I once got around two thirds through a certificate for flying ultralight planes. It sort of stopped making sense to me when we were practicing emergency landings over forest and I was told to aim for trees with thinner trunks.
This is sitting inside a cramped metal can with the engine in your lap and propeller in your face. There are so many ways to die in that situation that focusing on the diameter of tree trunks was just too much for me.
Has the same kind of training. It is interesting to see the difference in culture between ultralight and general aviation flying.
In general aviation, the focus tends to be about doing things right: proper procedures, precise flying, etc... Ultralight tends to be more about getting prepared in case things go wrong. In fact, more than half of my training was about dealing with engine failures.
I think the difference in training comes from the fact that crashes are more frequent with ultralight aircraft but they are also more survivable. A big part of it is that ultralight aircraft are lighter (duh) and can fly slow, which mean mush less energy to dissipate, and it matters a lot if you are going to crash into a forest.
I used to fly gliders (sailplanes). There are many cases of pilots landing on trees with minimal damage, sometimes even to the glider. Of course the huge wing span helps.
Big aviation has no such procedures because crash landing a Boeing or a fighter jet is not an option. Even landing on water (perfectly doable in a glider, though all instruments will be kaput) is a huge achievement in an airliner.
I would think you'd want a good clump of green tree canopy to hopefully take the impact "slowly" and stop the plane without the sudden smashing associated with crashing.
Not only did the plane remain stable in the tree, one of the volunteer first-responders had the appropriate tree climbing experience and equipment to reach the accident site.
That experience could have easily gone to waste - arborist climbing techniques and standards are very different from what is used for vertical rescue.
The fact that the rescuers made the pragmatic decision to go ahead with borrowed techniques is very unusual.
Better to think through these scenarios ahead of time so that you already have a plan if you find yourself in this situation, as others have. Tree landings can be survivable especially if you let the trees bend and absorb your energy.
I've landed in the top of a dense forest in a glider and survived just fine. (Of course, someone came to get me out of the tree with a kit, so I'm not sure how much that counts as "me surviving a tree crash".)
This is sitting inside a cramped metal can with the engine in your lap and propeller in your face. There are so many ways to die in that situation that focusing on the diameter of tree trunks was just too much for me.