John Denver Reanimated in Time for the Holidays

Inspired by a random iPod event at Seattlest's Thanksgiving, a friend lamented the early death of John Denver and then launched into a diatribe about how he didn't pull a Kennedy; that is, Denver wasn't a dilettante pilot. He went on to explain that Denver was an experienced pilot who owned many planes and flew often. He died, our friend claimed, when one of the fuel tanks in the experimental plane he was flying emptied and he couldn't reach the tank selector situated behind the pillot in the cockpit. We just looked it up, Seattlest's friend was remarkably accurate:

The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause of this accident was the pilot's diversion of attention from the operation of the airplane and his inadvertent application of right rudder that resulted in the loss of airplane control while attempting to manipulate the fuel selector handle. Also, the Board determines that the pilot's inadequate preflight planning and preparations, specifically his failure to refuel the airplane, was causal. The Board determines that the builder's decision to locate the unmarked fuel selector handle in a hard-to-access position, unmarked fuel quantity sight gauges, inadequate transition training by the pilot, and his lack of total experience in this type of airplane were factors in this accident.

It still doesn't let Denver entirely off the hook, in our book, but, hey, he was the eagle. Ideally, tonight, we'd be going to a John Denver concert. Since that's not possible we're going to The Rep's Back Home Again: A John Denver Holiday Concert, which is produced by some of the people involved with their Fire on the Mountain bluegrass music theater thing. As we said in our review of that production, the musicians were great but music theater is inherently nerdy. But then, John Denver himself was pretty nerdy, so maybe it'll be a good fit. We're looking forward to it, anyway. Col-or-ado rock-y moun-tain hiiigh...

The show plays through Christmas Eve.