News is still coming in about the US Airways jet that just went down in the Hudson river, literally in my old backyard. It seems as though all the passengers have survived. Every story I've read and heard so far has a strong overtone of awe. As well they should. It seems miraculous that 155 passengers and crew would survive a crash landing into the frigid water this time of year. So many news clips these days speak of tragedy, horror, and coming future economic doom. I smile that in some roundabout way the spirit of technology, at precisely the point where it meets the razor's edge of fate, has given us instead something to be very, very, happy about. For a short while at least the news cycle will have a uniquely different, positive tone.
Perhaps it is part miracle. But I'm thinking it has more to do with an exceptional pilot and crew. Somebody did their homework. Somebody paid close attention in flight school. Somebody had the clarity of mind to stare death in the face and say, "Not yet!" while at the same time coordinating what appears to be a double engine failure crash landing. The plane was coming down. It had to go somewhere. Somebody thought a bit outside the box and made the right call. Somebody surely didn't seize, flinch or give up. Sure, somebody also got lucky.
I hope in the hours and days to come we learn more about this exceptional pilot and what may have given him the edge to save everyone's life; that edge which has been sharpened by decades of research, development and training. Hundreds of engineers have spent their lives figuring out how to best optimize airframes so that they'll stay in one piece. Never mind the iterations of detail that have gone into creating an interface that gives a pilot the highest level of control, for lack of a better term, humanly possible. Hundreds were likely responsible for figuring out how to make the plane float as long as it did. I wonder hoe many more were involved in designing life rafts that self inflate so quickly. With even a basic modicum of research, I'm sure these lists could fill volumes. Glasses should also be raised to the fine tradition of flight instructors who have passed down wisdom through the ages of how to land a plane when the engines fail and live to tell about it.
Three cheers to that pilot, his crew, the engineers who maintained, designed and built that plane, air traffic control, rescue teams and everyone who helped 155 people walk away from death itself. Many may be thanking god tonight for saving lives and they may be right to do so. But I humbly contend the ambrosia of thanks should get spread around a bit more.
There are many heroes of myth, fable and fantasy. There are also tens of thousands of whom we never ever hear about.
Perhaps it is part miracle. But I'm thinking it has more to do with an exceptional pilot and crew. Somebody did their homework. Somebody paid close attention in flight school. Somebody had the clarity of mind to stare death in the face and say, "Not yet!" while at the same time coordinating what appears to be a double engine failure crash landing. The plane was coming down. It had to go somewhere. Somebody thought a bit outside the box and made the right call. Somebody surely didn't seize, flinch or give up. Sure, somebody also got lucky.
I hope in the hours and days to come we learn more about this exceptional pilot and what may have given him the edge to save everyone's life; that edge which has been sharpened by decades of research, development and training. Hundreds of engineers have spent their lives figuring out how to best optimize airframes so that they'll stay in one piece. Never mind the iterations of detail that have gone into creating an interface that gives a pilot the highest level of control, for lack of a better term, humanly possible. Hundreds were likely responsible for figuring out how to make the plane float as long as it did. I wonder hoe many more were involved in designing life rafts that self inflate so quickly. With even a basic modicum of research, I'm sure these lists could fill volumes. Glasses should also be raised to the fine tradition of flight instructors who have passed down wisdom through the ages of how to land a plane when the engines fail and live to tell about it.
Three cheers to that pilot, his crew, the engineers who maintained, designed and built that plane, air traffic control, rescue teams and everyone who helped 155 people walk away from death itself. Many may be thanking god tonight for saving lives and they may be right to do so. But I humbly contend the ambrosia of thanks should get spread around a bit more.
There are many heroes of myth, fable and fantasy. There are also tens of thousands of whom we never ever hear about.
1 comment:
nicely put :-). really an amazing story - when was the last time you saw people on the news talking about a plane crash with smiles on their faces? i figured since you're a pilot-in-training you'd have some deeper-than-average appreciation for the job this pilot had to do.
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