that theme and say it was a problem getting the
plane into the alien spaceship's docking bay.

- Andrew