Peril in the Skies
By: Geo (June 4th, 2010)What’s happening to our planes suddenly! What’s happening to the Indian flights! There have been at least four incidents in the last fortnight in which one of the incidents resulted in the loss of 158 lives, including the crew! Again another flight almost landed into an already parked aircraft on the runway! Be it an overstressed flight crew or the ground-staff (ATC) that maybe the reason for all these, but there surely is too much appearing to be at stake in the skies for now!
I never forget to say a small prayer of thanks to God whenever my flight is about to take off and immediately before and after it lands safely too. After reading about these close shaves, I should say that every take off and landing has been a favor granted! Some of you may shirk at the thought of thanking God for everything! Why to ascribe all favours to Him! If so, then let me tell you, I am sure there maybe times in your life when you really want to thank someone for something or for some situation in your life and then suddenly you realize that you don’t know whom to thank!
I have flown countless times by now and I do remember at least two times when we had a rough landing but I can never say it ever came as close to what the passengers on these flights would have gone through in these concerned flights! Just to think about what the passengers of the ill-fated Air India would have felt seconds before and while it blew up makes me shudder.
I remember my mother and sisters once became victims of an emergency landing situation in Bangalore when the wheels of their flight didn’t come out during the landing sequence and everyone in the flight, and on the ground, prepared for a crash landing. My mother has the memories of that landing still very fresh in her mind as if it happened just yesterday, though it happened about two decades back. My sisters were too small and she tells about the prayer she uttered while they were going to crash. They all had their heads bent down and leaning forward with hands behind their neck. She never thought that she would see her daughters die so young and that too along with her! She muttered, “Thank you God for this life. If it is your will, may we land safely”! Land safely they did. The wheels came out just seconds before the crash and they had a safe landing! Maybe her prayer worked. At least she believes so.
Oh! How we all wish that the same would have happened to every flight doomed for some accident and that every disaster would get averted! However accidents do happen despite the prayers offered and often we all inadvertently end up blaming God for not doing what He should have!
What do devotees and atheists in unison expect! Now this is something on which they do agree! That God should have averted the accident! The former expect God to protect them and blame God for not keeping up to their expectations and get bitter and the latter use it to say that God doesn’t exist, else how come the disaster happened at all! We devise and develop means, technologies and inventions and then expect God to protect us and watch over us even as we use them! Is that fair!? These things and inventions take us farther and farther away from God but yet we somehow expect God to keep following us closely and watch over us irrespective of whether we regard Him or not! Again if God were to avert an accident, would an atheist give credit to God for it!
God does watch over us! It doesn’t take him any effort to do it. How can we assume that a millions take offs and landings happened without his invisible favor and protection! I am just trying to highlight the intent of our hearts!
We can only make the machines. We can only think that we have a control over them while thinking very realistically, we don’t. As majestic as the aircraft looks and functions, be it on the ground or in the air, equally terrible it is when it fails!
May he watch over every going out and every coming in. May he also comfort the bereaved. May he give refreshing and energy to the overstressed and tired. May he keep us all.
In the meanwhile, everyone who flies should mutter small prayers just in case it turns out to be their last because flying is becoming a peril. We have peril on the roads, on the rails and now peril in the skies too!
Tags: accident, Air India, ATC, crash, crew, God's protection, Mangalore airport, prayers
June 13th, 2010 at 9:34 am
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