Posted on 03/11/2019 7:08:14 AM PDT by yandexja
A man has revealed how running two minutes late for the doomed Nairobi-bound Ethiopian Airlines flight saved his life.
The Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 crashed six minutes after departing Addi Ababa, Ethiopia on Sunday morning killing all 157 people on board.
Not me. I would have a strong sense of thankfulness, joy, , good luck, not wasting my future, etc. But not a shred of guilt! Is he supposed to feel guilty he didn’t die in something he would have had no chance in preventing?
My friend Jimmy from New York taught me something that helps me through times like that...”better you than me”.
Flip this around. Can you imagine being on standby, being told the flight was full, someone misses the flight and you get on board?
When the ValuJet airplane crashed in the Florida Everglades in 1996, shortly after take-off, there was a man who missed the flight because he had been drinking in the airport bar. He was really upset that he had missed his flight but people tried to explain to him that if he had been on the flight he would be dead.
The PHB was trying to fly it with Excel.
It’s a vintage strip.
Before my brother became an airline pilot he was a flight instructor at a local flight school that had a lot of students from foreign countries. He told me at the time to never, ever, ever be a passenger on a plane from an Africa based airline.
If I made it onboard I am now not imagining anything.
And did more damage to the world...
Or, oversleeping and missing your first flight, which arrives safely. Then, you board a later flight and that one goes down. Seems like there would be an equal chance of that happening, too.
There were a number of stories like that about workers at the WTC on 9/11. Those who were late to work and missed being included in the terrorist attack.
Problem is, nobody lives to tell THAT story.
No you’re right but survivors still feel it - just human nature to wonder “why me”? The more productive thing to do is take the good fortune as a blessing and lead a virtuous life like Private Ryan did in the movie.
Eyewitness reports said smoke was pouring out of the back of the airplane, so it sounds like it might be the LIPOs.
OTOH, the Lion Air crash analysis of the DFDR showed the pilots were struggling with the automatic safety system repeatedly pushed the plane's nose down.
Given the vertical speed chart shared for the Ethiopian Airlines 737, it may be the same cause as the Lion Air 737.
Apparently, the Lion Air jet had previous problems with it, but the pilots weren't informed, nor did they recognize what was happening or take the necessary steps to turn off the system.
From the Lion Air article:
Lemme described "a deadly game of tag" in which the plane pointed down, the pilots countered by manually aiming the nose higher, only for the sequence to repeat about five seconds later. That happened 26 times during the 11-minute flight, but pilots failed to recognize what was happening and follow the known procedure for countering incorrect activation of the automated safety system, Lemme told The Associated Press.
Lemme said he was also troubled that there weren't easy checks to see if sensor information was correct, that the crew of the fatal flight apparently wasn't warned that similar problems had occurred on previous flights, and that the Lion Air jet wasn't fully repaired after those flights.
"Had they fixed the airplane, we would not have had the accident," he said. "Every accident is a combination of events, so there is disappointment all around here," he said.
Hmmm...
https://www.freerepublic.com/tag/by:yandexja/index?tab=comments;brevity=full;options=no-change
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.