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

[Res Ipsa]

If you went to the database, you have noticed that the data based contains Accident Type descriptions all the way from hard landing or ground loop (minor indiscretions on the runway) to aircraft demolished ( wherein someone was likely killed). The first two would be classified as incidents, the third was an accident.

So it's just very interesting, DrW.

If Nelson's event was classified an incident, then it seems we have no record to check against.

As described, I think the code is written such that it could have been (had to have been?) classified as an accident with minor damage. I don't think Nelson's description matches the definition for substantial damage. So in your judgment, could the as-advertised Nelson flight of terror event have qualified as only an incident? I have already forgotten, or missed, the part where someone laid out the dividing line between accident--minor damage and an incident.

How DrW or anyone else would classify an occurrence has no relevance whatsoever to what's in the database. What's relevant is how they are classified in the database.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

RI,

I think I must've misreported my claim of seven incidents. I'm betting I had the All option clicked, and when the return query populated I failed to scroll down the list revealing all 54 queries. I'm stating that because I think you're right that for 1976 there's nothing categorized as an incident, that I can see.

Now.

If you click-scroll through the 54 accidents that populate from the query, there's no consistency. Some accidents are minor, some are major. Which makes me wonder if we're not talking about an inconsistent data entry process or the FAA in that year or era just not having a consistent standard, and the incidents were just tucked under the accident category.

Whatever the case may be we do, in fact, have 54 'accidents' logged for Utah, 1976. I fail to see how Russell M. Nelson's flight wouldn't merit an entry when compared to the ones we have.

- Doc

[Gadianton]

In Res's screenshot it shows one incident category picked, but you can ctrl+ to add both.

Then change the date to 1954-01-01 to 1977-01-01 and see that it errors out. No incidents.

Then change the second date to like, 1979-01-01 and now it starts populating, with the very earliest being 1978-01-01.

That's a hard cutoff.

https://www.asias.faa.gov/apex/f?p=100: ... GION_VAR:1

Things You Should Know
The FAA issues a separate report for each aircraft involved in an aviation incident. The FAA Accident and Incident Data System (AIDS) database contains incidents that occurred between 1978 and the present. The current system is being revised to reflect the full narrative on all incident reports with an active event date of January 1, 1995 or greater. This will apply to approximately 10,000 reports.

Lines up.

add "fire" and there are in fact incidents that involve engine fire (post '77). But this DB is extremely limited on search terms, unless I'm missing something.

I've download the text files used to populate the DB on that site from FAA, and I might do some real datamining. I'm interested in the kinds of fire occurrences; i've become less interested in the question of "is it possible that a pilot could nosedive to put out a fire with oil spewing everywhere and then land in a field, and it's just an incident"? I mean, I'm "open" i guess, but not hopeful for poor Rusty. I'm more interested in "how many times in the history of civilian aviation in the US, has an airplane nose-dived to put out a fire"? be it an accident, incident, or anything reported. Is that number greater than zero?

well, the main idea is to get the kind of detail around a large number of engine fires that you can look at and compare without having to click through 150 screens.

[Dr Moore]

How DrW or anyone else would classify an occurrence has no relevance whatsoever to what's in the database. What's relevant is how they are classified in the database.

Hi RI. Respectfully, I didn’t ask you this question and it wasn’t about a database. I asked DrW what he thinks about the events as described by Nelson and whether those events best fit the definitions of an incident or accident with minor damages. Kindly back off a little, it’s feeling crowded in here.

I’m sure you don’t mean to talk over folks. But in this case it crept over the line of being off putting.

[Lem]

And now, just to take a break from the intensity, a humorous interlude-----

In looking for Tom's listing of the various accounts of the story, I realized I missed this:

I'm pleased to report that I've prepared a harmony of the 15 accounts of the 1976 Plummeting Plane incident and have submitted a paper based on the harmony for this year's FAIR conference. If I do say myself—and I do—I have, I think, pretty much killed, buried, and nailed the coffin shut on the idea that Nelson fabricated or even slightly embellished the story and then thrown the coffin into Mount Doom, before dropping Mt Doom under the continental plates.

An excerpt from my paper:

Criticism: A 2018 account mentions four passengers. This contradicts the 1985 account, which mentions six.

Response: Actually, the 1985 account refers to "about six passengers," which, even if we take the stated number at face value, is only slightly more than four. Alternatively, if we read the term passenger through the lens of Early Modern English (which had a broader definition of passenger than today's), President Nelson could easily be including the pilot and flight attendant in his passenger count.

Tom, you channel a mopologist with unnerving accuracy.

[Res Ipsa]

RI,

I think I must've misreported my claim of seven incidents. I'm betting I had the All option clicked, and when the return query populated I failed to scroll down the list revealing all 54 queries. I'm stating that because I think you're right that for 1976 there's nothing categorized as an incident, that I can see.

Now.

If you click-scroll through the 54 accidents that populate from the query, there's no consistency. Some accidents are minor, some are major. Which makes me wonder if we're not talking about an inconsistent data entry process or the FAA in that year or era just not having a consistent standard, and the incidents were just tucked under the accident category.

Whatever the case may be we do, in fact, have 54 'accidents' logged for Utah, 1976. I fail to see how Russell M. Nelson's flight wouldn't merit an entry when compared to the ones we have.

- Doc

If you want, I can walk you through why the accident reports we are finding from the 1970s are pulled from the NTSB's summaries of their final probable cause determination reports. None of us on this board are qualified to overcall the NTSB as to whether what happened met the definition of accident, especially when we've never seen pictures of the aircraft and all we have is a terse summary. To do that would really takes us into Sagan's Dragon territory.

[Res Ipsa]

RI,

I think I must've misreported my claim of seven incidents. I'm betting I had the All option clicked, and when the return query populated I failed to scroll down the list revealing all 54 queries. I'm stating that because I think you're right that for 1976 there's nothing categorized as an incident, that I can see.

Now.

If you click-scroll through the 54 accidents that populate from the query, there's no consistency. Some accidents are minor, some are major. Which makes me wonder if we're not talking about an inconsistent data entry process or the FAA in that year or era just not having a consistent standard, and the incidents were just tucked under the accident category.

Whatever the case may be we do, in fact, have 54 'accidents' logged for Utah, 1976. I fail to see how Russell M. Nelson's flight wouldn't merit an entry when compared to the ones we have.

- Doc

Yeah, I'll bet you're right about the search.

As far as accidents v. incidents, that depends on that definition of "substantial damage" in the regulations:

Substantial damage means damage or failure which adversely affects the structural strength, performance, or flight characteristics of the aircraft, and which would normally require major repair or replacement of the affected component. Engine failure or damage limited to an engine if only one engine fails or is damaged, bent fairings or cowling, dented skin, small punctured holes in the skin or fabric, ground damage to rotor or propeller blades, and damage to landing gear, wheels, tires, flaps, engine accessories, brakes, or wingtips are not considered substantial damage for the purpose of this part.

49 CFR § 830.2

The fact pattern that I don't want to over look is: engine fire, rapid descent, safe landing. That would require a combination of Nelson not understanding what he was looking at (misperception) and exaggerated memory of the fire over time. Depending on whether the fire was confined to the engine and the existence of other damage, that scenario could be classified as an incident or an accident. Which is why I want to try to find the incident records that aren't contained in the online databases.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Well, from what I'm reading within those 54 reports most of them wouldn't then be regarded as having substantial damage. I'm still not sure how that would've precluded Russell M. Nelson's flight from making it into this database.

- Doc

[honorentheos]

...did you read my summary of my previous story about the "career mentor" I met with? Before answering questions, "how much skepticism does the most simple telling deserve" and the related question, "what constitutes the simple telling" -- I'd love for you to review my mentor story, and ask yourself the same questions about what I disclosed that he was telling me, if you were on the recipient end of those stories.

I did read it earlier in the original posting. I didn't revisit it until just now. Here it is for ease of reference:

Since we're telling career stories: When I was first getting into my career, a friend hooked me up for breakfast with a relative well-established in the same career -- my friend, however, gave me "the warning" about his relative. Here we are at the restaurant, and it's one whopper after the other, all told with sincerity and a straight face. The conversation was all over the place. From the killing machines he'd trained as a martial arts instructor to the war zone about the mission home on his mission. The guy was huge, overweight, sure, but tall and broad. We had to sit at a table where there'd be enough room. He winced every now and again from back pain he was in. I tried to clarify that the martial arts that he actively teaches; surely if he were serious, represented some kind of "big guy" judo, grappling style. No. He clarified that he moves like Jean Claude Van Damme (his reference, not mine). There was never a moment of humor about this or anything at that table. Another of his many random claims that morning: Somewhere in Idaho, there exists a Stake Center with 4 indoor swimming pools.

Let's focus on that last claim. How much time could we spend as a group running down every stake center in Idaho, our connections, websites, church leaders, and how many ways can we construe the claim just to be sure -- maybe the church bought some land and adjacent to where the chapel ended up were the pools? And what really stares at you in the face, again, is the disproportionate effort involved proving vs. definitively ruling out the claim. "Here's the address, run it down yourself." Asked and answered. These aren't extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence, they are ordinary, but rare or suspect claims, requiring ordinary evidence.

Yes, I admit that I'm hugely biased in this case, as I was hugely biased about everything I heard at breakfast that day. Is that bias a problem? It really depends on what question you're trying to answer.

It calls into question if we are even talking about the same thing. This experience may map onto the mythologized story, or "the story" as Res has come to refer to it. If all we were doing here was establishing that the biographical account was a fish story then you categorize it as "this guy's full of crap" and engage accordingly. Likewise, self-aggrandizing stories like "the story" inherently trigger BS detectors for good reasons.

But what about the guy's actual background that served as the backdrop for his self-aggrandizing self-myth? I don't know how to judge that. I expect he's been to LDS stake centers. When I was very young my dad still played Church basketball and we'd go to the games with him. I and my siblings along with our friends whose fathers also played would eventually make our way out of the cultural hall and go off exploring the church buildings we were in. And to a kid who is 6 - 8 years old, dark empty churches are weird, spooky places. If it turned out this guy saw this stake center when he was of primary age, I'd shrug it off. Perhaps he saw something that he misconstrued as swimming pools. Maybe he went to one that had multiple baptismal fonts or something but I don't really care about the facts there. the relevant facts are he formed this memory at an early age, and he's telling a story about it as an adult that calls his judgement into question. That's not trying to defend the dragon. That's recognizing people's minds are built to invent narratives and are very imperfect instruments for documenting the world around them through the available senses. Our realities are invented by our brains by sense stimuli and our memories are remanufactured every time we access them.

What's my take away then? That this guy apparently doesn't filter his own BS stories through the kinds of filters that I think are healthy so he's probably not someone I'd engage with in a contractual or reputational manner. I don't know nor would I care about the level of actual martial arts experience he had though I'd assume very little given his framing fails to align with how the actual very good martial artists I know talk about their disciplines and art. But even then, I know black belt-level folks who are running black belt mills who are living their own myths so it could be he has some legit training that would be enough to get him in a bad situation someday. Don't know.

This brings up what I think of when I reference skepticism. I think of it in the sense David Hume described it as follows:

It must, however, be confessed, that this species of skepticism, when more moderate, may be understood in a very reasonable sense, and is a necessary preparative to the study of philosophy, by preserving a proper impartiality in our judgements, and weaning our mind from all those prejudices, which we may have imbibed from education or rash opinion. To begin with clear and self-evident principles, to advance by timorous and sure steps, to review frequently our conclusions, and examine accurately all their consequences; though by these means we shall make both a slow and a short progress in our systems; are the only methods, by which we can ever hope to reach truth, and attain a proper stability and certainty in our determinations. ... we find in the course of nature that though the effects be many, the principles from which they arise are commonly few and simple, and that it is the sign of an unskilled naturalist to have recourse to a different quality in order to explain every different operation.

Now, I also subscribe to the ideas behind Hume's personal approach to living that he encapsulated so:

Abstruse thought and profound researches I prohibit, and will severely punish, by the pensive melancholy which they introduce, by the endless uncertainty in which they involve you, and by the cold reception which your pretended discoveries shall meet with, when communicated. Be a philosopher; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.

Being skeptical of the man's claims is a reasonable default position. But so should be the assumption one knows immediately the man fabricated everything he said out of whole cloth. In my experience, especially from having grown up LDS up to and including having served in bishoprics where I was genuinely all-in, TBM as they come - certitude is a bitch. That isn't a uniquely Mormon thing. It's not a uniquely religious thing. It's a universal red flag that a person has giving up on the truth because they found something they like better.

[kairos]

First-this thread contains quantity and quality hardly seen on this site imho. Thanx to all for “progress” to date.
Using a simple approach but I think useful, the question of whether the Russell M. Nelson “incident “ would this have been covered by the Desert News in the edition 1,2 or maybe 3 days from the incident if it were true. Headline like “GA survives aircraft engine failure”. “Russell M Nelson head of the church Sunday school told the DN that on blah blah blah .....”
The DN reporters would surely have tied in the incident with the college inauguration (by the way was there an article about that in DN or the Church News.?)
The church loves to tell dramatic incidents involving GA’s.
by the way has anyone checked with the Utah highway patrol - certainly they would have been on the scene and if the almost doomed plane was replaced to get Nelson to the college on time the Utah troopers would be around. Now I think the troopers may have actually driven Nelson from wherever the plane landed to Saint George- perhaps Sheri figured a dispatched second plane was more dramatic than a Crown Victoria.
Any way keep on plugging you guys - I hear Cassius University Trustees are considering a special investigation award for whomever cracks the case of the almost doomed ghost flight of PSR Rusty on the details Nelson.

k