Yet pilots continue to kill themselves that way.
Something happens to the decision process when it's your airplane that's failed and you want to get it back.
Good friend of mine, CFII and all that, pounded it into his students and then what did he do when his personal aircraft had an engine failure on takeoff?
Tried to turn back with less than the magical 700 feet AGL number in the bank, stalled, spun in and killed himself.
We all think "I'll never be that dumb" but I guess you don't know until it happens to you.
When people are in a panic situation, in a building fire for example, they usually try to exit the same way they came in. Maybe the same kind of situation exists for many pilots; to try and turn around to the runway rather than a possibly safer ‘straight ahead’ approach.
But your story made me think of something...
My youngest girl and her BF, and I went skydiving a couple three years ago.
We went up in this small single engine plane...Had a blast, and all were safe.
About 4 weeks later....the same pilot, and one of the dive instructors that we had..took off with some students...and had engine failure at around 6-7 hundred ft. He turned to the left, and landed in a small open area with a few buildings around..and of course telephone and power lines. Everyone survived.
Point being...he didn't try to go back to the landing strip. Smart guy...Lucky too.