There was online debates on various websites and on YouTube on who was responsible for Goose's death in the movie. In the film, Maverick is cleared of the incident and that he is not at fault for the plane entering the spin. Some speculated that Maverick was directly responsible for Goose's death and that it was his fault because in the chase of Jester, Maverick continued the leftward turn to follow Jester and he swept through Iceman's jet wash as Iceman moved up and to the right and Maverick followed too closely behind Iceman and refused to back off and Maverick didn't take a less dangerous position because he wanted to get a better shot of Jester. Others speculated that it was Iceman's fault because Maverick told Iceman to break high right and he went left causing Maverick to get caught in his jet stream and he took too long and just had to keep trying to get a lock on the enemy fighter.