The young girl on the Asian Airliner 777 died. She survived the crash, the fire, and got out only to be run over by a fire truck responding to the crash. Fished the Choctawhatchee Bay on Florida's Panhandle one winter with my best buddy Drew. King mackerel were running and two-foot chop was beating the crap out of us. Young and dumb and dressed in winter coats but no life preservers. His boat was a 16 footer, tiller driven with the throttle on the handle. The throttle always stuck wide open and the tiller pulled like a mule to one side. We hit a wave and it yanked the tiller out of his hand, the boat did a 90 degree turn and sitting in front, I was thrown into the Bay's cold water. Boat did a quick circle while Drew managed to stay in but he was upside down on the floor. I was pretty much in shock and came up just in time to have the boat smack me right between the eyes. The boat runs over me and my coat gets tangled in the prop. Just as it's about to disembowel me, the coat chokes the motor dead and I only get fingernail-like scratches on my stomach. But now I'm under water and tangled. Managed to rip enough loose to get a bite of air. Drew told me later my eyes were bigger than silver dollars when he came back to help but his weight in the back of the boat pulled me back under. After a few minutes I was able to pull enough slack to stay above water so he could come back and cut me free. Hell! He shook more than me and I was afraid he would stab me while he tried to cut me loose. Took the frigging knife and cut myself free. Son of a bitch! It was nearly a thirty minute ride in 40 degree weather back to the truck. If I had a life preserver on, don't think there was enough time to react to get out of the way and the damn thing could have held me under if it got tangled. Everything had to happen the way it did for me to live through that one, could have gone head-first into the prop or below my coat. My coat saved me then almost drowned me. Wife told me I couldn't fish with Drew anymore since shit always seemed to happen when we were together...Silly girl. Fished thirty years with Drew since that one happened and if close calls haven't taken me yet, no worries, it's just not my time.
it's most likely she was dead before being run over, since the other girl was killed by having been ejected from the plane's severed tail...
I always get that feeling when I board an airplane that things are being put out of my control (they might already be out of my control anyway)--that, if it's my time, it's my time. What can I do?
Rationally thinking, there is no reason to have a particular fear for aeroplanes, since statistically it's more likely to die in a car crash and in the same way we give up control if someone else is driving. Yet, I feel the same way. I've heard some couples take separate planes when they go somewhere, so their children wouldn't be orphaned if something happens. I guess the better option would be to not travel by aeroplane. Regarding fate, I recently came across a really good theory on how free will can be compatible with a deterministic world. If the future is unavoidable, that means other hypothetical futures are avoidable and in fact have been avoided. Not by chance but by conscious efforts. If someone throws a brick at you and you dodge it, the dodging might have been unavoidable. The injury caused by the brick was, however avoidable because you acted.
My belief on this is that we have a predetermined time to die but until that time we are free to do as we please. A good example of this that I can think of is combat. You could choose to stand and fight or run and hide but if your time is up then death with find you either way.
That could easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Fate and destiny are things that are really easy to believe in but really hard to live by. Practically every decision and all thinking assumes that things are up to us. Very few fatalists simply sit back and see what happens. Stephen Hawking said once that even people who don't believe in free will still look both ways before crossing the road. But is that belief in fate actually that comforting? I thought about this a couple of years ago when a former classmate died and I ended up with no. The idea of his death being part of some plan or being determined by someone or something didn't make it any easier to understand or accept and it was hard to imagine his parents feeling any better because of that. It was a freak accident that theoretically could have been avoided. I guess it ultimately boils down to unfairness of life. If something is consciously setting up the dates of our deaths, can there really be a valid reason for many people dying so young?
Statistically the thing with aeroplanes is that if you are involved in an accident in one, the chances of surviving it are pretty low. But as they are so dangerous if such a thing were to happen, more care is taken with safety than any other form of transport. This means that per passenger miles or journeys, aeroplanes are one of the least likely forms of transport to have an accident. All other forms of transport offer a better chance to escape if an accident occurs, but their safety systems are not quite as intense as air travel.
[MENTION=25168]Makeshift[/MENTION] [MENTION=24894]Ian[/MENTION] J I should have made it clearer that my question was rhetorical There isn't anything that I can do, so I just accept that the plane will make it or it won't. It's fascinating to me how air travel so fluidly leads to discussions of fate versus free will. I have a long flight to South Carolina coming up in a month, so I will have a lot to think about then.
Wife told me of the article in the paper. COD, fire truck. Don't have a fear of flying, just a healthy respect for crashing. Sister and BIL crashed when fuel pump quit on approach to Denver. They hit one of the light towers and were stuck for a few minutes inside with fuel tank ruptured. No fire, it proved not to be their time. Worked as a chemical operator at a small plant near the airport in Augusta, GA. About 2 AM and just happen to be near the fence when two guys walked out of the woods and asked for directions, both were drunk and had crashed. They could have crashed there a million times and not survived but not this time. They were long gone before the area came to life with rescue, fire, the whole show for when a plane crashes. A twin engine wealthy-man's toy, they flew into the woods drunk and walked away uninjured. I would guess most everyone has a moment while flying. Mine is before flying. If reservations are months in advance and there hasn't been a crash for quite a while then the odds are only increasing. Maybe up to one 1/10000 of the odds of a car crash. Guess it's the loss of the illusion of control.
Control is the main factor for the fear. There are plenty of low speed car accidents where people make it. Not so many with airplanes.
My philosophy, look at risk/cost benefit and make a rational decision, then don't stress over it. It's cheap and easy to use seat belts and keep your smoke alarm in good order. And I'd add a CO monitor to the house if you have a boiler or furnace heat. But I wouldn't give up driving or flying because the benefit is too great, the cost to high. The problem comes when we don't consider how to assess risk rationally. Rather than actual risk we use perceived risk to make our assessments. "Control" may be a main factor in perceiving fear, but the issue is, perception then interferes with actual risk when we make our assessments. Statistically one is safer in that plane than in a car. Perception interferes with recognizing that fact. Rather than just throwing caution to the wind and calling it fate, I make an effort to reduce risk. Only then do I stop stressing over whatever risk I am taking on.
Just something I thought I'd point out on the flying thing. The writer of Freakonomics redid the numbers based on time spent flying versus time spent driving and found that the risk of death was statistically identical. But you fly far less often than you drive.
A proper comparison is the risk of going from A to B. Fatalities per passenger mile. You travel about the same distance either way, not the same time. Believing in "it's your time to go" and not believing that everything in your life is predestined is inconsistent. Believing in predestination is a bad bet. If it is false, and you believe in it, you may be careless thinking it doesn't matter. If it is false and you don't believe in it, then you will be more careful. If it is true then you will have the same outcome whether or not you believe it. So overall, it is better to not believe in it.
Your journey through life isn't measured in distance, it's measured in time. If you spent the same amount of time flying as driving, you'd have an equal chance of dying on either form of transportation.
As B93 says, if you choose time, perhaps, but not if you chose miles as the denominator. Time may be valid, in one sense, but if you wanted to go from LA to NY, and you want to compare the risk of travelling there, you need to use miles as the denominator in order to compare two modes of travel. Time would not be a valid denominator.
And I'm forced to repeat myself... Your journey through life isn't measured in distance, it's measured in time. If you spent the same amount of time flying as driving, you'd have an equal chance of dying on either form of transportation. It doesn't make any sense to use distance when time is how we measure almost everything in our lives. Distance is the invalid denominator.
Time is irrelevant in this discussion. It may be true (I haven't looked it up) that we'd have the same chance of dying driving or flying if we spent the same time doing both, but the fact is, nobody does. We make our travel decisions based on where we have to go. If I have to go to New York (I'm in Los Angeles), I have the choice of flying or driving. I can fly there in a few hours, but it would take me days to drive the same distance. I will automatically be driving for a far longer time, and will hence have a higher chance of dying on the road than in the sky. The statistic that is relevant to my life is deaths per passenger mile, not deaths per passenger hour. Transit time does not determine where I go; much more important factors do. If I have to go a long way, flying is faster and safer.
I will half-way concede this to you, but I still maintain that both are equally as dangerous when we are talking about it statistically.
...cororoner's report isn't out yet, far as i know... so cause of death has not yet been determined... or at least not made public yet...
It's not my time...I am an old man who doesn't seem to be of any use to anybody any more. I have wondered for a few years now why GOD doesn't pull the plug for me and let me go home. I am sitting here right now writing this stupid shit because I don't have anything else to do. I work mornings but I have been in this bloody city for 2 years and have not met one single person who will even so much as go out for coffee with me. I have the most beautiful digs in the city and I have decorated it to the point where people ought to pay to comne and see but nobody will come to visit me ever. I have invited people but nobody wants to have anything to do with me. I did manage to spend a glorious afternoon at a cafe with my editor but she has a boy friend who treats her like crap and therefore I have her company only very occasionally. I am so bloody tired of living...
Sometimes you can save yourself. Even the things you do a large amount of time earlier, such as in the morning, hours apart from what happens later, can be the deciding factor between life and death. Maybe there is a designated time for you to leave this planet, maybe it is due to coincidences, maybe karma. Who knows? I guess the only thing I can say is always have pre-caution, and even when just escaping death, keep your senses as high as if you were currently in death's grasps. Live the best life you can but don't become careless. (Not saying it was either of there faults.)
i'm a great lover of good decor, hal... would love to see pix of your digs... i'm probably somewhat [if not much] older than you and not tired of living yet, have travelled the world over for decades, so while i can't offer to meet you for coffee, or come by for a visit in the flesh, if you'd like to chat about anything, i'm always only a mouse click away... love and hugs, maia maia3maia@hotmail.com
