"Crazy for the Storm" by Norman Ollestad is the story of a 11 year old boy with a daredevil dad who hikes down a mountain when the plane crashes

Crazy for the Storm is the name of a memoir of survival I got from the library yesterday, which was so riveting I could not stop reading it until I was done. It was about a boy's relationship with a daredevil dad who was constantly pushing him to become a superb athlete in sports like surfing and skiing. He finally won a junior championship and during events that followed his dad felt the need to charter a small plane to get them to the Big Bear Airport in California. I am familiar with that area because Pierre who was from Canada lived there quite a long time and talked about it a lot. It turned out that the pilot was very remiss in following instructions from the airport to call off his flight when a storm moved in. He was lost almost immediately, but did not turn back, eventually crashing the plane in the side of the mountain. The dad who threw himself over his eleven year old son was killed on impact as was the pilot. The boy who had been trained for hours to ski in snow country extricated himself from the plane as well as his dad's girlfriend who was hurt quite badly.
He could see in the distnace what he thought was a meadow and a road, and he thought they would have a chance if he could get them to the road. The GF was hurt too badly, however, to make such a harrowing trek down the rough terrain, fell, and died. The boy, in an unbelievable act of courage, struggled on until he saw footsteps and eventually ran into a woman who had heard the plane crash and just had a feeling to go out and look for survivors!
In flashbacks he tells about his relationship with his dad who had taken him on a harrowing trip into Mexico that is an adventure in and of its self. His dad was also surfing with him when he was a toddler tied to his back!
But he says in the end that the training his dad had given him was what made him struggle on, essentially saving his life.
However, I was upset to think the dad would charter a plane and let the pilot take them into a storm. He even had his doubts but of course being the daredevil he was did not heed his own instincts. As for the pilot, he was quite suicidal. The plane was deemed a loss once he took off under such circumstances and headed toward a mountain covered with clouds. He was warned three times not to proceed further without visibility. The son also found out that he could not have landed at that airport during rough weather anyway! I always get upset when it turns out there is human error when such suffering ensues.
The father talks about his relationship with his own son, indicating he wanats to take fewer risks with him insuring that they both survive!
My own memoir is a story of survival, too, and a complicated father and daughter relationship, with a daughter forced to keep a dad's secrets for many years even as she deals with the fallout, molestation by two of his gay partners who became jealous and revengeful.