A certain gentleman who was born the same year as me made a study of his countrymen and the way they defended themselves, their family and their property came to the conclusion that they were driven by fear. I hadn’t thought of it like that, but I’m wondering that he might possibly be right.
After 911 – on 912 – thousands of people cancelled their plans to travel by air. Such was the paranoia which swept certain parts of the world.
However, not everyone followed this lead. A friend of mine living in the US state of Arkansas didn’t. He flew as planned on 915. There was only one other passenger on the plane. So lightly loaded was this plane that instead of using the PA system for the safety announcement, the flight attendant walked down the cabin to where my friend and the only other passenger were sitting, and did the safety demo right there.
Another guy who refused to be scared out of the air was my Californian friend who lives near Oxnard, and who I have referred to in the past as CPP – Californian Pistol Packer – but a very reluctant one. (it’s never been out of the box in 15 years) He felt that the period immediately after an air outrage was the best time to look for a good deal on flights, so that’s what he did.
And there’s me. My first commercial flight after 911 was in 12/2001. I didn’t know what to expect, so I said to my family that if I got killed in an outrage, they were to carry on as normal – I would have died doing what I wanted to do. I refuse to be scared out of the air by terrorists, and I refuse to cancel the rest of my life. To allow yourself to be scared out of the air is a victory for international terrorists – it’s what they want.
So what it that I have in common with the other two? Well, forget about the rusting hulk under CPP’s bed. The three of us have the same attitude towards personal safety, but when we fly we don’t have so much as a butter knife for protection because the FAA mandated “No sharp objects”…. OK..
So who do we have on the other side of the fence? I have seen posts on this board by guys who have not flown commercially in a decade or more, and who will no longer consider it in the aftermath of 911. These are also the guys who can only feel safe carrying certain hardware for defence. Could it be that their preferred means of defence cannot be taken into an aircraft cabin? Awwww, shame. Or is it that they are driven by FEAR? The fear of another 911?
What’s even more strange is the way that some of these guys are so fearful of what might happen to the aircraft itself, they won’t fly on a commercial airliner unless it’s a Boeing. “If it’s not Boeing, I’m not going” is their somewhat paranoid refrain. Has there been a disproportionate number of Airbus tragedies? I don’t think so… But can you imagine it – turning up at the airport, and then turning around to go home because there’s been a change of plane, and it’s no longer a Boeing? LOL
My friends and me – we’ll fly on anything within reason. We just don’t have that sense of paranoia that something bad is about to happen. Of course, that doesn’t mean it won’t – just that maybe we have a good sense of proportion.
So
to those who fly. We all know that in this uncertain age it’s not without risk. And to those who won’t, or who returned home from the airport when they found out it wasn’t going to be a Boeing, and spent the rest of the day quivering under their bunks hugging their metal idol.
