Watching the news and reading the papers these days seems to be fraught with news of how 100+ people have miraculous escapes. The primary driver of 40"+ LCD-TV Sales, Arnab Goswami - Times Now even had a 1 hour show dedicated to such an escape. How is he driving the adoption of 40"+ LCD/LED TVs is by putting 12 people together in the same screen which makes it impossible to view properly in a normal 32" TV and is a sure blinder if you have the tiny 14" portable color tv that run on CRTs.
Coming back to the point of miraculous escapes, it is incredible the level of fear that is being induced into people who have little or no idea about how flying works or worse are scared of flying. It is almost systematic fear being induced to help didi overcome her failure of being the party that takes care of the Railways by making it sound like a safer option, even if the scores there are by far the worst ever. As I write the blog, I'm tempted to quote from a newspaper that yesterday a train rammed into... wait for it..... an earth cutting machine on an unmanned level crossing that killed 3 people, yet, it finds no mention in most places. Is this a battle between a now near bankrupt consortia of Air India, Kingfisher, IndiGo & Jet Airways vs. DiDiS Ministry? Well if it is, it sure as hell is a losing battle, for both.
Let us look at something that came in the papers a few days ago, a couple of politicians running election runs hire a private plane (no I cannot call it a Jet, cos it was a prop) and are landing into Lucknow, the pilot notices that a Saudi Arabian Airbus 330 is backtracking on the runway and won't be able to complete his take-off roll in time, and is fairly well out and way above MDH (Minimum Decision Height) and says to himself "ummmm.... welll, I could land on top of that Saudi Arabian aircraft, but the mess I'm gonna make will result in a lot of people being dead, so let me not do that", and initiates a normal procedure called missed approach. That helps avoid the unwary contact of two planes in motion, the result of which is usually called a crash. Coming back, the pilot makes a decision well in time, well in advance and well planned and does what is routine. But what he doesn't know is that he is carrying polticos who are vying for coming to power in what has now been the metaphorical Achilles heel state for them. So guess what, pull out the two most common cards anyone would, religion and accusations. So out come the guys from the airport and make a statement that somehow.... in a deal that got struck in some weird "Inception" like parallel universe... the state government did not want that aircraft to land and possibly even wanted them to make the unwary contact mentioned earlier to eliminate them from the race. Well, they are what they are, and show me someone who trusts a politician and I'll get you all the gold in the world, the media picks this up and puts out a story about how 200+ lives and some "important" politicians could've died. And for someone who's been flying for a while now, I'm thinking, "hmmmm.... go on, keep talking... how interesting".
Again, a couple of days ago an Air India Express Boeing 737 rejected take-off after discovering that a just landed SIA Cargo 747 had turned into E4 to exit but stopped short of the threshold making his tail jut out onto the runway. No one was hurt, maybe a little rattled, but that is what happens when you brake suddenly to avoid an obstacle while driving a car as well. So what, my friend, is the big deal? Something big enough for Mr-Scream-A-Lot Arnab to warrant 1 hour of air time to cover this 'incident'.
Now let's see how this is portrayed visually. The channel puts up a horribly mocked up animation of the incident. The kind of animation we saw in the 1980's mega-serial Ramayana. Yeah, you have sparks flying, and sound effects that could have won the Emmy's .... in 1960. Now the whole animation is done in a way to make sure that the visual impact is nowhere close to what could have happened. In absolute terms, they are trying to make you imagine things. To give you an analogy, every time a news channel is covering Kashmir, it is customary to show the stone pelting, PLO look-alike protestors. Having landed into Srinagar quite a few times it can be safely said that you're as safe in Srinagar as you are in Bombay, Delhi or Calcutta. There are pockets of unrest but most of it is normal.
Try speaking against it, and you are gagging the free press, the fourth estate, the infallible.
In a country fascinated by witch-hunts and trial by media we seem to be willing subjects to this misinformation being spread around.
Here is the real deal, pilots spend hours on the simulators preparing for exactly such situations. Engine failures, loss of hydraulics, aborting take-off rolls at high speeds, going around, yada yada yada. Almost everything that you can think of is practiced relentlessly in the simulators. In fact flying is more about preparing for anything except the aircraft taking off. Now that is the reason they don't allow others into the flight deck. Excerpt of a take-off briefing goes something like, "..... below 80kts you will do nothing, contact the tower, cancel all alarms..." any normal person hearing this will be thinking, "why are they talking about this? is there something wrong?" but being prepared is the name of the game. In an emergency, you don't have time for,"Aji sunte ho, tanki mein paani bhar gaya hai, pump band kar do".
Remember flying is safer than it ever was, Right now you need to drink a lot of beer and fly a lot to make sure that the aviation industry remains alive and kicking. The industry needs you to fly, more than ever before. You need to take that flight to make sure that we tide over this bad phase. Remember, the aviation industry survives on the need to travel. All that stuff about tele-presence, give it a break, there is nothing like meeting someone in flesh n blood (especially if you want to draw some). Imagine the amount of partying you can do in a different city when you're out on work. Imagine the lovely free breakfast buffet you get when you're in the company paid hotel. Fly y'all fly. Unless you fly, we don't get paid.The panic the news channels are spreading is irrelevant, I stake my job on it.
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