Quote of the Day (‘Sully’ Sullenberger, on What We Overlook About Flying)

“We have gotten so used to the convenience and safety of flying that we tend to overlook two things. First, flying is a relatively new human endeavor. Second, people forget that what we’re really doing, ultimately, is pushing an aluminum or a composite tube through the upper reaches of the troposphere or the lower regions of the stratosphere at 80 percent of the speed of sound in a hostile environment—and we must return it safely to the surface every single time. If it were easy, anybody—everybody—could do it.”—Retired Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, hero pilot of US Airways Flight 1549, interviewed by Megan Gambino, “Q and A: Capt. Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger,” Smithsonian, November 2010

Captain Sullenberger’s comment over 14 years ago is useful to keep in mind following the terrible airline collision near Ronald Reagan Airport this past Wednesday. Piloting, as he notes, is not easy. 

What is easy, evidently, is for someone in a high government position to speculate on the causes of the disaster (i.e., DEI and the prior Presidential administration) not only before an investigation began, but even before the black boxes had been recovered to that point.

“Premature” is the most polite adjective to apply to that speculation. I will leave it to others to supply a more blunt, and accurate, one.

(The image accompanying this post of “Sully” was taken on Jan. 24, 2009, a few days after he successfully ditched Flight 1549 into the Hudson River with no loss of life.)