A Commentary ...

Yesterday morning, a C-5 cargo plane loaded with fuel for an overseas flight and carrying 17 servicemen crashed just short of the runway at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. After initial take-off, the pilots reported engine trouble and double-backed for an emergency landing. The plane, one of the largest in the world, fell from the sky just short of the runway, the cockpit and tail sections being ripped from the fuselage, and landed in an open field (luckily missing the peppering of housing developments and major highways that encircle the air force base).

This morning, I'm watching the news and two reports, both related in a roundabout way, got me thinking. Now, you may agree with me or you may disagree. I don't know and I really don't care. After all, isn't that what this blogging site is about, letting me post my thoughts and feelings? So, here it goes...

Although, with any plane crash, the NTSB is investigating the C-5 mishap, initial reports are believed to be a flock of birds were sucked into one, maybe two engines. There is a dump not too far from the air force base and birds have been a big problem for planes here for years; so much so that the military is actually in the process of moving the dump to another location. The NTSB and the military are also considering permenantly grounding the C-5 cargo plane and replacing it with the C-17, a smaller version.

Now, I'm not an engineer, so I'm not going to begin to speculate on the pros and cons of replacing one aircraft with another but, after watching the news coverage the last two days, I started to ask myself something.

Most plane crashes, whether it be military, private or passenger, happen either during take-off or landing. The result is often an explisive ball of fire that rips through the fuselage, giving passengers little time for escape. The C-5, carrying 51,000 gallons of fuel crashed in a field, split into three sections and even catapulted one of it's engines hundreds of feet away when it hit the ground. All this with little or no fire and with all 17 passengers suviving, most being able to walk away from the wreckage. Why no explosion with all that fuel stored in its massive wings? Because the plane was designed with the wings (and thus the fuel) above the fuselage. Even though at least one wing hit the ground hard enough to have an engine snap free, the fuel did not explode. This, along with the enormous size of the plane, helped to save the 17 crew members' lives.

Passenger planes, however, are designed with the passengers sitting on top of the fuel, with the wings extending out from the bottom of the plane. When a passenger plane crashlands, in most cases, it's the fuel tanks that touch the ground first, resulting an many many lost lives.

Now again, I'm not an engineer or scientist, just a simple blogger who tries to see things as easily as possible and, in my opinion, to use three words from the great Carlos Mencia...

(tap head) "Da-da-daaaaaaaaaa..."

The other story I heard on the news this morning (and this is something slightly more delicate and readers may be more up in arms over) is the soon to be released Hollywood big-budget film based on September 11th and, more directly, the passengers aboard Flight 93.

Although this isn't the first movie about these heros, it is definately the one that is making the biggest impact. Back in January, A&E aired its version of the flight and I found myself glued to the television with so many emotions surging through me. I was angry. I was frightened. I was saddened. The film's dialogue was taken directly, capturing every word, tone and emotion, from recordings and transripts. Ultimately, as the closing credits scrolled up the screen infront of me, all of the emotions I had felt watching the movie seemed to converge within in me, creating one growing sense of pride. Pride for those who gave up thier own lives to save countless lives on the ground.

The rest of the country during those fateful hours on that blue-skied morning, had witnessed the falling of the towers, the flames and smoke surrounding the Pentagon, and we all knew by this time that there was still at least one more plane unnacounted for, while all others were being grounded. The Capital and the White House were being evacated live on television as Americans across the country held their breath, waiting for cameras to capture a growing grey image in the cloudless sky, aiming itself at yet another target. The feeling that, collectively, we were all watching some movie unfold before our eyes, seemed surreal when reports started drifting in on the wires that a plane may have crashed somewhere in western Pennsylvania.

Initial reports stated that the terrorists had lost control, but it wasn't until a few days later that more information on that fourth plane, Flight 93, began slowly building a picture of what had happened. Family members of the passengers started talking about their last conversations and how the passengers, now well aware that the country was under attack, were planning to regain control of the plane and survive or not, not allow the terrorists to take another cheap shot at Americans on American soil. With a trolley cart as a battering ram and hot water as a weapon, with rumors of fighter jets closing in and air force pilots preparing to do the unthinkable in U.S. airspace, the passengers took charge.

It will always remain unanswered as to what actually took place in those last few seconds in the air over Pennsylvania. We will never know if the terrorists drove the plane into the ground in a last ditch effort or if the passengers did it to save America. But one thing's been proven. They didn't just sit on their asses. They fought back. They weren't ordered to fight, they decided. I am in no way putting down the military. I commend all those fighting in Iraq and Afganistan (although Iraq is...well... :-X ), but our true heros, in my opinion, are the men and women who were having a glass of orange juice and a cup of coffee while enjoying a beautiful morning flight one minute and thwarting a terrorist plot the next. These are true heros.
These two words have been emblazened in our minds. High school text books have been republished to include the attacks on September 11th. Bumper stickers are permanently placed on cars throughout the country. Memorials of one kind or another are erected in town squares. And, on a more negative side, National Guardsmen are stationed in airports, restaurants beyond the security checkpoints no longer stock silverware, people are being asked not to photograph tall buildings and Muslims (American citizen or not) are still being looked at more cautiously. If you're in an internet chatroom and say something against the war in Iraq (again... :-x ), you're automatically labeled "Un-American" by people who chant/type "we will never forget".

Now Hollywood is showing trailers of its new movie about a group of true heros and people sitting in their seats watching the trailer are crying "Too soon!!" When will it not be 'too soon'? When the majority of the people who have lived it are long gone? I remember sitting in the theater watching Titanic. Sure, the love story was kinda cheesy, but I remember having to listen to laughter and rude comments from kids to how people on board reacted to and handled the situation of facing a cold and watery death. Even when Pearl Harbor, with Ben Afflack, was released, it was viewed to many as a high-explosion special effects mega-movie, with little regard to what they were actually watching, the lives of hundreds of American sailors...sailors who actually existed over 60 years ago...being killed on a beautiful December morning. I myself cried when the USS Oklahoma capsized and all of those sailors, some of whom had never even realized they were under attack, had all drowned. I cried because I knew it was real. I cried for those men. I cried for the families. I cried for the sailors who straddled the hull of the ship and tried desperately to break through to get at those trapped inside.

The Titanic has become more of a legend in folklore than an event, and Pearl Harbor will soon become something that happened "way back when". Hollywood, in creating this movie about Flight 93, isn't just out to make a buck. The producers have already stated that 100% of the proceeds in the first 3 days of release will go directly to the funds to build a memorial to Flight 93 in that little patch of farmland in Western Pennsylvania. It's already projected to be a blockbuster hit. That's alot of money to go towards the memorial. The producers didn't just wake up one morning and say "let's do this". They sat down with each and every family member of those aboard Flight 93 and asked them basically for their permission and guidance in making the film. Not one family member refused. They want these heros to be remembered. The rest of the country (at least those who will stand outside theaters in a couple months and picket) seem to want to remember (or rather "never forget") as long as there's nothing there infront of them to remind them.

There are some people who, as emotional as it will probably be, want to remember and want to witness how a small group of passengers managed to save the lives of others on a September morning.

I have two words for those who choose to put September 11th into that little black box tucked way in the deepest corner of your mind while you stand out infront of a movie theater and protest Hollywood for making a movie that deserves to be told...

STAY HOME!!!