Before another person asks; yes, taking a commercial flight home after a couple of long-winded days of corporate meetings still makes me shit rhubarb into hard marbles. I mean, what was likely going to change about that? No matter what happens on these flights, the passenger beside me will always be a kuckleheaded Rembrandt, the cutsie wootsie Stewardess will always flap her arms to remind me that it is actually possible that we could crash into the ocean and die, and somehow, the God-damned mineral water will always end up in my lap.
In fact, since my 18 July 2011 post nothing has eventuated that is likely to change any part of my perspective about flying. And here's why:
In my 18 July post you will remember my description of how the Stewardess liked to flap her arms about like some manic butterfly as she described how, when we did crash into the ocean, those safety doors would open up and allow the cabin to flood, thereby ensuring that anyone who survived the initial impact could now drown in a cold and silent darkness. Well they haven’t changed this. On every flight you still have to listen to the same perpetual drone that this so-called ‘critical’ message has become.
And you just know that everything they tell you is a lie. I mean, take their reference to the famous ‘brace’ position on the emergency card located in the seat pocket in front of you. This is how they want you to sit should the plane begin a spiralled plummet towards its earthly demise.
…“Not that a crash is likely”, they assure you. “Our planes are regularly maintained to the minimum specifications of safety as required by law, serviced weekly by the lowest possible tenderer using labour sourced from somewhere in Botswana
I’m sorry Miss Sweetie in the designer-labelled flying cap, but your reassurances do not bring me any comfort. On the contrary, only an idiot still believes that the so-called ‘brace’ position is likely to be advantageous when you hit the side of a mountain at 375 kilometres an hour. It doesn’t matter how you sit, a high velocity splat is still a high velocity splat – and the only way anyone is ever going to recover your body after that is with a flat bevelled shovel and a bucket.
The truth is that the ‘brace’ position was originally conceived as a means by which we could best preserve our dental records for identification once our remains had been scooped up and taken back to the on-site morgue for forensic analysis. Using dental records, the forensic pathologist could determine that these were the remains of the occupant of seat 7C, although at some stage they were joined by bits of those sitting in seats 12A and 4D.
Of course the ‘bright sparks’ amongst you are about to ask “why would they still ask us to take the brace position then? After all, they don’t need to use dental records these days, we’ve got DNA”.
True. But as I said, dental records were the reason the position was conceived. The reason they kept using it even as science progressed (meaning that the scoop in the bucket could now be positively identified as passengers in seats 7C, both 12A and 12 B, and 4D), was that it helped stop cabin panic.
In other words, while passengers still believed that the ‘brace’ position offered them some ever-so-slight hope of survival, they’d adopt it and remain relatively calm (at least, as calm as one can be as they plummet to their inevitable doom). Without that slim reckoning of hope, the slightest sense of trouble would result in absolute chaos – and the last thing you need at 11,000 feet during an engine failure is a confined cabin-space full of panic-mad passengers crawling all over each other screaming “We’re all gonna die! We’re all gonna die!”
Better to have people dying in a calm way. I mean, when your relatives come to pay respects to your remains-in-a-bucket, they can be comforted by the Airline's media and risk spokesperson with messages like “At least they died with dignity”.
I’m sorry, but “splat” and “dignity” appear in opposite ends of my dictionary thank you very much.
Anyway, that’s what I think… and usually I’m right.
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