In short: there's plenty of evidence Amelia Earhart was reckless. I'm sad that she paid with her life, but that is sometimes what happens when you're reckless while using dangerous machines.
Captain A. G. Lamplugh, a British pilot from the early days of aviation once famously said “Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect.”
> In car transit (like most things in life), you can do everything right and still die.
Same with aviation. The DHL Flight 611 over Überlingen, Iran Air Flight 655,
Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, American Airlines Flight 5342, Pan Am Flight 1736 are just the few easy ones which comes to mind immediately.
> if you do everything right, you'll land safely.
You. And the people who designed your aircraft. The people who maintain your aircraft. And the ATC. And other pilots. And the people on the ground operating anti-aircraft missiles.
Same thing with farmers: it's usually the old, experienced farmers who die in dumb ways. They've been doing the same dangerous thing their whole lives and become complacent until it catches up with them.
Interesting, didn't know about farmers. Skydivers are the same, most accidents happen to experienced ones. But it's understandable, as adrenaline wears out with experience.
Pilots typically are trained against that complacency, plus, as they say, everyone can be stupid for 15 minutes a day, plan for that. I found piloting pretty boring, if done right. Talk about soul-crushing.
Probably . . . from what I have read in the past, a better understanding of radio direction finding probably would have been enough to get them to Howland Island.
