Thursday, January 15, 2009

birthday cake


My colleagues were about to pass out birthday cake with "Happy Birthday Johnnie" written on top, as a belated celebration for those of us born in December and January gathered, when someone announced a plane had crash landed in the Hudson River. We watched the scene unfold from a fuzzy TV reception and commiserated about our fears of heavy flight turbulence.

Who is not amazed by the truly heroic abilities of the pilot. But how many of us have systematically ignored airline attendants give exit instructions in the event of a water landing?

1 comment:

Medawar said...

Some credit is due to the structural integrity of the Airbus A320 series.

Not breaking in half on impact, is the most useful thing an airliner (or a train) can do for its passengers in a crash.

The second most useful thing it can do, is not be so big that it's carrying more people than can be evacuated and rescued in good time.

I wouldn't like to be in a stretched A340 or Boeing 777 variant on either count, if it ditched on water!