I'd agree that's one possible story consistent with the facts. But there are lots at this point. Here's another.dastardly stem wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 1:35 pmPiecing this all together, here's what we end up with:
I think it's fair to say Nelson did fly on November 12 or 11th 1976 to St George, UT. I'd guess he'd flown there before on a small plane. Its likely he was never comfortable flying on those small planes, and imagined after watching a number of movies from his youth up what it'd be like to be in a plane that was going down. He likely had been through various degrees of turbulence many times and had seen or heard a number of people cry out as he himself clutched arm rests but attempted to remain cool and collected. He then imagined, "If I was going to die, it'd be really cool if I was as calm as the cucumber because it'd show my faith that God really did love me." He dreamed the incident and went over it again and again. He was cert something crazy like that was possible. After years of putting himself in that place, the story once imagined became real. A decade or so of imagining it and seeing himself as victor he ended up with vivid memories of spiraling down in a plane, a woman screaming, and since he had to have lived through the ordeal, he imagined that this spiraling plane corrected itself and it landed safely unexpectedly in a farmers field.
After some years without much detail he alludes to the dreamed event and in so doing realizes it really does make him look good to a fawning audience. After the story caught some fanfare and by the time Ms. Dew recorded the story, he had matched this event to an actual inconsequential sounding flight that he recalled. He knew for certain, by this time, his fawning audience weren't concerned about whether something really happened or not. They just wanted to be delighted by typical sounding feats of heroism and poise.
Nelson was a heart surgeon, and appears to have been fairly high profile, serving on professional committtees, etc. In his life, he's done lots of career-related flying.
In 1971, he is called as head of the Sunday School. He talks about attending area conferences, so sounds like more flying in addition to his professional travel.
In 1976, he flies to Dixie University to get the opening prayer at an event.
In 1984 he is called as an Apostle. Now he's a much higher profile speaker at church events and at General Conference.
In 1985, we have the earliest evidence of his use of the story, at an institute fireside. A copy of the publication is not available on line, and we don't know whether it is a transcript of what he said or a summary.
In 2003, we have a book (his biography?) that recounts the story, citing the 1985 publication (?). This is the first version we have access to.
The first problem we have in trying to understand his narrative is the unreliability of eye-witness testimony. None of us are trusty witnesses to events we observe, especially under disorienting circumstances. Whatever happened, it probably happened relative quickly, although it would be common for the perception of passing time to slow down. He reports fire on one side of the plane and that the propellor on the other side stopped and restarted. He also reports the stereotypical life flashing before one's eyes, as well as a sense of calm. And he remembers the plane being close to the ground when it pulled out of the dive. The chances that he perceived and accurately understood what actually occurred from his own observations are pretty low.
The second problem is that his story is likely to be a mish-mash of what he saw and what he heard from the other passengers. We can't tell whether he saw what happened on both sides of the plane or whether he saw one side and someone told him about the other. In other words, the story doesn't separate out what he saw from what somebody else described to him.
The third is the passage of time. If he told this story to friends and family over nine years, his memory of the events will have changed. That's how memory works. It is incredibly easy to alter someone's memories. See the work of Elizabeth Loftus. In discussing the incident with others, their comments or questions could easily be incorporated as part of the memory of the event. For example, it may be accurate that the pilot announced that they were half way, and that he thought (or a passenger said) "ah, the point of no return." Or that comment could have been introduced by someone he was telling the story to. That comment then becomes part of the way he tells the story and, eventually, he remembers that the pilot said the whole thing. Again, not unusual. It's how brains work.
So, here is a possible version of what happened. He caught a flight from Salt Lake City to St. George on November 12, 1976. Shortly after the pilot announced that they were half-way there, one of the engines suffered a flame out. Either Nelson or other passengers see flames shoot out from the engine. The plane begins to lose altitude -- one or more passengers, including a woman, are scared and scream. Either Nelson misunderstands or someone misdescribes what happens with the other engine. Nelson has his life flashing before his eyes experience and feels calm. (Not an unusual reaction.) The pilot pulls the plane out of the dive. They land safely in a "field."
No notice is given to the NTSB because the incident doesn't qualify as an "accident" under the applicable definitions and it does not fall within any of the categories of incident that require notice. No report is filed with the NTSB, as filing a report is required only for "accidents" or for incidents at the request of the NTSB. No report is made to the FAA, as their accident reporting system is voluntary. Even if the NTSB were notified, not all incidents are reported in the NTSB database, and at one point a bunch of incidents were removed. Even if the incident had been voluntarily reported to the FAA, it's online database only goes back to 1978. Therefore, it is unreasonable to expect that we would be able to find on-line evidence of the crash. Any conclusion about the absence of an article in the local papers is pure speculation on our part.
As Nelson tells the story to friends and family, it becomes less accurate. And, as we see over and over again with these kinds of anecdotes, they become more interesting. It's likely that the extent of flame, the amount of screaming, the closeness to the ground, etc. are all exaggerated over time. He constructs a story about what the pilot did based on his own misunderstanding of what happened. But the changes reflect his changing memory of events, not an intention to distort the story.
When Nelson becomes an apostle, he has to step up his speaking game. The big 15 seem pretty big on using personal, faith promoting stories. That's not surprising, as stories are what people are attracted to and remember. So, he begins to look for things that have happened in his past for his own faith-promoting stories. As he reflects on the airplane story, he wonders why he felt calm when others panicked. And he has an epiphany -- the reason has noting to do with him as a person. The reason is that he doesn't have to be afraid of death because he knows what will happen when he dies.
He uses the story at the fireside, and gets some positive feedback. And, voila, a faith promoting personal story is born.
And that's just one other reasonable conclusion.
As humans with human brains, we have to deal with two inconvenient facts. First, anecdotal evidence (or, as we say, eyewitness testimony) is inherently unreliable because of how our brains work. Second, our brains find anecdotal evidence highly believable. We want to hear people's stories. We want to believe people's stories. We remember stories.
The point of Nelson's story isn't that it makes him look good. It's that his audience doesn't have to fear death, because they know what happens after death. Each and every Mormon need not fear death either, because they have the same knowledge he does.
