If the successes of the successful really are the result of their decisions, planning, approach, or other action on their behalf, then where the bullet holes wound up on an airplane isn't analogous.
I personally do think that luck has a lot to do with it, but it's not sheer luck, it's recognizing opportunity and capitalizing. Yes, the iPhone wouldn't exist if it weren't for the DoD building GPS. But the DoD building GPS didn't make the iPhone either. Apple made the iPhone, while other competitors tried to make something like it. It was the decisions that led to the iPhone that can teach us about it's success.
Every set of decisions occurs within an environment. The parameters of that environment can be called "luck" if you want, and success within that environment can be ascribed to the environment itself by way of the word "luck." But looking at it that way tells you less about success than the success stories. After you armor the engines and you get more planes making it home, you don't call that luck, you call that good decision making. And you ascribe the success to the decisions, you don't dismiss them as survivorship bias.