I learned to fly before the turn of the century. In my first year as a private pilot I subscribed to the Aviation Safety newsletter, it arrived every month and was pre-punched with holes to place in a three ring binder. Two years later I traded my Aviation Safety subscription for IFR Magazine, another excellent publication. I read them religiously, I learned a great deal from them. In fact, I shared them with my young bride who appreciated the learnings, and developed a set of expectations for me to live and fly by.
One time, on a cross country from Hamilton, OH to Land-Between-The-Lakes, KY she woke up mid flight to find me reading a copy of AOPA Pilot magazine. She admonished me, saying I should be paying closer attention to monitoring my engine instruments, identifying potential landing sites and estimating glide distances from the chart. Because those were things you did to increase your chances of survival from an engine failure.
Learning from accidents is learning from mistakes, and we know if one didn’t make any mistakes, look one cannot expand their body of knowledge. I share the occasional accident report with my students to demonstrate the value of some of the training lessons I provide. I’m happy to say my students consume accident reports on a healthy basis because they realize the value and appreciate the reminder that while flying has its risks, they can be mitigated. You can ask my last Private Pilot student. Two months after passing his checkride he executed sound ADM and landed his airplane with his bride of 40 years onboard, in a soybean field after the engine started to vibrate violently. He did so without a scratch to persons or machine.
Keep the stories coming Paul. You know there’s some pilot out there who is going to be pressured to fly his family home in GA plane during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and might not be successful in 1000 ft ceilings with temps in the mid 30s. But if God forbid, that accident does happen, it might prevent a dozen similar ones from happening in the future.