It happened to me too once...
"And it's great frustration when a good pilot dies in vain as this one of mine, named Oskar Zeiss, flying for Jasta 5 in 1917...
He and fellow Jasta 5 pilots bounced a formation of British FE2s.
He managed to set one ablaze but when passing over the flaming plane a crew member jumped off taking half of his port wing with him!
Anyway "he" managed to nurse the plane to the closest airfield and conducted a textbook emergency landing...all of a sudden the landing gear collapsed, (I guess it would have been damaged from the impact with the unfortunate Brit), the plane crawled on it's belly and I got the message that your pilot is dead!
Come on! How can this be happening to me?"