Simon Calder says in today’s Independent, ‘This miracle will make flying safer’ He is for ever saying how safe flying is – safer than the journey to the airport. But we will all now pay greater attention to the safety stuff. And we’ll hope that somebody like calm, cool and mega-experienced Sully is at the helm.
Blogstead folk – apart from Poppy who is not welcome on Easyjet – fly more than we should. I find my reactions to it interesting. Most of the time, familiarity makes me fairly relaxed. But I have days when I am not relaxed about it – not just that winter Ryanair flight back from Dublin with Kenny Rathband and David Campbell when we all had the ‘too young to die’ feeling. Just days when there is no particular reason other than mood.
I always listen to the safety announcement with at least half an ear because it seems to be tempting fate not to. I do not read or do Sodukus during take-off or landing although I may pretend to. I require the Captain to have a clipped Biggles-type voice – Sully almost certainly has a very relaxed American delivery.
My only other requirements are to know that the Captain is content, capable and has not had a row with his wife during the past 24 hours. Above all, I need to know that his competence is matched by a lack of imagination and whimsy. If I was a pilot, I would always be sitting at the end of the runway wondering, ‘What if this thing doesn’t take off?’ Useless. I wouldn’t last a week. But maybe the saintly Sully would find my job a bit of a pain as well.
That’s why I suggested that this is one of those areas where imagination is an unhelpful asset.
Have you ever given serious thought to how mad flying is? If you were told that you were to be strapped with a couple of hundred other people into a metal tube surrounded by liquid explosive which would then be incinerated in two large furnaces, how would you feel? Worried? But then to be told that all this would take place five miles high…