You cannot turn on the news since Thursday afternoon, January 15, without seeing breathless reporters praising U.S. Airways flight 1549's pilot, Chesley Sullenberger, as being a hero who performed a Miracle On The Hudson. Twenty-four hours of such lofty praise made me wonder if the media's designation of him as virtually the Second Coming of Christ was indeed warranted. I came to the decision that he was a good pilot, but not a hero. The subject of my rant for this week was clear.
But darn it if Rex Huppke, reporter for the Chicago Tribune, didn't beat me to it. His article, Have we set the bar too low for miracles? was right on the point. Huppke said it best in this choice paragraph:
- "The pilot, we now know, is highly trained and has years of experience. From a pragmatic standpoint, with an expert at the helm, the result was just what it should have been."
It seems like the reporters and news producers, so anxious to sensationalize stories for the sake of shock value, and subsequently higher viewership, ignored the testimony of other pilots they have had on their own programs. Those pilots have said they admired the skill of Sullenberger in what was obviously a sudden and dangerous situation. But they added that all pilots are trained for eventualities just like this - sudden loss of engine power, and how to land a plane in the water.
In fact, Ben Sherwood, author of "The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science That Could Save Your Life" devotes a section to what he terms "The myth of hopelessness." He notes, in a Time magazine website article, Q&A: How to Survive a Plane Crash, "But according to government data, 95.7% of the passengers involved in airplane crashes categorized as accidents actually survive. Then, if you look at the most serious plane crashes, that's a smaller number; the survival rate in the most serious kinds of accidents is 76.6%. So the point there is, when the NTSB [National Transportation Safety Board] analyzed all the airplane accidents between 1983 and 2000, 53,000 people were involved in those accidents, and 51,000 survived. That's an incredibly high survival rate."
Apparently Sullenberger is but one of a fairly large group of airline pilot 'miracle workers.' Why haven't these other pilots attained this level of publicity? Is Sullenberger merely the flavor of the day, to be replaced tomorrow by other so-called miracles: Angelina's New Baby's Name! And Exclusive Photos! Michael Jackson On Comeback Trail! Madonna Receives Marilyn Monroe Impersonator Of The Year Award!
Has our culture become so blase that people who do very well at remembering their job training are anointed with the title 'Miracle Worker'?
Is our society so worn out from years of warfare, and a sudden, devestating recession, that we need any kind of diversion just to get our minds off our problems?
Maybe. Captain Sullenberger did a fine job under the most trying of circumstances. For that I thank him, and wish him well in what I'm sure will be his upcoming book and book tour.
The aforementioned Tribune article quoted John C. Cavadini, chair of the theology department at the University of Notre Dame.
- "Strictly speaking, the term 'miracle' would be reserved for an event for which there is no natural explanation. Something is ineligible to be called a miracle unless there is no known natural explanation."
Amen.
Friday, January 16, 2009
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8 comments:
Speaking of miracles:
"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
I still think the media is real good at taking anything they can get their hands on and completely beating it into the ground until it's a mutilated lump of pulp.
Good old Albert sure had a way with words.
I like your description of what the media can do.
It's a 'miracle' that anyone still watches the news.
This damned fine pilot demonstrated the skill he has honed through many years of flying and I congratulate him. A miracle?? No, because he performed at the level we and himself would expect him to perform.
You may recall a plane crash shown on TV where the plane had lost all hydralic pressure due to its main rear engine exploding (due to a defect found later) and the pilot brought the plane in just through manipulation of the trottle controls. The plane cartwheeled when it hit the runway and burst into flames. I believe there was at least a 50% loss of lives, but half of the passengers and crew including the pilot made it out alive. To this day the pilot refuses to take any credit for his skills that at least saved some of the lives on board that plane. He still says he feels grief for the people who did not make it out alive.
Seasoned pilots such as this get a lot of respect from me. They don't perform miracles, when they apply their skills to desparate situations such as this it just appears that they achieve incredible results.
Oh, and I forgot, the media actually will on occasion dispose of even a half beaten and bloodied story if a better one does comes along. In 2001, we had the whodunnit story of Gary Condit and his missing mistress. Once 9/11 happened nobody cared if Condit killed his mistress anymore and the media crosshairs were off him even after the girl's body was found. Nobody cared anymore! The hunt was on for Osama!
Wayne in Pa - I'm glad we agree that this was not a Miracle, as the media keeps referring to it. Now I may be picking a nit here, but I cannot agree that certain pilots achieve "incredible" results. The Merriam-Webster dictionary's primary definition of incredible is "too extraordinary and improbable to be believed".
Bfoxy - I had forgotten all about former U.S. Congressman Gary Condit (D-CA), so I just looked for an update. His alleged mistress, Chandra Levy, disappeared in May, 2001. Gary claimed she had just been a 'good friend'. The police never named him as a suspect, but as you point put, the 'news' outlets were digging their heels in for a prolonged Trial by Media.
After 9/11 - nada, zilch on Gary. In May, 2002, Chandra's body was found in a park in Washington, D.C. He ran for Congress again in 2002, but lost in the Democratic primary.
In July, 2008 (!), the Washington Post did an article on him, which included this: ""Condit continues to deny that he had romantic relationships with any of the women interviewed by investigators. He also has denied that he ever had a romantic relationship with Chandra." I wonder how many of the people who read that article shook their heads and said, "Gary who?"
Here is another little tidbit about the pilot: The pilot, Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger, could hardly have been better prepared. The 58-year-old former fighter pilot was named best aviator in his class at the Air Force Academy, had flown for US Airways for 29 years and mastered glider flying. He also has investigated air disasters, even studying how airline crews behave in a crisis. (from AP newswire)
I also think credit should be given to rest of the cockpit crew who also performed with the captain to bring this bad situation to an "INCREDIBLE" conclusion!!
The pilot and crew flew that plane with two disabled engines through the canyons of New York City, over the George Washington Bridge, into the Hudson River, without flipping it end over end, and everyone survived..... and no one else outside the aircraft was hurt.
THAT IS INCREDIBLE, IMPROBABLE AND AMAZING as well as EXTRAORDINARY. go pick your nits somewhere else!!
P.S. I will fly on any plane that this guy is a pilot on.
I may agree with 'amazing' or 'improbable' but must still balk at 'incredible'.
Did you know that there are 1`3 ways to balk in baseball? If they include my balking at 'incredible' there'll be 14!
But seriously, folks. I agree that the ENTIRE crew, not just the copilot, deserved more recognition than they got.
Where did you get the idea that the plane "flew...through the canyons of New York City..."? The flight path I saw had its lowest point at 1300 feet before it reached the Hudson River and began its descent. The current tallest building in NYC is the Empire State Building at 1250 feet, and the plane was not near it.
Although, the hyped up 'flying through the canyons of New York City', although inaccurate, does grab one's attention. May I add, "...and since the engines were dead, the plane, as if held aloft by angels sent by God Almighty himself, glided in an eerie, yet serene path, casting shadows across the faces of amazed onlookers in nearby buildings as its wings came within inches of, yet miraculously never touched, those steel and glass landmarks to our seemingly perfect civilization."
And what drugs are you on??
I refuse to comment further on this as I do not wish to be baited into idle chatter or incredible hype!!!
You seem to be lost in your own little creative writing haze.
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