accidents will happen
Allow me to recount a brief tale of an incicent in the past 24 hours which suggests to me that often people make accidents. Much of the detail I have left vague to protect the guilty!. I was busy doing some tedious work painting in a recently converted part of my barn when I received a telephone call from my local flying club. An aircraft of some sort had put down at a disused strip a few hunderd yards from me with low fuel, could I assist. Said aircraft was on its way to my flying club to refuel but for reasons of safety the flying club were not able to assist (to be more precise would make it easier to identify the type). Realising that they were now far from home and with a reducing fuel supply they attempted to identify a suitable alternative aerodrome and it was this which led to them landing close to my garden.
In the above alone there is a story about planning, fuel management, etc. If they had looked in Pooleys or similar they would have known that they were not able to refuel without a certain piecec if equipment which they were not carrying.
When I offered assistance and enquired why they had landed at this particular disused strip they said that on hearing that they could not refuel they had planned to fly to the nearest international airport some 15 minutes to the North. Their GPS had directed them to this landing area. The GPS said this was the location they were looking for, their eyes told them that this was a deserted disused airfield rather than an international airport. They believed the GPS.
I'm sure there were contributory factors such as concern about running out of fuel, unknown area, etc. So I have attempted to disguise the precise details but this could so easilly have been much worse. Sometimes we are our own worst enemies.
I hope they 'Learnt About Flying From That'.