Planes do crash. It’s rather seldom, but it does happen. I know it, and I frequently read incident and accident reports. A couple of my friends died in accidents. Pilots often say simluator is good for training, but nothing is like actual flying – the same applies to accidents scene.

I’ve never been on a crash site, but I saw once a “recent” wreckage which had just been moved to a hangar for investigation. The pilot’s body had been removed well before. The plane had collided with obstacles on the initial climb. It was so badly damaged that it was not even shaped like an airframe, looking more like a big heap of aluminium.

There was a strong smell of oil and avgas, some was still dripping here and there. The roof had been partly taken apart. The cockpit was visible but not accessible, because the engine had been pushed in. The single part I could identify was an ADF receiver, all the rest was simply a smashed dashboard, compressed between the engine and the seats.

The airspeed was very low when the aircaft hit the obstacles. Low in terms of flying, probably below 50 knots. But this represents a significant amount of energy which had been “used” to compress the airframe. I had no doubts about the non-survivability of this accident.

I looked at this wreckage during five long minutes, alone, silently. What did I learn ? In terms of flying, nothing. Seeing it did not changed my flying, but made the possibility of an accident look more possible. I was in front of the scary proof that a usual situation like a before check-list can evolve to a deadly crash within minutes.

I knew it before, but nothing is like the real thing.