Rude awakening

I had a rude awakening of sorts Sunday morning. As my laptop booted up and I opened up the ABS-CBN news website, I was shocked at the headline that said a plane crashed upon landing at the San Francisco International Airport. Having one of the largest Filipino communities in the US, I immediately read the article to see what airline crashed. To my relief, it was not a Philippine Airlines plane which I knew had daily flights to San Francisco. As I read on, it was an Asiana Airlines Flight 214 from Seoul, South Korea that hit tail first on the runway, skidded a few meters then exploded into flames. Passengers at the back of the plane literally fell on to the runway, while the rest slid down the inflatable slides we keep seeing on the safety instructions aboard commercial aircraft. As of this writing, two persons with Chinese passports are confirmed dead while 305 survived, some with serious injuries.

Residents of the area who have somewhat become experts at constantly seeing planes take-off and land already noticed something was wrong as the plane came in for a landing. Their worst fears came true as the plane hit the runway with a thud, then smoke just billowed from the runway. People could see passengers running from the aircraft as they slid down the chutes. When the fire was extinguished and the smoke cleared, images of a tailless plane with burned out roofs were everywhere in the internet. All I could think was at least we still see a major semblance of an airplane. Most plane crashes, you just don't see anything anymore. In other words, this could have been much worse, much worse indeed. 

Immediately, details of the Boeing 777 were brought up, known as having a 'fantastic' safety record in the eighteen years the model has been in service. The only other accident involving a Boeing 777 happened in 2008 at London, where it also landed hard. Nobody died in that accident, but the focus is now on what goes wrong with the aircraft upon landing. As with all crashes, a thorough investigation takes place to determine the cause, and more importantly, to learn from it and correct or rectify whatever is needed to ensure the safety of future flights all over the world. Flying, according to most data, is still considered the safest of all forms of transportation. Still no excuse to be complacent. Statistics don't matter when you become one of them, I always say.

The government is still checking if any Filipinos were aboard Flight 214. Initial reports said most of the passengers were Chinese. I've always heard the saying that the most dangerous part of any flight is the few minutes after taking off and before landing. This flight just proved that saying. I cannot imagine what the survivors went through, thinking they were already landing safely. I hope the investigation goes along swiftly. 

For everyone's sake.