Everyone involved in the 1549 plane crash should be commended for their bravery

When most of us think of plane crashes we imagine burning, twisted wreckage scattered over miles and miles of ground as the aircraft either disintegrates in the air or making a violent impact with the ground.
We picture the helpless passengers who fall into a panic as the last few moments of their life plays out hopelessly before them.

Then, we imagine how there are no survivors once the plane finally crashes to the ground.

What we don’t usually imagine is a plane crash where people survive; not only people, but all of the people. We don’t usually imagine the aircraft surviving an accident in anything less than a million tiny pieces, much less than surviving it fully intact.

So, the fact that U.S. Airways flight 1549 crashed into the Hudson River in New York and all 155 passengers and crew on board lived to tell the tale, and after extensive repair the Airbus A320 that has just been pulled from the river might actually one day go back into operation is absolutely astounding.

Crashes with such a survival rate are simply unheard of. Sure, we occasionally have puny crashes that are quite survivable, like recently in Denver when an airliner skidded off a wet runway and tore through the grass for a short distance, but for a full on crash landing to have been so successful is remarkable.

If you were to ask most pilots what their ideal career would consist of, most would tell you that they wished to have a nice, quiet, uneventful career. No crashes, no emergencies, nothing more than the occasional encounter with a promiscuous flight attendant to get their heart rates up.

Captain Chesley Sullenberger likely also had hoped that he’d never have to do what he did last Thursday, but nonetheless he honed his skills to be able to successfully maneuver through an emergency situation.
Within the aviation community, a career as an airline pilot is often summed up by saying that it consists of “hours of total boredom, followed by moments of absolute terror.”

For the most part, flights are routine and uneventful, thus the boredom; but sometimes, when there is a close call with another aircraft, or a serious system malfunction, the ensuing moments can leave a pilot with a very wet lap indeed.

What makes the successful crash landing of Flight 1549 even more remarkable is the fact that it really is nearly impossible to adequately train pilots to deal with such a situation.

Flight training is done in simulators, and simulators can only be so realistic when training for crashes. Besides that fact, the dynamics of a crash, knowing that your life is not at risk (in training), are much different then dealing with the real thing.

There’s a reason that “Sully” Sullenberger had a fan page pop up on Facebook only hours after the crash, and now that fan club has thousands of members. The reason is that what he did is unheard of and the way he did it with such poise, class and success has truly elevated him to heroic status.

Flying in the U.S. is incredibly safe.

News agencies have been throwing around the fact that there have been no fatalities on airline traffic in our country for over two years, and luckily that statistic is still intact.

Despite the successful safety record, many people have always been scared to fly. Much of this fear undoubtedly comes from the fact that when airliners do crash, the perception is that you probably are not going to survive.

Hopefully now that perception will change. People have now gotten a glimpse of how professional and skilled these pilots are and how they can turn a very ugly, seemingly hopeless situation into nothing more than 155 passengers getting soaked shoes and socks.

What can possibly be worse than flying in a jet airliner over New York without engines, with thousands of pounds of very flammable fuel on board? If that situation can turn out so well, people should be able to gain confidence in the survivability of a crash.

Everyone involved in the incident last Thursday performed perfectly. From the pilot managing to land the plane rather than crashing it, to the passengers who remained calm and organized, to the ferry captains who swooped in to begin rescue; it was just a great example of human intuition taking over.

So the next time you’re involved in a plane crash, you might still want to shoot out a last minute phone call or text, but at least you can have some confidence that the crash might actually be survivable.

Andrew Mell, a Western Herald opinion columnist, is a senior majoring in aviation, and can be reached via e-mail at melltimejr@hotmail.com.

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=3251

Posted by HeraldAdmin on Jan 19 2009. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Cody Kimball
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