‘Thrust not achieved…falling… Mayday!’ – last words of Captain Sumit Sabharwal
On 12th June last year, flight 171 from Gujarat to Gatwick crashed just 32 seconds after take off. The Boeing 787 turned into a fireball, the intense heat of over 5000ºC killing all twelve members of the crew and 229 of the 230 passengers. 50 medical students in the student hostel where the plane nose-dived needed hospitalisation.
The first call to the emergency room came just seven minutes after take off. 60 fire trucks, 20 water tankers and more than 300 firefighters raced to the scene, Debris from the impact point to the last piece of plane that could be identified, covered an area of about 300 x120 metres.
Just one man walked away.
40 year-old British citizen, Viswash Kumar Ramesh, escaped through a hole in the fuselage that ripped open when the plane came to rest. He had been sitting in emergency exit seat 11A and suffered only minor injuries and facial cuts. He was treated in hospital for five days before being discharged and attended the funeral of his brother, who had been travelling with him, the day after that. Unsurprisingly Viswash suffers from PTSD.
Experts said that the crash was caused by ‘the loss of thrust in both engines after their fuel control switches were moved from RUN to CUTOFF three seconds after liftoff’. It seems that Captain Sumit Sabharwal, despite more than 8,000 hours of flying experience, may have intentionally moved the switches to cut off the fuel. Investigators have different theories about why this happened but nothing official has been concluded almost a year after the event. The final report is expected to be made public in the next couple of weeks.
What is evident is that demand for ‘lucky seat 11A’ increased in the days after the tragedy, and that prices for that seat increased up to five times. The seat is not by a window, despite advertising to the contrary. It’s a good seat if you want extra leg space and are hoping to sleep, but it’s not near the toilets and the trolley may arrive there last, reducing your meal choice. Usually, that seat is over the wing section which is reinforced so the structural integrity is higher there. However, authorities insist that survival of any crash is due to the variable dynamics at work rather than any specific seat number.
I was particularly interested in the reminder of this news story having just left Gatwick on a Boeing 787 bound for Cape Town. I was in a different seat and, obviously, am here to tell the tale. Apart from the usual bit of turbulence around the equator, the flight was smooth and without incident.
It has, however, made me wonder how much anyone relies on luck in a twenty-first century world. How many things are just random, down to chance?
People still choose specific dates to embark on certain activities: buying a lottery ticket, taking a trip, making a business deal. Some trust to charm bracelets, avoiding walking under ladders or hanging out with black cats. Sports men and women have complex rituals they stick to assiduously before events, wear ‘lucky’ pieces of clothing, carry particular mementoes or listen to specific pieces of music before their match/game.
Superstition is alive and well for many of us, but I am more likely to choose to walk under that ladder, step on the pavement cracks and stroke the cat. I don’t believe that life is transactional in terms of luck and although I don’t know what the future holds, I do trust that the One who holds that future also holds me. So, even when I fall off a pavement, slip on a stone, trip on a kerb or run into a plate glass door – all of which I’ve done in the last couple of years, resulting in injuries – He hasn’t gone anywhere.
Was Viswash Kumar Ramesh lucky? In many ways we might say, yes. He was certainly fortunate to survive a truly horrendous disaster. I wonder how, or even if, he explains it one year on.
What is certain is that life happens to us all, for better and for worse, but I’m choosing to still trust the God who has shown Himself faithful over generations with my life and daily challenges. Ancient wisdom says that, ‘All the days ordained for me are written in His book.’ Either that’s true, or it isn’t. I choose to trust Him day by day with whatever life throws at me, including flights, rather than a piece of jewellery, a rabbit’s foot, a horseshoe or a four-leaved clover. How about you?
[Images: Pixabay with thanks]
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