Some people are scared of flying. I know a family member who won’t visit the toilet – even during the 8-hour flight to/from Dubai.
She would rather wear diapers than be siphoned out of the plane.
Well not me. I love flying.
I’m always looking forward to airplane food and in-flight entertainment. Cole’s barometer of a good airline is if they are serving cup noodles. Our family rarely feels ear pressure or nausea.
Thanks God we always had good take off and landing and not once experienced any hard turbulence that I prayed for our dear life. Aside from my faith that He will keep us safe, I always believe in this statistic.
But when you hear of missing planes (remember that Malaysian air flight?) or crashed landings, I can’t help but be scared. I cannot imagine the horror these passengers had gone through.
Passengers and crew members of flight EK 521 are really one lucky bunch of people. I almost cried watching this video.
I have read many derogatory comments (some are racist) on why these passengers bothered taking their carry-on luggage in an emergency situation. As those airline emergency videos tell us, we have to stay calm, follow the pilot and crew’s instructions and just evacuate as fast as we can. Not once we’ve seen that we should take our valuable stuff, right?
But you know what, unless you have experienced it and live to tell the tale, we should stop judging these people and just shut up.
If passengers around me are grabbing their bags, and if mine is within reach, then I could have done the same thing.
I might realize later that it’s the most stupid thing to do and I had risked mine and other passengers’ lives by saving my bag but well, I already grabbed it.
It’s also possible that I would cry non-stop, freeze and will just be thrown out of the plane by one hunky flight attendant.
So let’s stop judging these passengers’ actions and behaviors. They panicked. They didn’t think straight. You can’t expect all 300 people to react the same logical way. Instead, let’s all be grateful that they are alive and pray to God that we won’t experience that misfortune.
So next time I ride a plane, no matter how repetitive these emergency videos are, I promise to watch and pay attention.
But for now, let me whisper a silent prayer for my two boys’ safe flight tomorrow. Amen.
