I don’t know whether to be relieved or despairing

I found out this evening, considerably after the fact, that Lefty Gardner’s well-known P-38L “White Lightnin’” (N25Y) was racked up in late June of 2001 after an engine caught fire in flight.  Lefty’s son Ladd was piloting 25 Yankee back from an air show in Tennessee when he reported fire in the left engine nacelle and the cockpit filling with smoke as he approached Greenwood Mississippi.  He safely pancaked the plane in to a cotton field and the fire was extinguished without any injuries.  The damage is substantial but repairable, according to Lefty.  I hope so; with 25 Yankee down, there are only eight remaining P-38s in flying condition in the world, and of those I believe only four or five are actually flying.