and one's immediate reaction is probably to fear the worst
'Comes with the territory... Some plane crashes look horrible, and are not so bad, others show little damage, and are actually serious. Having the plane disintegrate around you is not always as bad as you would think. Sometimes the disintegration gives you an exit path!
Not to detract from the topic of this thread, but my student crashed this one, and we survived (no, the gear was correctly retracted for the water landing, they extended it to lift it out). If we'd not been ejected, drowning would have been certain.
https://barrie.ctvnews.ca/plane-wrec...john-1.3506237