It's easy to look at controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) accidents as the kind you'll never get into. Sure; you may suffer an engine failure from contaminated fuel, or scrape a wingtip while landing in a stiff crosswind or even forget to put down the gear before landing. But flying a perfectly good airplane into the side of a mountain? Never happen. The thing is, I'm relatively certain every pilot who was ever involved in a CFIT accident said the same thing at one point or another, perhaps right up until the moment a tree trunk came through the windshield.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/flight-safety/accident-probe-a-turn-too-late