Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

[DrW]

Before speculating much further, I would suggest we try to find out what kind of equipment Sky West was flying on the SLC to St. George routes back then. I was flying Air West in the mid-1970s and they were using mainly turbo props and pure jets on the routes from Washington State to SLC. Turbo props are gas turbine engines that have the same basic internals as turbojets but produce thrust by driving a prop connected via a gear box to the turbine shaft.

Check the links in my post above -- I think you can see the aircraft flown in the old fleets. Skywest's website also has a neat historical timeline. For the year 1976, that timeline shows a photo of several of its planes.

Dr. Moore, thanks for the suggestion. Don't have time to pursue it further right now, but it looks as if Sky West at the time did have Piper Navajos (PNV) in their fleet and in service to southern Utah. PNV are the twin piston engine puddle jumpers mentioned up-thread, similar to the Cessna 402s.
Will be back to this later this evening. But at least that part seems to fit his story.
Well done.

[Dr Moore]

Looks like I mis-read the tables. The flights I posted above are incoming, not outbound. (ie, to SLC from Cedar City)

Nelson would have arrived in St. George on one of these flights:



Checking the tables to see if there is an originating data file for SLC to Cedar City.

[Dr Moore]

...looks as if Sky West at the time did have Piper Navajos (PNV) in their fleet and in service to southern Utah. PNV are the twin piston engine puddle jumpers mentioned up-thread, similar to the Cessna 402s.

Yes, this link indicates that the inbound to SLC leg was serviced only by PNV aircraft.
http://www.departedflights.com/SLC75intro.html

If the outbound from SLC to Cedar City was also served with Pipers exclusively, but isn't that how it works? Plane goes in, plane comes out.

This link indicates that Piper, Swearingen and Metroliners served the leg from Cedar City to St. George.
http://www.departedflights.com/SGU79intro.html

[Doctor Steuss]

Speculation ain't evidence. The easiest way to be wrong is to imagine what you think must have happened.

Hi Res,

I'm sorry, I just want to make sure I'm understanding the overall meaning of the above -- or if I'm just overthinking a general offering of overall cautionary advice.

The lack of reporting (or at least, no one being able to find it yet) in the county newspaper of an emergency landing of a plane in a field shouldn't have bearing on determining the veracity of the story?

Or should it at most be viewed as an indicator that the field aspect of the story may be a mistaken aspect of the retelling?

Or...?

[Gadianton]

https://www.boldmethod.com/learn-to-fly ... -or-field/


wow, field landings don't generally go to well. they got really lucky.

[Gabriel]

Speculation ain't evidence. The easiest way to be wrong is to imagine what you think must have happened.

I agree with you 100%. And I would submit to you that we are looking for evidence. You appear resigned to the position that there will never be (and indeed, must not be) any evidence whatsoever to corroborate his story, we must simply take his word on faith. Why so fatalistic? What if his story checks out? Suppose that he's on the up and up. What if a tow truck driver's son remembers going with his dad to pick up the plane on Farmer Joe's field in Delta? What if Skywest or some other carrier has records of a damaged aircraft at that time due to a blown engine? What if the pilot who picked him up in Delta to get him to St. George was a member of his ward? Nelson is not on trial in a court of law. No burden of proof is on him to provide any facts to corroborate his account.

It's just that we have an intelligent, extraordinary man, in a unique position of power who has related an extraordinary story that for some strange reason cannot be verified by even a single wafer-thin shred of evidence.

Of course, our minds can embellish over time. Maybe I misremembered if I played right field on the Pocatello Cardinals farm team only to state that I was the pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals during the course of bearing my testimony. But, I would submit that that is an exception and not the norm for those who care anything about truth-telling (or the lack of it).

In your own speculations you have given Nelson's brain an extraordinary fallability for such an accomplished heart surgeon. The way you say it is that his feeling of peace is the point of story, and that it is immaterial whether it occurred on a flight to St. George, or to Bahrain, or on a roller coaster, or while in bed listening to Enya. But, I do appreciate your apologetic that Nelson's story can be true without necessarily being factual.

[Dr Moore]

Think I found the detailed flight schedules. Here are two links showing all of SkyWest's routes in years 1975 and 1979.

SkyWest's 2-letter code is "QG".

1975: http://www.departedflights.com/OAG0475itin13.html
1979: http://www.departedflights.com/OAG1179itin14.html

In case the links die, here are the detailed scans

1975


1979


Using the above links and data, to arrive in St. George on a Friday via Cedar City from SLC, Nelson could have taken any of these flights below. These are all flights that took the SLC > CDC > SGU route (noting that some continued on to places like Las Vegas).

1975 flights (with latest arrival times per http://www.departedflights.com/LAS75p1.html, based on final arrival in Las Vegas)
1. Flight 202 (continuing to arrive in Las Vegas at 9:45am MT)
2. Flight 204 (continuing to arrive in Las Vegas at 11:15am MT)
3. Flight 206 (appears to be a mid-afternoon arrival)
4. Flight 404 (continuing to arrive in Las Vegas at 2:45pm MT), Saturday only
5. Flight 504 (appears to be an evening arrival), Sunday only

1979 flights (with arrival times per http://www.departedflights.com/SGU79p1.html)
1. Flight 202 (arriving 8:50am)
2. Flight 204 (arriving 10:30am)
3. Flight 206 (arriving 2:50pm)
4. Flight 208 (arriving 4:45pm)
5. Flight 210 (arriving 8:45pm)
6. Flight 404 (arriving 3:20pm), Saturday only
7. Flight 504 (arriving 8:45pm), Sunday only

Bolded flights candidates for pre-afternoon arrival.

As we can see, some flights were added between 1975 and 1979, but the added flights all appear to have scheduled arrivals in the afternoon. With Kerr's inauguration in the afternoon, Nelson would have flown to arrive in the morning, no? That leaves only Sky West flights 202 and 204 by taking a SLC > CDC > SGU route.

What can we learn about the Nov 12, 1976 Sky West flights 202 and 204?

DrW -- the flight data shows the following equipment.
Flight 202 - "PNV" in 1975, "PAG" in 1979
Flight 204 - "PNV" in 1975, "SWM" in 1979

Lastly, here is a map of Sky West's routes in 1975.
http://www.departedflights.com/images/QG100175.jpg

[Gabriel]

Speculation ain't evidence. The easiest way to be wrong is to imagine what you think must have happened.

Hi Res,

I'm sorry, I just want to make sure I'm understanding the overall meaning of the above -- or if I'm just overthinking a general offering of overall cautionary advice.

The lack of reporting (or at least, no one being able to find it yet) in the county newspaper of an emergency landing of a plane in a field shouldn't have bearing on determining the veracity of the story?

On newspapers.com, I checked St. George, Utah "Color Country Spectrum". The Sunday Edition on the 14th of November of 1976 gives an account of Rolfe Kerr's inauguration ceremony as President of Dixie College on Friday the 12th. The ceremony was in the afternoon. It appeared on the front page. The bulk of the article was a summary of Kerr's opening address. I glanced through the 22 pages and couldn't find anything regarding mishaps dealing with Skywest (or any other carriers).

[Res Ipsa]

Speculation ain't evidence. The easiest way to be wrong is to imagine what you think must have happened.

I agree with you 100%. And I would submit to you that we are looking for evidence. You appear resigned to the position that there will never be (and indeed, must not be) any evidence whatsoever to corroborate his story, we must simply take his word on faith. Why so fatalistic? What if his story checks out? Suppose that he's on the up and up. What if a tow truck driver's son remembers going with his dad to pick up the plane on Farmer Joe's field in Delta? What if Skywest or some other carrier has records of a damaged aircraft at that time due to a blown engine? What if the pilot who picked him up in Delta to get him to St. George was a member of his ward? Nelson is not on trial in a court of law. No burden of proof is on him to provide any facts to corroborate his account.

It's just that we have an intelligent, extraordinary man, in a unique position of power who has related an extraordinary story that for some strange reason cannot be verified by even a single wafer-thin shred of evidence.

Of course, our minds can embellish over time. Maybe I misremembered if I played right field on the Pocatello Cardinals farm team only to state that I was the pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals during the course of bearing my testimony. But, I would submit that that is an exception and not the norm for those who care anything about truth-telling (or the lack of it).

In your own speculations you have given Nelson's brain an extraordinary fallability for such an accomplished heart surgeon. The way you say it is that his feeling of peace is the point of story, and that it is immaterial whether it occurred on a flight to St. George, or to Bahrain, or on a roller coaster, or while in bed listening to Enya. But, I do appreciate your apologetic that Nelson's story can be true without necessarily being factual.

Being an accomplished heart surgeon has nothing to do with how his memory works and that fact that his brain, like mine and yours, rewrites a memory every time it thinks about it. Memories change over time, sometimes in dramatic ways. https://socialecology.uci.edu/sites/soc ... _wrong.pdf

I'm not taking the position that there is no or will never be any evidence that confirms the story. I'm saying that we should approach Nelson's personal anecdote in the context of how we know the brain and memory works. And that means we should 100% expect that, nine years after the events, Nelson would misremember parts of the story, including details that we consider important in our "detective" efforts. As to how malleable our memories are, it's not unusual for someone to remember an event that happened to them when, in fact, that event actually happened to a sibling. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-styl ... 39049.html

So, I'm not taking Nelson on faith. I'm treating him the way I would treat anyone who tells a personal anecdote. I understand it's likely that they have details wrong and don't demand outside evidence to prove the details of their story.

I'm not trying to create an apologetic for Nelson's story, and I'm not claiming it's "true" without being factual. I think it's obvious that his emotional reaction to a frightening event is the point of the story. That's why he contrasts his feeling of calm with the screaming passenger. So, yes, the specific details (which flight it happened on, how many passengers there were, whether or not it was a scheduled commuter plane, how much fire there actually was) are not material to the point of the story. That's not a claim that the story is "true." In fact, I don't think the point is true. I think he had an emotional reaction that falls within the normal range of reactions that people have when they fear they are facing death. I think his conclusion that being a faithful LDS guy had anything to do with that reaction is BS. So, from my perspective, I agree with Stem that it's a stupid story. But that doesn't mean he made it all up.

Expecting Nelson to have accurately recalled the details of the event nine years after it happened contradicts what we know about how memory works. As I don't consider him a superman or a prophet, I try to understand the events through the lens of how human brains work. I see no reason to apply some different standard simply because the guy is affiliated with an organization we neither like nor trust.

I would suggest that simply asserting that he made it all up is a fairly extraordinary claim in and of itself. It should at least require a genuine effort to think through whether and how his story could accurately represent his memory. That requires approaching the incident with some curiosity and an open mind to try and understand it. And that's what I'm attempting to do.

[Res Ipsa]

Check the links in my post above -- I think you can see the aircraft flown in the old fleets. Skywest's website also has a neat historical timeline. For the year 1976, that timeline shows a photo of several of its planes.

Dr. Moore, thanks for the suggestion. Don't have time to pursue it further right now, but it looks as if Sky West at the time did have Piper Navajos (PNV) in their fleet and in service to southern Utah. PNV are the twin piston engine puddle jumpers mentioned up-thread, similar to the Cessna 402s.
Will be back to this later this evening. But at least that part seems to fit his story.
Well done.

I'm convinced it was not a turboprop, as the Navajos and Chieftans they owned at the time were, indeed, powered by piston engines. Piper's first Turboprop was the Cheyenne, and I see no record of them having one of those on the relevant date.