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

[Lem]

How many times has Nelson told and retold this story? It seems to have been a life-changer for him, no? So why wouldn't he do some digging to validate his recounting of the specific technical details he seems to recall so vividly.

The key seems to be the telling, and then the retelling, as you mentioned. I had a good friend who was great at telling stories, and she had a whopper about being swept off Jones Beach in a riptide and being rescued by an intrepid member of the fabled NYC life guard crew.

The second or third time I heard her tell the story to a group of fascinated youth, I was a little nonplussed at the apparent changes. Her husband standing next to me must have seen my face, because he leaned over, chuckling quietly, and whispered in my ear, "every time the lifeguard grows more muscles, the riptide gets faster by several miles per hour, and the distance she was swept down the beach increases by half a mile."

Eventually, I expect the story will involve Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson sweeping her out of a riptide that sank the NYC CircleLine cruises, and him dramatically resuscitating her on a Hampton Beach in front of the NY governor and mayor, both.

[Dr Moore]

Do you find the difference between "next to him" and "across the aisle" to be a material difference?

Do we have a quote of Nelson expressing relief about being on time for the inauguration? In which account is that element first introduced?

In which version does he first say he flew from SLC to St. George?

I'm not sure on the timing, to these last 2 questions. On the first one, it does seem odd, but if you look at a seat map of these old Piper planes, the "aisle" is something less than 2 feet wide, or less. This aisle separates the right window seat from the left window seat. So I don't think that fact is a problem. He was very likely on a plane in the right seat, with a woman seated in the left window seat adjacent and across from that "aisle."

What I find more troublesome is Nelson's recollection that this was a flight "from Salt Lake City to St. George" in multiple accounts. I can't find any evidence that there was a direct flight for that route in 1976. Makes you think his recollection of events is already missing some critical details.

I mean, on one hand, he knows that the flight plan went from SLC to SGU, because he was going to St. George to give an invocation right? But then he seems to have forgotten that it was a connecting flight.

And with that as a starting point, are we expected to believe that his memory is crystal clear about the fire, the oil splatter, the twirling dive, the left side engine restarting, landing in a field, the uncontrollable hysteria of other passengers, the fire being extinguished by air flow, and his own glassy calm?

By the way, this brings up an even more glaring fact-check inconsistency. He makes a point to recall that the "other engine" was restarted by the pilot -- this "other engine" would have been the left wing engine, presumably visible through a window across the aisle and partly blocked that hysterical screaming woman. Remember how he says that all of these events took place within a few seconds? So where were Nelson's eyes during all of this? Was he glued on the right side engine, which (a) blew apart, (b) was on fire, (c) splattered burning oil, and (d) was extinguished by accelerating wind force? Or, was he watching the left side window, by the uncontrollably hysterical screaming woman, who he "felt bad for", leaving him able to accurately observe that the left engine had been (a) stopped and (b) restarted by the pilot? I guess his head might have been turning left and right, but this is a whole lot of panicky attention to detail, all while taking in the moment with serene calm, as he says, during those brief seconds, while his life "flashed" before his eyes!

I think Nelson's real miracle in these events isn't the saving of the plane at all. The real miracle might be Nelson's God-like omnipresence, being perfectly aware of what happened inside his soul, and on the passengers, and on the left and right sides of the plane.

[Res Ipsa]

How many times has Nelson told and retold this story? It seems to have been a life-changer for him, no? So why wouldn't he do some digging to validate his recounting of the specific technical details he seems to recall so vividly.

Perhaps because he recalls them so vividly. People generally place unwarranted confidence in the accuracy of their memories.

[Lem]

I think Nelson's real miracle in these events isn't the saving of the plane at all. The real miracle might be Nelson's God-like omnipresence, being perfectly aware of what happened inside his soul, and on the passengers, and on the left and right sides of the plane.

I think you may be getting closer to the heart of the issue. Telling a story where God saved Mormons, but ignoring the situations where god doesn't save Mormons is becoming too obvious of a contradiction. So, Nelson fell back on some added pieces here where he could, within the context of a conventional LDS miracle, humble brag about himself. Being able to contrast his superior self against an hysterical woman whose husband couldn't "control" her just moves the story along, in his narcissistic mind.

[Gabriel]

Apologies in advance, but your science analogy in no way applies to the situation at hand. I performed no experiment. I obtained no data that are to be evaluated. Why not just start with the idea that a scientist should be a skeptic? The job here is to evaluate the assertions of others, presented without evidence, that are nonetheless intended to be taken as fact.

And, in this case, we are talking about the assertions of - shall we speak baldly? - the one true prophet on the face of the earth, (or if one prefers to put it in a merely terrestrial sense -in keeping with the spirit of this Terrestrial Forum - one who is president of a multi-billion dollar non-profit). I agree with you that such a person's statements should be no more "hands-off" than that of any other public leader.

As a former owner of two aircraft and holder of a commercial pilot's license with twin engine and instrument ratings, and working on my second million miles with Delta, I have more aviation experience than most. With others, I have disassembled, repaired, painted, reassembled and test flown aircraft. Over the years I have lost four colleagues in two light aircraft accidents, one from my flying club and three from work.

Your opinion, for me, carries some weight in this matter

I understand that an inflight engine fire on a passenger-carrying aircraft in commercial service resulting in a forced landing not at an airport is not something that happens without leaving a trace in the public record, or at least in contemporary memory of others involved. Yet when I enter the search string <Russell Nelson LDS aircraft accident > all that comes up are different versions of the same story as told by Nelson or his biographers. Others here have tried to corroborate the story and have spent a long time looking for supporting evidence. What has been found, especially SkyWest route map from the mid-1970s, casts serious doubt on the story.

As time goes different versions of the Rusty story seem to proliferate: turbulence to an engine fire, to an aircraft engulfed in flames, to landing in a field, to landing at an airport. In its retelling and embellishment, it has taken on the status of folklore.

This is a problem. Few will ever forget the first time they heard, and then saw, a rattlesnake. It is well understood that the sudden shot of adrenaline that activates the fight or flight response also helps potentiate long term memory. There is an evolutionary benefit to remembering what a rattlesnake sounds like and where they are found. It is unlikely that one would misremember the rattlesnake encountered on a mountain trail as being in their back yard, or that the rattlesnake was really a cobra.

I remember as a kid playing in the hills of Canyon Country, CA, when I threw a rock at a rattlesnake that was lounging near the base of a yucca bush. I missed the snake but I remember its tail and head immediately shot up and its beady little eyes locked onto mine and its rattle was shaking so fast that the sound of it was a continual hisssssssssssssssssss. I would not exactly call it a life-changing event, but I high-tailed it away, none the less. (I am pretty sure that it didn't happen near a rose bush in Delta Utah, or St. George, and that there were no hysterical women at my side; at least, I'm pretty sure there weren't. After all, I was just a kid)

The skeptic would ask why such life changing event - one of sufficient impact to motivate the writing of a book, was it not mentioned in public before two years after it happened. Indeed one would expect the miraculous deliverance of one of gods chosen from near certain death in a flaming airplane would have been front page news in Southern Utah, at least, especially in 1976.

A skeptic would ask why there is no contemporary record of this event to be found, even in the history of an airline that discloses operational details, down to the purchase of new aircraft, or that Robert Redford once flew with them?

I know that there is one that is making the argument for The Limited Biography Theory, that because we do not have access to the original account of which later embellishments may have been added, and that all later written accounts must be discounted as the spurious speculations of careless scribes, or the embellishments that keep getting added along the way by fickle memory, that it is a vain enterprise to attempt to verify any aspect of Nelson's account. But that really cuts both ways, doesn't it? In fact, I don't think it equally cuts both ways. After all, the gentleman who wrote in his journals as well as his autobiography, and presumably has access to them, is the same person who can't seem to recount his experience in a materially cohesive manner. Why is that?

A skeptic would why such a dramatic and miraculous deliverance of a Mormon leader was not big news at the time in the land of the Mormons?

Minor quibble here: I am not sure that he would have been a household name in Mormon circles then. Nevertheless, that at least two papers, the Millard County Chronicles Progress and the St. George Spectrum, make no mention of it (while at the same time devoting ink to more banal incidents. If anyone knows any other papers in the area, I will be happy to check them.

A skeptic would ask why a story that is asserted to be fact is, so far, unfalsifiable.

Your assertion that the goal here is to prove "what we knew all along -- that Nelson is lying SOB who makes Crap up--" , appears to be biased and is a bit over the top.

Until there is a shred of credible independent third party corroborating evidence, or contemporary published verification of some kind, I will remain a non-believer. And it appears than many others will as well.

It is said that the race goes not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet. If someone here knows the answer and said that they would not reveal it unless I placed a bet on one side or the other. I would place mine down on the side that the Salt Lake to St. George emergency landing near Delta iteration of this story with all its attendant details just didn't happen.

[Res Ipsa]

Do you find the difference between "next to him" and "across the aisle" to be a material difference?

Do we have a quote of Nelson expressing relief about being on time for the inauguration? In which account is that element first introduced?

In which version does he first say he flew from SLC to St. George?

I'm not sure on the timing, to these last 2 questions. On the first one, it does seem odd, but if you look at a seat map of these old Piper planes, the "aisle" is something less than 2 feet wide, or less. This aisle separates the right window seat from the left window seat. So I don't think that fact is a problem. He was very likely on a plane in the right seat, with a woman seated in the left window seat adjacent and across from that "aisle."

What I find more troublesome is Nelson's recollection that this was a flight "from Salt Lake City to St. George" in multiple accounts. I can't find any evidence that there was a direct flight for that route in 1976. Makes you think his recollection of events is already missing some critical details.

I mean, on one hand, he knows that the flight plan went from SLC to SGU, because he was going to St. George to give an invocation right? But then he seems to have forgotten that it was a connecting flight.

And with that as a starting point, are we expected to believe that his memory is crystal clear about the fire, the oil splatter, the twirling dive, the left side engine restarting, landing in a field, the uncontrollable hysteria of other passengers, the fire being extinguished by air flow, and his own glassy calm?

By the way, this brings up an even more glaring fact-check inconsistency. He makes a point to recall that the "other engine" was restarted by the pilot -- this "other engine" would have been the left wing engine, presumably visible through a window across the aisle and partly blocked that hysterical screaming woman. Remember how he says that all of these events took place within a few seconds? So where were Nelson's eyes during all of this? Was he glued on the right side engine, which (a) blew apart, (b) was on fire, (c) splattered burning oil, and (d) was extinguished by accelerating wind force? Or, was he watching the left side window, by the uncontrollably hysterical screaming woman, who he "felt bad for", leaving him able to accurately observe that the left engine had been (a) stopped and (b) restarted by the pilot? I guess his head might have been turning left and right, but this is a whole lot of panicky attention to detail, all while taking in the moment with serene calm, as he says, during those brief seconds, while his life "flashed" before his eyes!

I think Nelson's real miracle in these events isn't the saving of the plane at all. The real miracle might be Nelson's God-like omnipresence, being perfectly aware of what happened inside his soul, and on the passengers, and on the left and right sides of the plane.

I agree on the next to v. across the aisle. In this context, they mean the same thing.

I agree with you (and I think I posted) that it’s unlikely that he could have observed everything that happened first-hand. His brain received a large amount of disorienting and confusion in a very short amount of time. People often report that time appears to slow down in these kind of circumstances. But if I’m remembering correctly, our brains don’t suddenly speed up — time subjectively passes as usual during the event and the slowing down is a memory constructed by the brain. So, in the face of this big, confusing data dump of information, the brain constructs a story that it thinks make sense. And it will edit the data in a way that makes sense to it.

So, even immediately after the event, I would expect factual inaccuracies in his description of what happened. If I wanted to know what happened, I think the pilot would be a better bet.

But right away it gets worse. I think it’s reasonable to assume that the passengers and maybe even the pilot discussed the event afterwards. As soon as that happens, Russell’s brain will interpret the events in light of what he hears. We have no reliable way to separate what he witnessed first hand and what he was told by someone else. And by now his brain wouldn’t be able to sort that out, either. For example, his description of what happened to the other engine could be based on a misunderstanding of something the pilot said. Regardless, what gets into his long-term memory is likely to be a combination of what he heard, saw, etc., the story his brain created to make sense out of The data, and information related by the passengers and/our pilot.

So, I don’t see the amount of information in the story as evidence of intentional embellishment or deception.

As to the memory about the route, that’s one of several reasons that I’m curious about what he said in his autobiography. I think there is an error in there somewhere, but I don’t know what it is. Just looking through old papers, it looks like he flew quite a bit after he became SS President. And given his career, I suspect before as well. I don’t think it would be unreasonable to omit the stop in Cedar City when telling the story. And having omitted it in the original telling, it wouldn’t be surprising if at some point he no longer recalled it.

I really would like to see if the autobiography ties the incident to the inauguration, says that flight was between SLC and St. George, and says he took a commuter airplane. I want to know whether these elements appeared in the original story — or at least the earliest version we can access. I have a concern that one or more of those elements are later incorporations into memory that have us all looking at the wrong date or location.

[Res Ipsa]

How many times has Nelson told and retold this story? It seems to have been a life-changer for him, no? So why wouldn't he do some digging to validate his recounting of the specific technical details he seems to recall so vividly.

The key seems to be the telling, and then the retelling, as you mentioned. I had a good friend who was great at telling stories, and she had a whopper about being swept off Jones Beach in a riptide and being rescued by an intrepid member of the fabled NYC life guard crew.

The second or third time I heard her tell the story to a group of fascinated youth, I was a little nonplussed at the apparent changes. Her husband standing next to me must have seen my face, because he leaned over, chuckling quietly, and whispered in my ear, "every time the lifeguard grows more muscles, the riptide gets faster by several miles per hour, and the distance she was swept down the beach increases by half a mile."

Eventually, I expect the story will involve Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson sweeping her out of a riptide that sank the NYC CircleLine cruises, and him dramatically resuscitating her on a Hampton Beach in front of the NY governor and mayor, both.

Yep. And it’s ironic that the more we talk about an experience from our past, the more likely it is to be inaccurate.

[Doctor Steuss]

The Limited Biography Theory

And... I'm dead.

[tapirrider]

I'm not assuming that Nelson didn't intentionally embellish. I just haven't found evidence that would justify any conclusion on his intent.

Several times now you have mentioned memory over time. It does not help your case to find his mention of this closer to the time of the incident. The excuse of his memory changing the details? I think not.

You claim you haven't found evidence that would justify any conclusion on Nelson's intent to embellish. Perhaps, but let's examine his history of faith promoting stories with material inaccuracies, never mind his intent. Just the facts. Here are some, are you familiar with these?

False Story Removed From Newest Book on the Life of Mormon President Russell M. Nelson
https://www.truthandtransparency.org/ne ... -m-nelson/

Here is another example, and pay attention to how quickly Nelson began introducing material inaccuracies. That in itself needs to be kept in mind when considering the 1979 introduction to his book, which falls in a short time from the alleged incident, just as can be seen playing out in this one.
https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comme ... n_robbery/

Look how the accuracy of his story has become absurd over a longer period of time.
https://www.ldsaliveinchrist.com/robber ... e-trigger/


Here is my bottom line - memory doesn't change like this with most normal people. This isn't a fishing story where a few friends are sitting around swapping tales that all involved know are being embellished. No, this is not the case at all. What is going on here with Mr. Nelson is a very serious matter that needs to be exposed for what it is - lying for the Lord.

[Doctor Steuss]

The second or third time I heard her tell the story to a group of fascinated youth, I was a little nonplussed at the apparent changes. Her husband standing next to me must have seen my face, because he leaned over, chuckling quietly, and whispered in my ear, "every time the lifeguard grows more muscles, the riptide gets faster by several miles per hour, and the distance she was swept down the beach increases by half a mile."

Yep. And it’s ironic that the more we talk about an experience from our past, the more likely it is to be inaccurate.

Completely unrelated (or perhaps not), but this made me think of how oral traditions are generally accurate in their being passed down (at least in antiquity).

There are a few stories that one of my brothers retells, that involved me prominently, that seem to get more embellished with each retelling -- even when I'm standing right next to him. I'm able to almost perfectly remember the versions of the story he's told, and where changes have been made, but not perfectly remember the event itself.

I wonder if somewhere out there is one of the passengers, who might have an imperfect memory of the event, but each time they hear the story, they roll their eyes because they immediately notice the changes that have been made by the re-teller more-so than the story itself.