I find myself traversing by way of air travel frequently as of late- from my California home to Texas and back home, California to New York, back home, and So. Cal to Northern California and back home. The little technicalities of air flight have become clearer, little tricks to make it past security without blinking twice, keeping my seat in it's upmost position to appease flight attendants, and ensuring that I have something to occupy my time in the air-"The Dark Knight" playing on my macbook. These little tips are a traveler's passing amusement, but beyond friendly time killers, a more serious concern vibrates in my cranium. It is the quick thought that penetrates in all passengers boarding planes: Will I make it there safely? I, like all others, find comfort in passing this thought beyond existence as quickly as possible, like most mortals do upon the thought of mortality.
Television footage of wrecked flights are on the airwaves all of the time. Last night, the channel 9 news broadcasted a Turkish Airlines plane crash in Amsterdam, which departed from Istanbul before difficulties arose at 2,000 feet.
As I take steps onto the next airport terminal, I will comfort myself in idealistic thoughts that should anything go wrong on my flight, things will turn out at least as well as they did in the Turkish Airlines and US Airwaves Flight 1549.
Only nine passengers were killed in the devastating crash in Amsterdam. More miraculously, all passengers on US Airways Flight 1549 arrived safely from New York City's LaGuardia Airport bound for Charlotte, North Carolina. They plummeted into the Hudson River, adjacent to Manhattan on January 15, 2009. All 155 on board survived.
