The Crash

This post was written yesterday, 28th July, 2010 Wednesday, the night of the crash.

It's been a long time since I wrote something for my blog, and all the recent posts have come from some deep, dark corners of my mind, so I sure didn't want another sad post to be my first post after a long time. But I have to get this out of my system.

Today, at office, concentrating on coordinating with the QA department to resolve the issues occuring at client side, the news of a plane crash in Islamabad landed on my ears. We all have become a bit accustomed to hearing bad news, a bomb blast here a riot there, or maybe it's just me who has become utterly heartless, but whatever maybe the reason, I continued to work on the task at hand.It was after a while when I started hearing from my colleagues that their relatives or acquaintances happened to be in the plane. That is when it started mattering. That is when the environment at my office became what can be called gloomy. Coming from a team where laughter is the evidence of work being done, the quiet seemed to be a bit saddening.
Coming back home, it was the first time when I was actually waiting for 9 o' clock news. All along I beared with the sense of drama being created by the news channel (is there a need to mention the name?), what with focusing on the news caster and going from bottom to top.. really, were they trying to imitate the entrance scenes usually attributed with the lead roles of movies.But still, just focusing on the words and tuning out all the drama they were trying to put in for I don't know, increasing the viewership or something, I watched half of the report being shown. All of us watched the families crying, calling out to their loved ones, while we constantly ignored the question they kept broaching for the audience, "Who was responsible for it all?". Do we really need to ask that? It wasn't like a bomb was placed in the plane that we would need to ask where the security was? It's not like the President of some country was flying that we would ask who wanted the President dead. It was a plane crash!! For crying out loud.. A PLANE CRASH. I went along with all of that. But then the news channel brought in something that compelled me to storm out of the tv lounge, and I really mean storm out.
They interviewed this person, who actually seemed to be a pretty intelligent and experienced guy. And to keep it brief, what this guy was saying was that the crash was due to some HUMAN ERROR. And all of a sudden.. they found the guy responsible.. Yippeeee... Congratulations to the news channel, they found that out all by themselves.. And here's the person to be blamed for the deaths of 152 (is the figure correct?) people including himself.. and the person is.. the PILOT.
Now what I ask is...
We all have been taught never to speak ill of the dead. I think this is not just a teaching of Islam, but all religions. Then how come blaming the pilot is not considered speaking ill.
There have been countless times when the pilots have been RESPONSIBLE for getting the passengers safely to land.. how many time the news bulletin have thanked these pilots?
How many times did this particular pilot flew the plane safely? How many times was he thanked?
Do all planes who face difficulty in bad weathers crash? NO. Then are these pilots ever considered the heroes of the nation. Then how come this pilot is the villain of the story?
And how come we are forgetting that the pilot himself passed away too. I don't think he was out for a suicide mission. How many people do we know of who would gladly and deliberately crash the plane on a mountain?

Okay. Let's just say for a minute that this WAS the pilot's mistake. Let's just say HYPOTHETICALLY that the pilot himself crashed the plane deliberately. That this was in all his and only his mistake. Then haven't we been taught to forgive and forget. Well who would forgive when the lives of 151 innocent people were lost. But when you call something a mistake, then as far as I know, it's a MISTAKE, something that was not done on purpose, but something that just happned. Aren't we supposed to forgive in that case? And it's not like the pilot himself is alive? He died with them all. Who are we to judge? Who are we to decide? Why not let the matters of Allah be His matters only? Why interfere? Who gave us the right?

Just received an sms, informing that an ex-class fellows's sister in law, the mother of a 6 year old girl, is also a victim. Which reminds me of something else. While they were interviewing the affected families, none of the relatives, in their state of immense grief, once mentioned that the pilot is to be blamed. Had any of them said the same thing, I would not have been this angry, because going through something like this, takes a lot from you, and mostly it takes away the ability to decide, the ability to decipher between what's right and what's wrong.And in such a state sometimes somethings are said or done, that needs to be forgotten later on. In fact, that needs to be forgotten immediately. Then if these people didn't say anything like this how come the people who have expertise in planes and in flying, who had not been embraced by grief thought they can blame someone and actually came out and did just that.

And for the life of me I cannot understand how a pilot can say something like this about a fellow pilot. Have they all resigned? Do they think they'll never fly a plane again, and such a thing cannot happen with them? Did they forget all that?

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