"There was the woman in the fur coat who asked a stranger to go back inside the slowly sinking plane to fetch her purse." What the-! Wonder what the stranger told her.
"...it was the hero-pilot himself, Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger III." Ohhhh Chesley Sullenberger the Third. How many times did you have to endure teasing as a child, only to finally have this Moment of Redemption? Good for you, Chesley Sullenberger the Third. Good for you.
Imagine being this guy's wife! "Nick Gamache, 32, a software salesman, had moments earlier sent his wife a text message that read, “Planes on fire love you and the kids."
"Mr. Sosa ended up chest-deep in the frigid water, and was soon unable to feel his legs — his fingers stayed numb through Friday " Creepy!
"“My daughter said, ‘Daddy, the plane turned into a boat,’ ” Mr. Sosa recalled." How Mitch Hedberg of her.
Ahh. Now the other passengers know who to blame: "Ms. Bruce said she had survived disasters before, including the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, where she worked then. “I must have nine lives,” she said. “I was vacationing in Honolulu and had to be evacuated for a tsunami. I was skiing in Denver and had an avalanche. I flew into the eye of a hurricane. I was at the big L.A. earthquake.”"
And from another article:
"Captain Sullenberger lowered the nose to keep his plane from falling out of the sky. And he set his co-pilot to work at moving through a three-page checklist of procedures for restarting both the engines." ...I'm trying to imagine that checklist. I guess it's a little more complicated than: Pump the gas and turn the key. "The checklist, investigators said, is intended for planes that are in distress at much higher altitudes — like 35,000 feet. " Umm ya. "As the co-pilot worked desperately on the checklist, " That poor man.
"They discussed returning to La Guardia, but the plane was “too low, too slow,”" I'm imagining some rapping. Or maybe it was like the A-Team episode where Murdoch can't stop rhyming.
" the now bird-stuffed engines" Mmm a twist on the usual Thanksgiving meal. (The most trivial reason to be glad this landing had a happy ending is that one gets to make jokes.)
And my fave pic:
6 comments:
All props to the pilot, but I'm getting a little sick of the "hero" thing, if only because that whole thing went so well because a bunch of people did their gobs...as my brilliant wife pointed out, the flight attendants should be getting at least equal praise for getting everyone out of a sinking airplane.
Word. They're as much--if not greater heroes--doing a job greatly defined by gender that pays a third of what Sully the Third was making. One of the news networks (Fox?) interviewed one of the flight attendants who described ushering people off of the plane while WEAK FROM BLOODLOSS because on a GIANT LACERATION to the leg.
And they didn't even mention her name. Just "a flight attendant."
-p.
"jobs,"...not "gobs."
The 2nd NYT article talks about the whole crew. "One overeager passenger rushed to the back of the plane and tried to open the rear door, even though it was already at least partly under water. She got it open a crack and water started flowing in, but the flight attendant there got her pointed to the front.
The flight attendant in the rear — not identified on Saturday — was soon in water up to her chest. She grabbed a life preserver and pushed forward, exited the plane and got into a raft, and felt woozy. She had a gash in one leg all the way intothe muscle, but the water was so cold she was too numb to feel it. "
To be fair, a flight attendant earns a third of what a pilot earns because he/she is not, you know, flying a giant metal machine in the sky. Which I'm assuming involves more complicated skills than checking your blind spot before merging.
By and large, you get paid what your skill level and training make you worth on the open market.
(Which is not to say that these flight attendants were any less heroic than the pilot. Just that if the pilot hadn't been just 'doing his job', they would be less heroic and more dead.)
Being a flight attendant is a bit like being a waiter, up in the air (with more safety training of course.) So my thoughts about them was a little different. Pilots do this job so they can be employed doing something their passionate about--flying. Whereas flight attendants generally do this job for the money and/or the travel benefits. Risking your life for your passion is one thing... risking your life to save up some money--that sucks!! If I were a FT in this crash I'd be thinking: Why the fuck didn't I take a waiter job like my friends?!!%$#*&!!
[My step-mother wanted to be a pilot, but as a girl was told she couldn't because she's not a man. So she became a flight attendant. Then realized: What the--this sucks, this isn't anything like being a pilot! So she quit, and went to flight school instead. ...Though I guess the one good thing to come out of it was meeting my dad. Least I hope she think so!]
Here's what my dad the airline pilot wrote about the whole thing:
http://aluwings.blogspot.com/2009/01/httpwww.html
Well that last comment was really moving.
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