One thing that has surprised me is that airplanes are actually pretty simple machines. They're not hard to fly, either.

The part that is expensive (besides fuel) and time consuming is all the emphasis on safety. You want to be REALLY sure your plane is working and REALLY sure you know how to fly it.

If you just want to hop in a plane and don't care much about survival... you could probably figure it out. Just like a 14 year old could probably figure out how to drive a car or crash it immediately.

And don't get me wrong, there are plenty of ways to kill yourself even in a simple airplane.

For many pilots, a "crash" must be unintentional. Deliberately putting an aircraft down somewhere other than a runway is "ditching" or a forced landing, but never a crash.

For his skill level, walking away is a great result. However, there are Alaskan bush pilots who land some pretty remarkable places. Some of them are not official runways and many of the ones that are official (Alaska has a LOT) won't have ATC support. OFC, Alaskan bush pilots aren't representative of pilots overall, but they still show we should be careful about overgeneralizing.

When my father and his friend tipped their plane forward and bent their prop landing on a gravel bar moose hunting, it wasn't a "good" landing, but neither was it "ditching" or a "forced landing" (they were able to unload the plane and trim the prop enough to fly the plane out so it wasn't that bad of a landing either). From past discussion on here, it is a little complicated if it was legally considered a "crash".