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

[Dr Moore]

Thanks, Morley. You’re very kind. Not sure how much I’ll be back at it for now. Between work and getting back together with friends and family, I’ve been short on internet time.

It’s awesome to be out and about again, seeing people instead of screens.

[Res Ipsa]

Thanks, Morley. You’re very kind. Not sure how much I’ll be back at it for now. Between work and getting back together with friends and family, I’ve been short on internet time.

It’s awesome to be out and about again, seeing people instead of screens.

I hear ya! Board gaming online just wasn’t the same. I really missed playing face to face.

[DrW]

Hello RI,

Do you recall the exchange pasted below from May 03, 2021?

DrW, I understand the argument. Based on your education, experience, and training as a pilot, the story (by which you mean every detail in every version is included) is absurd on its face. I started out from the position that it was extremely unlikely that all of the details were accurate.

But that has nothing to do with my criticism of how you have handled evidence throughout the thread. The point is that, when you posted over and over and over about conclusions you’d drawn from absence of evidence, you did it wrong and posted unjustifiable conclusions. Believing that Nelson’s story is ridiculous on its face does not change the rules of logic or the principles of sound reasoning from evidence.

If you’re going to purport to reason from the absence of evidence, do it right. That’s all.

Agree.
No further argument from this side.
Peace?

Peace

Great.
Now that we have that settled, I think many of us would appreciate a few pointers from you as to how you would recommend handling an argument from lack of evidence, just in case something like this comes up again. If you don't mind, a set of bullet points or rules would suffice.
Thank you.

Thanks, Doc. I’d be happy to. I’ll give it a little thought.

There is no evidence on this board that you ever gave it another thought. That, together with your nonsense theory about why there was no NTSB report to be found due to a 'flame out' of a piston engine aircraft, and your obsession with the minutia of irrelevant regulations, left me with the definite impression that all of your talk about the “right way” to reason from the absence of evidence was so much hot air.

Then came the following:

Nice revisionist History, Dr. W. Throughout our back and forth, it was I who had to keep reminding you of what the regulations actually said.

No, you kept reminding me of what the regulations that *you* had happened to find most recently actually said. These had mainly to do with the distinction between an aircraft accident and an incident, which definitions in the case of an engine fire are not relevant. What is relevant in the case of an engine fire is the legal requirement for an NTSB notification. Tapirrider explained that to you and I explained that to you as well.

When I found the applicable regulation – one which you had apparently not yet stumbled across, I cited it for you. I see no evidence that you ever read or understood the regulations that apply in the case of an engine fire, a central claim in Russell M. Nelson's tall tale, regardless of damage to the aircraft. If you had done so, you would have not made some of the statements that you did (like the nonsense about a flame out of a piston engine, especially after the difference between an piston engine and a jet engine had been explained to you.)

Your use of terminology was sloppy and misleading.

My use of terminology reflected the fact that accident vs. incident is irrelevant when looking for an NTSB report of an engine fire.

You were the best example of motivated reasoning and confirmation bias I’ve seen in a long time.

If you think you saw confirmation bias, then you need to look up the definition of the term. Here you go:

con·fir·ma·tion bi·as (noun) “the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one's existing beliefs or theories.”

Since there was no new evidence during the time at issue (remember?), it would not have been possible to interpret it one way or the other. My reasoning when it came to Russell M. Nelson’s fantastical tale was based on years of flight training and personal experience flying dozens of aircraft, including two of my own, in the US and overseas. As stated upthread, no additional evidence was needed to conclude that the story was a “fabrication”, as RFM preferred to put it.

The soundness of that reasoning has been affirmed unanimously by other pilots and validated by the record. When it comes to flying, like all the other aircraft pilots and mechanics who have contributed here and on the Reel/RFM video and comments, I know aviation BS when I see it, and there was aviation BS aplenty in Rusty’s tall tale.

Throughout this thread, one of the things I’ve been interested in is whether the story was based on some real life incident or whether it was created out of whole cloth.

What do you consider whole cloth? No one expressed doubt that Russell M. Nelson had flown on an airplane. No one doubted that something may have happened on a plane that could cause Russell M. Nelson to think about what would happen if that plane were to crash.

If that something were turbulence, as some suggested, the plane would have been able to continue to its destination safely. Russell M. Nelson would have been in no danger. If there were an engine out in a light twin, as the CAB stated, the plane would have been able to continue to its destination safely. Russell M. Nelson would have been in no danger. His flight in question did not experience an emergency. Russell M. Nelson was in no danger on the flight. Had he seen his flight as a significant faith promoting "door of death" event at the time, he surely would have mentioned it before three years had passed. Using the experience of flying in an an engine out in a twin for a faith promoting story is the near equivalent of using the experience of driving on a deflated run-flat tire for a faith promoting story.

So Russell M. Nelson decided to punch it up a bit. He added, without a kernel of truth (from whole cloth), first an exploding engine, then a fire that engulfed the airplane, then a spiraling death dive, then a miraculous restart of the left engine that would not have failed in the first place, then a safe landing in a farmer’s field. He added a hysterical screaming female and a pilot commenting about the “point of no return” for some cabin ambiance while he contemplated how great it was to be a chosen one of God.

Russell M. Nelson took a flight that made a precautionary landing (in 2018, precautionary landings occurred on average more than 50 times a day) and turned it into to a tall tale claiming a chain of events that no pilot would ever believe could actually happen. That certainly qualifies as something made from “whole cloth” to me.

And since you have decided to initiate another bitchfest from a comment 12 days ago, I should mention we are still waiting for your promised insights on best ways to reason in the face of absence of evidence from way back on page 73.

Reasoning from the evidence, my conclusion is that you were in way over your head on the aviation side of this thread. And as things turned out, it appears that you made a bit of a fool of yourself.

[Res Ipsa]

Reasoning from the evidence, DrW, you are an arrogant ass. Your attempt to rewrite our interactions in this thread is hilarious and sad. Thread Ipsa loquitur.

[Most High]

I wonder how long the apologists, LDS forums and the official church can hold its breath while hoping this case goes away with a puff of smoke.

[Philo Sofee]

I wonder how long the apologists, LDS forums and the official church can hold its breath while hoping this case goes away with a puff of smoke.

Oh they have eternity. Once they become Elohim they can rewrite this incident and leave out all the warts and bad stuff and turn it, once again, into an even better faith promoting story...

[consiglieri]

Several pilots have weighed in via comments on different forums and also in personal messages.

None of them so far find President Nelson's version of events compatible with real-life experience or the documentary record.

[Morley]

Several pilots have weighed in via comments on different forums and also in personal messages.

None of them so far find President Nelson's version of events compatible with real-life experience or the documentary record.

This is certainly consistent with DrW's gut reaction.

[Lem]

Russell M. Nelson put up a post that was ostensibly about the Olympics, but quickly segued into yet another humble brag about his role in inventing the heart-lung machine. I mention it here because of one of the Reddit comments in response:

At this point all of RMNs stories are the equivalent of an airplane in a flaming death spiral.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Mormon/comment ... s/h6ulnz0/

Another post referred to Nelson’s “big fish stories…”

[Craig Paxton]

someone posted a thread on this subject over on that "board that shall not be named" and it died a death similar to Nelson's flaming death spiraling plane.

Immediately the regular posters attacked the person who posted the thread and questioned the credibility of the charges of Nelson being guilty of embellishment being brought against Nelson. I mean who can blame them, It is completely out of character for any upper echelon leader in the Mormon church to fabricate or embellish a story in order to make it more faith promoting, right?