I've known a few people who have crashed and not lived but none were really buddies or close friends. Back on 12 March of this year, I crashed (Class A mishap for the aviators) and was lucky to walk away. The aircraft was stricken due to the damage caused by the fire. First of all, I thank God none of my crew were killed. I would have turned in my wings if that had occured. However, the feeling of standing on the side of the runway and watching your aircraft burn is not a good one. Everything I worked for seemed to go up in flames next to runway 23 at MCAS Cherry Point. I've of course gone through the mishap board, JAG, FNAEB process and everything is all good but the feeling that I lost that one (especially in this day and age) from a professional standpoint is a knife in my gut. I was the IP and the student did something totally unexpected off a touch and go, basically cross controlled the aircrat on the rotation causing a severe and instaneous asymmetric wing stall. I was in a good defensive position but failed to take the controls in time to save the aircraft. From heading safely down the runway to departing it perpindicular to my heading took 1.2 seconds. Again, regardless of the eventual outcome, I'm very hard on myself. My main goal now is to prevent this sort of mishap from ever occuring again within my community. We have placed new procedures in our training manuals and instructor syllabus that will hopefully prevent this sort of accident again.
The biggest thing for you is to obviously continue flying. Time behind the stick is good medication. I don't know how many nighmare's I've had since the accident, waking up in a cold sweat, replaying the violent spin off the runway in my head. Getting back into the cockpit and getting flight was the remedy to get that image and experience from reocurring. Good luck and fly safe.
