AUSTRALIAN WOMAN, 50-ish,
WALKS AWAY FROM PLANE CRASH--

Pundits were calling this a "miracle" but I see a private airplane that the lady pilot had complete control of as her craft impacted the ground in early April near Sydney.  Note the cockpit, in fact, the entire fuselage, appears undisturbed.  Evidently she was able to simply open the door and climb out of the wreckage with some assistance from nearby airport personnel.

It also looks like she was able to hit a tree with her left wing, tearing it loose from the airframe and helping slow the crippled airplane to a safe stop.  The fact the damaged wing is still attached to the airplane, or at least nearby, suggests she had the plane slowed to its minimum controllable speed just before impact.

At that speed slight heading adjustments are possible with the plane's rudder to avoid hitting the tree with the nose of the plane.

Often times panic-stricken pilots will haul back on the elevator (stick) attempting to keep their craft airborne in this kind of situation.  That results in total loss of control (airfoil stall) and often spinning into a nose down impact with the ground and disastrous results.

I believe this lady saved her own life with a dramatic dose of excellent airmanship when she needed it most.

It remains to be seen, however, what happened to put this airplane in this situation in the first place.
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I believe the photo was provided by a NSW (New South Wales) ambulance squad and information was published by the Canberra Times.

Finally, once again sloppy journalism was apparent in several articles I read on this crash where the plane was described as "nose-diving" into a ditch.  If that had been the truth we could expect to see extensive damage to the plane's nose and cockpit area.  Evidently, exciting verbiage is more important to some writers than accuracy in their stories.