There is a LOT we can learn from this accident, including:

1) The press reports everything but the facts. I have been peripherally involved with or consulted to the NTSB on several Lancair accidents. I was also the only eyewitness to one and I can say with absolute certainty that however the press describes what happened is NOT what actually happened.

2) People love to talk to the press regardless of there level of ignorance. (How bad at your job do you have to be to be a former Government employee?)

3) Emergency procedures are important. Practice them.

4) Accidents happen. Jogging with some tunes one minute and the next "Hello St. Peter". If you gotta go, it is not a bad way. It  can happen to you. Get your life in order.

5) This event is news worthy ONLY due to its extreme rarity. 5000 pedestrians a year are killed by cars (one every 105 minutes). In the time it has taken a Lancair, any Lancair, to kill someone on the ground there have been 15,000 pedestrian deaths by car. Where is the outrage?

6) If you are involved in an accident KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT. If you say nothing then there is nothing to distort. Your brain chemistry will be out of whack due to the shock of the accident and you may feel an overwhelming urge to explain what happened. DON'T!  I do not know if the pilot actually said "I killed someone" but now it is written down forever. He may become the example prosecution for a DA facing a tough election. The opening salvo in the manslaughter trial will be his excited utterance of a confession. If he dodges a criminal trial, a civil trial is a virtual certainty. I pray for the poor SOB who tightened and wired the prop bolts.

Our legal system is not about justice of fairness, it is about who can take the blame, who can pay.

The difference between lawyers and buzzards is that lawyers scavenge the survivors. But the only thing a lawyer respects is another lawyer so........

Take a moment and imagine that this tragedy has just happened to you. What would you need immediately? Your second call would probably be to your lawyer. Do you have one? "Then" will not be the time to be thumbing through the yellow pages. Interview and select an attorney now. Have is number handy.

Preparing for an accident should not end at "All passengers safely exited the airframe". Like dropping a rock in a pond, most of what happens because of an accident happens after the smoke has settled.

Regards
Brent Regan