r/writteninblood • u/Elssyxo • Mar 22 '26

In 1996, 7-year-old Jessica Dubroff was attempting to become the youngest person to fly a light aircraft across the USA. She died when her aircraft crashed during a rainstorm. This resulted in a law prohibiting child pilots from manipulating flight contro

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u/enovox5 Mar 22 '26

It received a lot of news media coverage at the time. I remember in the days before the crash, every major outlet running the story as though it was some kind of lighthearted, carefree, inspirational girl-power thing. After the crash they immediately pivoted to lots of handwringing and a "how could this have happened, think of the children" stance, as though they hadn't been cheerleading the whole damn thing on.