I dunno... Different times, different risk tolerance.

Back in 1980, my dad was sitting at his desk in Bellevue one morning when news came in that Mt. St. Helens was erupting. Him and a pilot friend had the presence of mind to head straight to the local airport and rent a plane.

"Be careful not to head South. Mt. St. Helens is erupting, and you sure don't want to get close that by accident."

"Oh, yeah, sure. No way we'd do something like that."

He has this amazing framed aerial photo of the mountain with the ash plume rising. Evidently, the flight home was pure chaos, bobbing and weaving to avoid dozens of midair collisions since every other pilot in the Seattle area had had the same idea, but 45 minutes later.