It's rather irritating. The law was made with a flexible range of punishments to permit the judge of any particular case to use discretion when determining an appropriate punishment. The maximum permitted is thus rather high. So now every article written about the subject lazily cites "up to 20 years", and thus everyone reading those articles gets the impression that he's actually likely to get 20 years for this incident.
And when the court does sentence a person for a certain offense, it should compare the specific facts of the case to the worst possible case, the one that would warrant 20 years, and if this is somewhat less than the worst possible case, then to sentence them to an appropriately shorter term.
I point my car at a wall and drive into it on purpose for views... And suddenly that's a possibility of jail time? That's crazy.
There needs to be a minimum number of permitted years when death is involved with clear negligence. Sadly there isn't any our court systems use max permitted years to pick and choose who they can punish. Dumb kid who crashes his plane on purpose versus safety inspector who Actually killed hundreds of people?
There is a clear disconnect here.
And anyway, fines only penalize poor people. Someone who can afford to AIRLIFT A PLANE and disassemble it would not be disincentivized by a fine.
It's not bizarre at all. The bizarre part here is your stringing of logic to try to transform this into a crime related to murder.
First off he crashed the plane deliberately into empty forest. There's no hikers in the place he crashed it, he knows that.
Second small planes or cars don't explode in a ball of flames when they crash. That's just movie magic. What actually happens is the car or plane becomes metal debris. That's it. A fire and a crashed car or small plane are completely orthogonal concepts. Might as well arrest people who make bouncing balls because the bouncing ball might accidentally smack the trigger of a gun and kill someone.
What's bizarre here is your post says I'm trying to completely eliminate rule of law when I never said that. Why lie straight to my face? What's the point? It's bizarre. You're the one twisting the rationale to fit your convenient narrative. Please be more logical with your reasoning.
The punishment should fit the crime. A huge fine and revoke the pilots license. That's it. Ruining his life with jail time does not fit the crime at all. If he's rich, then increase the fine... that simple.
Also whilst there can be mitigated circumstance you cannot argued for 0 max. There is a crime, there could be danger … 0 max meant anyone officially can do this without consequences?
Or you could waste the opportunity and throw the dude in jail, almost ensuring he's never a productive member of society again. That's the norm in the "land of the free"[1]
[1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/incarcera...
When you point your car at a wall and drive into that wall you ALSO cannot argue for 0 max danger of death for an innocent bystander.
But the probability of a person dying is so low we know there is no danger for murder or death at all. It's just really stupid.
Of course there needs to be consequences. A loss of pilots license and a huge ass fine. Jail time is crazy. You know how jail will ruin a person's entire life right? Even a month of jail time is in certain ways hangs on your record like a life sentence. It's too much.
A plane crash can cause a wildfire.
In general the concept of starting a fire and a crashing small plane are orthogonal concepts. What happened with that plane is not arson at all.
You don't need "exploding balls of fire" to create a disaster.
When's the last time you seen a car light up on fire during an accident? Never because the chances of it happening are basically negligible.
> Rain is extremely rare in the summer, and dry lightning from the occasional thunderstorms can start fires.
https://lpfw.org/san-rafael-wilderness-50-years-of-preservin...
> Wildfire frequency is an increasing concern in the San Rafael Wilderness. Over the past fifty years, three wildfires have together burned nearly the entire wilderness area, beginning with the 1966 Wellman Fire, the 1993 Marre Fire, the 2007 Zaca Fire, and the 2009 La Brea Fire. Overly-frequent fire in chaparral can permanently alter the ecosystem, depleting the seed bank and making it prone to invasions of non-native weeds.
Starting a fire or crashing a small plane/car are completely orthogonal situations.
Your sources point to weather/climate as the causal source of wild fires.
