[larodi]

Because an unfitting way to die is to be stuffed with tubes, half conscious in a bed, shitting your pants uncontrollably. The perspective of dying lying helpless in a hospital or care house is not very appealing to people who had an active life.

[ojosilva]

Dying in a last scream of fear, angst and struggle regretting a thousand things that may have gone wrong or maybe were just your fault, without having the chance to tell your loved ones how much you love them, and being remembered not only by the incredible flights where no one had gone before, but finally and uttermost by the one that ended your life which will be replayed endlessly in the internets.

Not sure what would be fitting to be honest.

[lordnacho]

I'm going to visit someone who is having it worse, in my opinion.

He's slowly deteriorating from Alzheimers. He won't acknowledge it and has become seriously grumpy. He used to know everyone in his town. He was a good guy. Now, everyone thinks he's an asshole. Everyone who didn't meet him before he started this decline has had a terrible time with him. He curses all the time.

Last week, he forgot to shut off the gas and was found unconscious by the fire department. Now, he will be in a care home against his wishes until the inevitable. This is not the first incident where police had to be phoned, either.

So he's gone from a week liked, active member of the community to being the grumpy old guy that the authorities have to be phoned about in just a couple of years.

I'm going to go see him for a final farewell later this month, I hope he recognises me.

[sva_]

Dying from Alzheimer's is truly terrible. From what I understand, in your final moments the neurons that move your lungs and beat your heart will give up, which is usually the end. And it's not the kind of opioidic kind of forgetting that you have to breathe either. It's pure struggle 'til the final moment.

Back in school I had an art teacher whose father went that way, and it was clear that he was extremely traumatized by witnessing that.

My condolences.

[closewith]

We might be different types of people (your comment about regret strongly suggests we are), but I've been in some very hairy situations where I was fairly sure I was about to die traumatically and I didn't experience any of what you're suggesting. Instead it was a calm resignation or acceptance that was oddly peaceful.

Not that I don't want to live, but I don't fear death and would take the plane crash over wasting in a hospital any day. I have a DNR registered with the health service in my country to make sure that never happens.

[gradascent]

Or maybe the final moment was a sigh of acceptance and gratitude for the live he lived. Nobody knows but him.

[sokoloff]

There is zero risk of this astronaut being primarily remembered for how he died.

[simonh]

> Dying in a last scream of fear, angst and struggle regretting a thousand things that may have gone wrong or maybe were just your fault…

I think you’re projecting. I didn’t know him obviously, but from what people who did have said about him, that doesn’t seem like the way he’d go out.

[ojosilva]

You're right. Parent was projecting as well. Both are hypotheticals of ways to die, not an account of what happened or would happen were he not to die from a plane crash.

[larodi]

we cannot be 100% sure this final loop in the air was completely unintended, also that he didn't have a stroke or something during this flight.

also wonder whether a seasoned pilot with lifetime experience, and a space time... screams at challenging times in the air.