He may have been all of those things, as so many people say, or maybe someone will come out with a book showing him to have been not exactly all of those things, but it won't matter. He was a hero who lived up to his legend, and that is more than good enough. His legend will grow now that he's gone. The pathos of this story, the sense of fate drawing him into its clutches, the broken ankle, his anxiety about the flight, the heavy traffic en route to the airport and the late takeoff, darkness setting in as he flew up the coast, the refusal to turn back, the radio silence, the nearly moonless night, the descent into the mist and the horizonless dark, and the terrible, spiraling fall. This we all know.
Life is terribly beautiful.
Life is terrifying. We can't go on. We must go on. We are not in control of this situation. But we never were.