Who nearly crashed himself & his son & wrote about it?

November 12, 2011 11:57 AM

Who wrote about a change in perspective due to a near-miss in a private airplane he was piloting?

I'm trying to find an article about a life-altering brush with death that caused the author to re-evaluate what he was doing with his life. The author was the pilot & had his young son aboard. The article was published in the 90's or possibly 80's, most likely in the New Yorker, but it could have been The Atlantic or Harpers. It's possible the son was killed.

I remember the author being a famous computer scientist & businessman in the vein of Ray Kurzweil, Danny Hillis or Bill Joy, but I'm not 100% sure.

it's not Woz. He was alone when he crashed

posted by morganw to writing & language (6 answers total)

The science writer James Gleick lost his son when the plane Gleick was piloting them in crashed, if that's who you're thinking of. Wired article.
posted by oliverburkeman at 12:11 PM on November 12, 2011

It is not the story you are looking for, based on your recall, but Salon's Ask the Pilot column writer Patrick Smith talks about his 1986 near-miss experience in a small plane here.
posted by phearlez at 12:37 PM on November 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Also not the story you're looking for, but Steve Wozniak also had a change of perspective after his plane crash.
posted by fairmettle at 4:29 PM on November 12, 2011

oliverburkeman: "The science writer James Gleick lost his son when the plane Gleick was piloting them in crashed, if that's who you're thinking of. Wired article."

Well, that was a punch in the gut. But thanks.
posted by secretseasons at 6:56 PM on November 12, 2011

Yeah, I read everything he writes but I don't sense much of 'a change in perspective' in Patrick Smith -- he likes that story, but it's simply 'what an idiot I was' showing off on a date.
posted by Rash at 12:19 PM on November 13, 2011

But another telling (probably fictional) of a similar scenario can be found in Nevil Shute's An Old Captivity.
posted by Rash at 12:22 PM on November 13, 2011