About a month ago, I watched the movie Flight. Starring Denzel Washington as the protagonist, it charted
the stories of an airline pilot who abuses drugs and alcohol, and then climbs
into the cockpit and flies commercial airliners. I am not the sort of person
who reacts to such premises with horror or outrage; fiction is fiction, after
all, and it is a rare film or novel that hits me at an emotional level.
As I said, Washington portrays an addict who is taciturn and
vicious in his treatment of others when sober. The catalyst of the plot
involves the crash of the plane he’s piloting. Though drugs and alcohol still
course through his veins, he manages to perform a miraculous landing saving
virtually all those on board. The ensuing investigation, though, forms the
narrative structure by which his deep flaws are revealed.
I watched this movie about 2 weeks before I boarded a plane
to fly to the Pacific coast for holidays. At no point did that vivid depiction
of the actual crash bother me on an emotional level, nor instill apprehension
regarding my upcoming voyage. Again, fiction is fiction.
Recently, I was reading Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, which explores the topic of what
causes extreme or unusual instances of success or failure. Why do some people
become fantastically wealthy and accomplished at their chosen profession or
field, and others don’t? What makes something stand apart and break the norm? A
fascinating topic; I heartily recommend the book. Anyway, the chapter I was
reading today involved the curious case of Korean airline crashes, which
happened at an alarmingly regular pace during the 80s and 90s. I believe
Gladwell noted that their rate of crashes was 17 times that of the US average
or perhaps the world average. I have not finished the chapter, but I have read
the book several years before, and know roughly what the conclusion will be.
Essentially, cultural prohibitions regarding a subordinate challenging his
superior prevented the secondary pilot from taking steps or pointing out
information to the captain that might have averted the tragedies that were
piling up.
In order to demonstrate the lack of communication and
exchange of information within the cockpit, he transcribed several examples of
the recordings of the black boxes from the crash. Perhaps my overactive
imagination is to blame, but I could imagine the rising panic and frustration
in the situation; in one case, the plane crashed because it ran out of gas, yet
the exact amount of fuel remaining was never communicated to the air traffic controller.
As I read this, and even as I summon it from my memory right
now, an odd clenching, a vague nausea stirs within my belly. The thought This is rather ghoulish skittered across
my mind as I read, and I could almost feel my blood pressure start to rise.
These were crashes that occurred 20, some even 30, years ago, and yet the
thought of them, reading the terse or frantic communiques from the pilots in
plain letters on a page while attempting to understand the reason why, caused,
and causes, me anxiety. Contrast this with the graphic images of a plane crash
plastered across a 30 foot movie screen while the noise bombards my ears, yet I
am in no way apprehensive or disturbed, even with the prospect of an upcoming
flight lingering.
I find it amazing how the mind works. Because if anything,
the visceral experience of the movie should have impacted me far greater than
the cold, dispassionate description of the passages. In the movie we saw
characters die, women and children screaming and flailing upside down, and battered
and bruised bodies afterward. There are no graphic descriptions in the book of
body parts or the actual wreckage that investigators found; the point of
Gladwell’s book isn’t to rehash the entire experience but to explore the reason
for it, so descriptions of the aftermath are unnecessary. And yet, my mind
knows that what it experienced with the senses (namely the movie) wasn’t real,
while the scenes from the book actually happened. People died, and some of
their final words are recorded. And my mind can distinguish the difference
without a conscious imperative from me. I didn’t think to myself, Wow, this really happened. I’m not just
reading about a fictional event; this will probably disturb me. On the
contrary, I read about other tragedies and atrocities without having such a
reaction. My emotions upon hearing about Sandy Hook or Aurora were sorrow and
anger, but it didn’t disturb me.
Perhaps this is why. With those other occurrences, or like
9/11, there was active agency behind the tragedies. Some body chose to act in
heinous ways and the results were hideous to contemplate. But they make sense,
and even though media members and politicians are quick to say otherwise, probably
could not have been avoided for the most part. A gunman who is intent upon
shooting up a school may have this evil deed facilitated by the availability of
weapons in his parents’ house; but if he is determined enough, he will find a
way to procure them even if they aren’t as readily available. Evil exists, and nothing humans can do will
ever eradicate or completely prevent it.
Well, what about natural disasters? The tsunamis in South
Asia or Japan, the earthquake in Haiti, Hurricane Katrina, Superstorm Sandy—do they
disturb me as well? Not in the same fashion, I must confess. For this reason:
there really isn’t much humans can do to prevent such catastrophes, no matter
what climate change alarmists (oh the hubris!) would have us think. We may rail
against God, but no one else can bear any responsibility. Not, mind you, that I
blame God for natural disasters, but I understand the impulse among theists or
deists to do so.
What bothers me, as I consider it, about the events from the
book is that they were needless, they could have been prevented. The plane that
tried to land and had to abort, which eventually crashed because it ran out of
fuel, never informed the tower that it had only ten minutes of fuel left. The copilot
never turned to the captain and confronted him on his questionable decisions. The
copilot took the terse communications with harried New Yorker air traffic
controllers as veiled insults and signs of agitation, and consequently
mitigated the situation on the plane instead of stating plainly the dire
circumstances. All minor things that led to more major problems that eventually
led to tragedy. All human, all preventable. If a plane crashed because the
avionics failed or, like in the death of golfer Payne Stewart, the cabin decompressed
and killed everyone aboard hours before the fuel ran out, I am saddened and
horrified. But the situations in the book sickened me and angered me. The needless
loss of life! The senseless tragedy!
Because, thanks to my overactive imagination, I tend to
project myself into scenarios in stories I read, and I would have been incensed
and confounded at the laisse faire attitude of a copilot who refuses to use the
word “emergency” when the plane I’m flying only has 10 minutes left of fuel and
we’re being put at the back of the landing queue. Unfathomable! I would be
shouting in the face of the pilot, screaming into the microphone. I would say
clearly over the radio, “You had better tell all other planes to clear off,
because I’m coming in to land right now! Otherwise we’re all going to die! Deal
with it!” That’s the difference between natural disasters, crimes, and
tragedies.
