The massive threat from an Al-Qaeda plot to blow up two cargo planes has been well documented. The planes were loaded with explosives that managed to cross various border and security controls and were only found after a tip from a Saudi agent. Following this, a plane crash near Karachi on Friday killed twenty-one people, while a Cuban plane crash killed 68 the previous day. Coupled with the grounding of the Qantas A380s due to engine flaws equates to a terrifying sky-scape.
The fragility of this mode of transport is in one sense quite shocking. Plane travel is a standard method of travel. While it can be a nuisance, it is a necessary nuisance of modern life. The benefits of flight have far outweighed the inconvenience of it. However, when you scale things back and look at the actual process of flight, the whole prospect is far more terrifying. We get into large metal containers, strap rockets to them and hope to survive the natural conditions of weather and gravity that would utterly annihilate the attempt when given the chance.
It takes a string of high profile incidents for unobservant people like myself to actually notice this fragility. Perhaps it is better this way. After all, we do not want to take the place of McEwan's protagonist in Saturday; thinking a plane will crash and therefore causing it to do so. All of these fragile modern conveniences teeter on the brink of destruction and threaten to sweep our entire method of life away with it.
Is it better then to grieve the loss and destruction caused by these incidents than to dwell on the fragile systems that caused them? Doing so creates an argument that some life is expendable so long as it maintains the structures of life.
-The English Student
No comments:
Post a Comment