While every incident is incredibly sad, I am usually glued to the details of each crash. In fact, I get wrapped up in the details and forget about the people.
This latest crash is unraveling like a soap opera. The main pilot gets locked out of the cockpit and the co pilot crashes the plane into the Alps. Someone had a mental issue!
The past few years have given us some of the most fascinating crashes for those who get caught up in the details. A plane is landed on the Hudson River and nobody dies. Another plan crashes into a river in Taiwan and there are survivors. Another goes missing over an ocean a year ago and to date not one piece of wreckage has been found. Leaving room for speculation that the plane was hijacked and was landed somewhere. There have been others. Suicidal pilots or catastrophic failures. We've seen a hodge podge of air catastrophes.
Tonight as I watched the coverage, I saw what appeared to be a small pink blanket. It struck me that it likely belonged to a little girl. Amongst the wreckage, you could easily make out clothing and suitcases. That humanizes it in an instant.
I've never lost anyone in a plane crash, thank God. However, I once met a woman who later died in a plane crash.
The woman was the sister of a former co-worker.
I remember the day she got the call at work. Her sister, niece and the sisters boyfriend had left South Dakota for Nebraska in a small plane. The plane had lost contact and they were unsure where they were. Because small planes do not have to file flight plans, they were missing for several days before anyone knew. Once they knew, there was still a hope they'd made a last minute change and were enjoying a vacation somewhere.
It was the beginning of winter and the beginning of the snowy season. By the time anyone began to search, several feet of snow had fallen in the area they had possibly gone down. Everyone search anyway. The general search area was confirmed by several farmers who reported hearing a plane with engine trouble.
Toward spring, several months later, the snow finally began to melt. Once the snow was gone, a farmer came upon the wreckage site. Searchers had been on top of it more times than they could count.
My co-worker headed north and we received pictures. It was a horrific sight. Something that has stuck with me.
The engine was about three feet into the ground from impact. The plane was in small pieces, with some recognizable. There were clothes and specifically a red sweater. Not far from the sweater was a hand. Yes, amongst the debri and clothes were body parts. Very few body parts were retrieved from the scene and the caskets at the funeral were nearly empty.
My goodness, that certainly humanizes the accident. It was one of the saddest funerals I've ever attended. The preteen surviving son/brother who'd not made the trip was devastated. At the cemetery, he laid himself across the caskets and held on as long as they let him.
For all I've been through in life, I've never had to experience something like this any closer than with my co-worker. I have lost cousins and friends to suicide and car accidents. Those were similar, but not quite the same.
I've thought about that experience many times over the past 15 years. I often think about it when I'm forgetting the true human loss in a tragedy. As much as I try to understand itt never makes sense, but we always have to understand that nothing happens outside of God's will.
It's not always just a story. There's usually real people involved.
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