I can't fault him for wanting to come back. It will be an extremely long and arduous road which will probably result in General Aviation flying. I doubt any regional would want to take the risk of hiring him but kudos to him for having the spirit to try. He may even know that he will most likely not fly again but that hope probably makes every day a little bit better.

We now bug (manually, not by synching) and verify the runway as our last take-off checklist. Were it not for this accident that may not be policy and it could have happened to one of us at some point.

The real tragic accidents are the ones we don't learn from--I think we have learned from this one.