The pilot should never fly again. He lost his nerve and failed to even attempt to save the lives in his charge, instead attempting to pawn off responsibility to some probably imaginary ‘higher power’ that obviously either doesn’t exist at all or doesn’t care to save human lives. (I’m still open to the idea a higher power does exist, if it can be demonstrated through evidence. However, given the state of the world I’m not open to the idea it’s both powerful and benevolent.)
I think this has less to do with praying than simple panic. It wouldn’t have been any different had he simply thrown his up arms in the air and screamed, “Oh NO!!! HELP HELP HELP!!! I WANT MY MOMMY!!!”. The point is he panicked, failed to execute proper emergency protocols, and cost lives. What he did instead (i.e., pray) is secondary.
I’m betting that the pilot thought prayer may assist him. I don’t think the person calling for mommy actually expects her to parachute in and take control of the situation.
That is true, except I think Ravenman has a point as well: The kinds of people who would pray in a life-or-death situation would be the kinds of people who believe in the power of prayer, no? I say that as the kind of person who cracks jokes and looks for an escape in a life-or-death situation. So far, I’ve been able to find the escapes.
I don’t care that he prayed. Heck, I probably would to in that situation. But I hope that my prayer would be “God, please let what I’m trying to do work!!!” whilst I take emergency action.
Well, I, for one, am absolutely and utterly shocked that the newsmedia can’t find their asses with both hands and a compass heading.
It doesn’t change the main thrust of the thread: I’m utterly contemptuous of people who think praying counts as ‘doing something’ when they could be doing something useful.
Anyway, I think I do owe the flight crew an apology. I really should realize that the newsmedia is absolutely worthless on stories like these, especially when they treat them as filler.
Apparently, the ground crew in Tunisia replaced a faulty fuel gauge with one from another model of plane, which led to taking on less fuel than was required, which led to the ditching. Italian authorities argue that they could have taken additional action, which pilots agree with, and could have made it to an alternate airfield, which pilots are calling halfwit second-guessing. The pilot apparently decided he had to ditch, and made every effort to ditch close enough to boats to aid rescue efforts, and 23 passengers survived. He was thinking, and whether or not he actually had time to throw in a prayer isn’t something you’re going to find in a website.
Listening to the black box recording, they made references to God but nothing I would characterize as a full prayer and certainly nothing that would distract them for very long at all. I apologize for the lie I repeated in the OP.
