Top photo, N3880H in happier days. After the ûengine quit, lower photo, the aircraft came to ûrest in a muddy tidal flat in South Carolina. ûThe boom was used to contain any fuel spills.

You can’t have been around airplanes for long before hearing the tired old cliché about those who have and those who will. As an all-purpose predictor of the inevitable, apply it to anything you like, from landing wheels up to the serious bending of metal.

Does that mean that everyone gets a chance at the latter? If so, our turn on the wheel came in mid-April, when the engine of our heretofore trusted Mooney quit on takeoff. Within moments, the airplane transitioned from an avionics showpiece to a mud-spattered scrap heap resting ignominiously in a South Carolina tidal flat. …