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Kat said: 

> The pilot's in-flight loss of control during liftoff DUE TO HIS 
> IMPROPER PLANNING AND DECISIONS. 
That's what they always chalk them up to, unless there's a clear mechanical
failure. It's kind a macabre joke in much of the aircraft circles - that's
basically the default answer when there isn't any other clear answer. What's
really interesting is how often aircraft end up getting upgrades and
retrofits over accidents that were 'pilot error'. 

They basically don't really know why it did what it did - the thing
obviously flew in just fine. I'm somewhat doubtful that another 150# or so
tipped the aircraft over the edge, especially in that manner. Helicopters
are just basically dangerous, even under the best of conditions. They're
interesting machines - I studied them for a while getting my Master's in
Aerospace.

While I agree with your overall point that people ought to take
responsibility for themselves, there is a point where stuff happens that may
be within the control of someone with as much foresight as they have
hindsight, but that's just not reality.

There's an interesting read that I think is words to live by - 

http://yarchive.net/air/perfect_safety.html

An excerpt:

--------------
But, no matter what you do, it will never be perfectly, 100% risk-free
to fly.  Or to drive, or to walk, or to do anything.

...

One of our engineers was walking his dog when a car driven by a kid
jumped the curb and hit him.  Only his leg was broken.  But he walks
his dog again, now.  Who know better than him the danger?

There's no way to make life perfectly safe; you can't get out of it alive.

You can't even predict every danger.  How can you guard against a hazard
you can't even conceive of?
--------------

Here's the quote that ends up all over the place:

"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to
live in the real world." - Mary Schafer, NASA Flight Engineer

So, I really just can't agree with you that every time a horse gets pulled,
it's because of some fault of the rider. Most of the time, I'll buy - all of
the time? That's not living in the real world. 

An aircraft is a _machine_, and I can do the math to predict what one will
do under all sorts of conditions, but even after we've been flying for 100
years, they still surprise us. The fundamental equation that governs air
flow can't be solved, though it can be approximated. A horse is far more
complex in many respects, so expecting someone to be able to anticipate
everything that can go wrong when we can't do this with machines just isn't
living in the real world.



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