I think the 'Verrizano Narrows Crew Saved a pilots life" bit was a bit
of 'dramatic license' added by the media- it appears (based on google
earth, so I could be mistaken) that there are a number of fields in the
area suitable to land a light plane. He just happen to choose one that
was sitting on landfill from the bridge construction.

He lost an engine within range of a suitable put-down spot, and
successfully executed a power off, short field landing- textbook
example of what pilot's are trained to do if we're not within gliding
distance of an airport.

Pilot's are trained to keep 'back doors' in case of an emergency
situation- one of the first things you do during cross country
training is learn to be aware of the terrain below you, and to make
sure you always have a suitable landing field within gliding distance.
(this is one of the things that makes mountain flying more treacherous,
fwiw)...

He had his back door, he needed it, he used it... Its not arrogance,
its training.

-Scott


On Nov 16, 9:31 am, "Marc Adler" wrote:
On Nov 15, 2:14 pm, "EridanMan" wrote:

How is flawlessly performing the actions he's been trained to do
verging on arrogance? If anything, I applaud the pilot for (correctly)
playing down the situation. There is a general consensus among
non-pilots that loosing an engine = airplane falling from the sky...
its simply not true. We train for it... It happens, its a contingency
that we're expected to deal with if the situation arises.I understand all that, and if he's secretly thanking his lucky stars
but putting on a face of equanimity for the press, then I applaud him,
too. But if I understand the situation correctly, if that park hadn't
been there, he would've been in a lot more trouble, right? Somewhere
else in the thread someone said the pilot has overdrawn his good luck
account for a while. In the face of such luck, I'd expect people to be
a bit humbler.

Marc