In the race to the bottom, flying a small plane with only a jet-ace as pilot & six passengers, were all lost as the ground rose up to meet, greet and completely crush the plane; no government planning or over-sight to keep the instruments in the dash, working. 
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Just holes where the pilot's fly-by-night company pulled them out. "What instruments?" said the boss. "We don't need no stinking 'regulatory instruments' to cross these mountainous passes!" And so they were among those who used 'dead reckoning' ~ only missed a longer life, 'by that much.'
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What would Ted have done, if not on board a doomed flight? Maybe retire ahead of scandal; then offer to back son of the man whose job he took, when senior Begich was lost years before in plane mishap over Gulf of Alaska. 
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Hard to say what the future may be like, when so few oars in the water actually row or steer in anything but circles nowadays. Pity the children, who will be made to heft the burdensome load of excess, if they survive.