The day the music died...60 year remembrance thread....

[JGug1]

18. Responding To The Day The Music Died

I am a private pilot. On July 31, 2017, two of my three best friends died flying my Twin Comanche. Subsequently, the wife of one of them sued me. Insurance is declining to cover. I think of them often. I died a little when they died. The wife is a beautiful and bright woman, an immigration attorney, one of "the good ones." She came to me at his funeral and said she was sorry I lost my airplane. I said "fuck my airplane." I meant it and I have lived it because it wasn't paid for so I still have the monthly payments. I'd double the payments if I could have my two friends back.
I don't know what I'd say to her if I could. Could I say that I somehow hope that suing me is making her grief less? I shrug my shoulders. Neither I, nor the other pilot, an instructor pilot, whose estate is being sued also, have deep pockets. I don't know what the attorney, also a pilot, hopes to gain. He has the suit on contingency. I know exactly what happened. Every pilot, and particularly pilots of twin engine airplanes, knows what happened. The instructor was in the right seat. The man flying was in the left. He had something like 50 hours in the airplane, more than enough to sit for his rating and he planned to do just that the next day. He got too slow in a turn. The airplane stalled and spun in. The instructor couldn't stop it. End of story.
These three were of my teen age years. They were in a single engine Bonanza. The pilot flew into bad weather. What a HUGE lose to all of the world. One can only wonder what they would have accomplished.