Day 7: Thanks A Lot, Denzel Washington

A few months ago, in an attempt to watch all of the cinematic contenders nominated for the coveted 'Best Picture' Oscar, I watched the Denzel Washington movie 'Flight'. Which turned out to be a really, really bad idea.

I hate flying. I always have. The whole concept of  being suspended thousands of feet above the ground in a heavy, steel, airless death trap is both unnatural and enough to trigger an anxiety attack. I spend entire flights in a white-knuckled state of panic, my mind churning as I wonder when and how we're going to go down.
Many, many people have tried to convince me that flying is safer than driving and that pilots undergo years of training and very rarely spend their flights taking shots of tequila and pinching flight attendant's booties, but their assurances fall of deaf ears. Flying is safer than driving a car? Really? The one thing I can give flying over driving is that teenaged girls aren't allowed to do it, which probably makes it marginally safer, at least in one respect. Other than that, I have my doubts. And I've had them long before Denzel came along and freaked me out even more than I already was.

Because my fear of flying boarders on phobia, it's easy for me to become obsessed with crashes. I wonder why they happened and what I would do if I was in that situation. And yesterday's 747 crash in San Francisco is no exception.

While the cause of the crash still remains largely unknown, most news sites are instead drawing attention to the fact there was minimal loss of life and injury for such a scary crash (2 dead and 3 injured out of the 305 people on board). In fact, the crew is being praised for their quick thinking and downright Un-Denzel approach to getting people off of the plane as seen in the many images and videos captured by passengers (which, against my better judgement I watched many times over with a mixture of terror and fascination that people would have their wits about them enough to record anything at all during a time like that). So far, the suspect fault is in the flight instruments rather than human error.

So here's my question: If flying really is safer than driving a car (which I really, really don't get, see above re: steel death trap) shouldn't flight instruments be a little more accurate and/or user friendly? I mean, come on.  We  have TVs that listen to voice commands and can print out brain splints on 3D printers, but we can't come up with a better way to land a plane? Really? I don't get it. Sometimes I genuinely feel like we're largely wasting our capacity for amazing, life-changing technology. I'd trade Ipads, Vine, and smart phones for safety any day.

In the meantime, my heart goes out to the victims and families, as well as the crew and passengers on board who had to endure such a terrifying ordeal. Going through something of that magnitude is literally my worst nightmare personified.

I think I'll keep both of my feet on the ground, thank you very much.