Not sure why it actually bothers anyone that someone is taking photos or videos while seated waiting for the plane to land.
For starters, did they get the permission of every passenger shown in their photos to take the photo and upload it to the internet? I’m sure they didn’t. Yet, the world now gets to see them and comment on them and make fun of how they dealt with their oxygen masks in a crisis scenario. I think it is insensitive in a moment where I’m sure at least some people are stressed. How is it helpful or necessary?
Personally, I don’t get the obsession with documenting every moment of one’s life and invading others’ privacy. Maybe you do.
busdriver11–just want to say that I appreciate your posts and your takes on things.
Thanks, @oregon101. I definitely feel connected to this one, because it could have been me. It could have happened to anyone flying a turbine engine aircraft, with absolutely no warning.
And for the family watching their beloved wife, mother, daughter, friend suffering in that video… how awful. People will mercilessly record anything.
If I had my earbuds on I might not think to take them off. 20 minutes is so long, I can’t imagine being in that amount of fear for that long. Was the pilot speaking to the passengers at all? Was anyone reassuring them?
Flight attendants make peanuts, considering we expect them to be calm in a crisis and put others ahead of themselves is astounding.
The pilot was amazingly calm - or at least projected a voice that sounded amazingly calm. If I’m ever on a flight with an emergency situation, I can only hope that the pilot and co-pilot will be just as effective at handling that situation as these two were.
As for videos and pictures - I heard remarks from the passenger who went “live” in which he said that he did that so that future investigators would have a record of what happened. Some of those passengers did not believe they were going to survive.
This was an uncontained engine failure. Engine failures happen more often than you want to know (although not that often), and planes are designed to be able to fly with only one engine. It’s the uncontained engine failures that have the potential to be catastrophic events, as those are the ones that can damage the airplane, or worse, the airplane controls.
Pay attention to the flight attendants’ safety instructions. I always do when I fly, although I often feel like I’m the only one doing so. I couldn’t believe how many passengers didn’t have their masks on properly.
Flying SWA next week. Usually get a window seat if it’s available. Not sure I will next time.
In at least one article, it was reported that the plane was incredibly (and understandably) noisy as it was going down, so the passengers probably couldn’t hear much if anything from the flight crew.
I can imagine keeping earbuds in if listening to music is helping to calm the passenger and stave off a panic attack. Although when I experienced engine failure on take off (bird strike) a couple of years ago, my instinct was to pay very, very close attention to the flight crew. Knowing how scary that relatively routine emergency was, I can only imagine the fear of the passengers and crew on the SW flight.
Years ago my job sometimes involved reviewing videos of military flight test incidents. Something bad happened in flight, we had to figure out why and how to prevent it, and part of that was understanding the way things unfolded in real time. Can’t remember one where the aircrew wasn’t low key and matter-of-fact during the incident. There were sometimes more animated conversations after landing. But not everybody is used to that kind of muted intensity, and while the incident with Southwest this week was horrible, it’s nice to remind people that there are some amazing people helping their flight, onboard and on the ground.
DS flights SW, and can’t always check in 24 hours in advance, is too cheap to pay extra for early check in, and is frequently in Group C. And yes, he knows that C is for Center and he should take the first available seat. But maybe if he flies soon someone will leave a window seat open. I’d feel safe if he took it.
When “Sully”landed that plane on the Hudson, I never heard one peep about how it was the whole crew who landed the plane. Now when a woman pilot safely and calmly lands a plane that is falling apart, I’m supposed to say it’s a team effort?
I heard peeps about the whole crew’s effort in the landing of the plane on the Hudson with no loss of life. The co-pilot grew up near where I live, so he was mentioned a lot locally. And the entire crew was on the David Letterman Show.
The movie was called Sully, not* The Whole Crew.*
Of course the other side of the coin here is what happened with the engine and was it maintained properly? Engines are designed not to have uncontained failures.
I wonder if people are going to start avoiding window seats now. I bet they do for a short while, until the memory of this event fades.
I have always preferred the aisle seat.
DH likes window and I like aisle, so often we pick those seats and some poor soul is stuck in the middle. They typically “offer” to change seats so we can sit together. Thanks, but we picked the seats this way for a reason. That said, if we are in an emergency situation, I feel sorry for the poor person in the middle seat who will have me climbing over them top get to DH!. Hope it is never an issue.
As for video-ing the situation- people cope with stress in different ways. There isn’t a “right” or “wrong” way. And in this day and age people pull their phones out to capture all sorts of situations. This is no different. A plane is not a place where people are necessarily expecting “privacy” (except in the lavatory, perhaps), so not sure how that would apply. Certainly people’s ways of coping may vary, and it might be respectful not to film someone crying or kissing their rear goodbye, but films of the situation, how the passengers and crew handled it could be instructional for others in the future (case in point the oxygen mask discussion). There were 3 reported flight related emergencies in the past few days. The other 2 were with Delta flights. Hope this is over!
I am not minimizing the pilot’s role or the fact that she is a woman by acknowledging the rest of the crew. She might get a movie, too.
I agree with @jym626 people deal with stress in different ways. Maybe making a video helped someone feel that that they were helping in some way? I’m sure that many on that flight thought they weren’t going to make it. Really, what else should they be doing? I don’t have an issue with people making videos or taking pictures as long as they aren’t interfearing with emergency directions. Maybe it let them feel that they had just a tiny amount of control of the situation?
Why would videotaping the incident give anyone a feeling of control of the situation? I don’t understand that. Filming wouldn’t change the outcome one iota.
I don’t have a problem with people filming it, though. Streaming it might in fact be helpful in some way. The exception for me would be filming the injured woman’s suffering and posting it on the internet. I would not feel good about that if I were the family member of that poor woman. Did someone actually do that?
@Nrdsb4 Doing something, anything can make people feel they are doing something to help and not feel totally helpless. If someone did actually film the that poor woman, I haven’t seen it but I would think that would cross the line.