I was on the road while most of the events with the Bird-strike plane landing in the Hudson were going on, and by the time I got home, there wasn’t much to write about. So, I didn’t. Everyone else seemed to be doing a fair enough job with it.
It was amazing, though. I spent most of that commute, listening to the New York City stations some 400 miles away… the only stations mentioning it at all from the area; WABC WCBS, and WBBR the latter two of which went into wall to wall mode. Disney apparently isn’t investing much in news people anymore for WABC, because they kept Hannity going with as much detail as he could muster from his net syndicated show. I suspect that part of WABC’s issue involved not wnting to break their usual network feed; Hannity is on nationwide at that point. I can’t imagine there’s not going to be some discussion in boardrooms at WABC tommrow about that. The other two, though, had people on scene, and of the three, WCBS had the best coverage of the event, hands down.
Obviously, I’m happy that things worked out as well as they did. Obviously, there were a lot of great people helping, and helping quickly… the speed of the response was nothing short of amazing. And the pilot and crew, particularly deserve kudos from all of us. Obviously, we’re going to be hearing about,a nd talking about this for a long while… and I don’t intend for this to be the only post here about all of this.
But, I had a passing though last night, on the topic I wanted to capture. To express the thought, I’m going to say something here that I don’t want taken the wrong way;
This seems to me a teachable moment. Not about heroics, but about motivated self interest and it’s benefits to the population in general. I’ve no doubt whatever about the first thoughts of the pilot, particularly the crew as well, being for the passengers of that flight. However, one cannot operate in such a situation without considering one’s own wellbeing at least to some degree. Self-interest is perhaps the most reliable motivation on the planet and one that tends to come up with some miraculous saves… as it did in this case. I submit tthat motivation as much as anything, served those passengers and crew well, as the pilot dealt with his crippled craft.
That’s by no means an insult. Indeed, I’m impressed, as are we all I think, with his skill and quick thinking, and his experienced touch at flying. But any of you who have been involved in traffic accidents that could have been much worse but for some quick thinking and swift action on your own part, will know, on a level you don’t tell people about at parties, that you were working in the interest of keeping your butt out of the hospital, or the grave. Sure, you’d have felt bad, if someone had gotten hurt, as would most of us…. but that’s not the level instinct works at, you see, as you fight with the wheel to avoid hitting the moron that just blew the red light, for example. You’re trying to avoid him ruining your whole day.
It is certainly praiseworthy you avoided disaster with your quick instinctive response. No question about that. But let’s be honest… That’s not altrusim. Altruism is something that requires a moment’s thought. Altruism is a considered process. When you’re in those situations, you don’t have the time for it; events are just happening too fast. You’re motivated by self-preservation as much as anything else.
And here’s the point… Given that self-interest factor, I’m wondering if this isn’t a teachable moment, in terms of what to do about our current economic situation. Could motivated self-interest be the answer to our economic situation? I’ll bet Adam Smith would have thought as much.
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January 17th, 2009 at 9:47
The part you’re leaving out about the captain was the fact that after everyone else was believed to be off the plane, he walked the length of it twice to make sure no one was missed.
January 17th, 2009 at 13:09
No argument, at all, Paul, and make no mistake about the intent, here; I have nothing but respect for the man. As I suggested directly in my piece, I have no doubt in my mind at all that his first conscious thoughts were for the passengers and his fellow crew mates. What you’re missing, I think, is the emphasis being placed in the piece on the differences between thought processes which lead one to concern for others, and instinct, which largely centers in such situations about keeping one’s backside out of the hospital, or the morgue.
His, or anyone’s first reaction in such a situation is self preservation. That’s instinctive, that’s not a conscious thought process. His reaction is praiseworthy, because of the amount of training, and long experience that he had, which made him able to make the right decisions on that instinctive level. Someone less experienced, would be far more likely to melt down under those conditions. We’d be mourning the loss of 160 people, plus the people on the ground, when that thing came down. Probably, into buildings in southern Manhattan. As it is, his instinctive reactions had the experience to draw on to avoid such a catastrophe.
Understand my thought;
A lot of the reaction that we’re seeing just now is over the top, and attributing to the pilot something along the lines of altruism, which I consider to be a result of a conscious thought process. I submit, however, that the man simply didn’t have the time to go through that kind of thought process, and that therefore his reaction was an instinctive one. That his first conscious thoughts were for the passengers, once he had time to consciously consider things, to think about them, is also praiseworthy.
We’ve all been pushed into emergency situations where we’re really didn’t have time to think much about what we’re doing, we just had to do them. Upon looking back at what we accomplished in those situations, we are forever unbelieving that we did what we did, because if we had stopped to think about them, we wouldn’t have done them. It’s my guess that the pilot is having similar thoughts and feelings today.
Someone thrust into that situation might lack either one of those two qualities.. The experience to draw on, on an instinctive level… and altruism.. care for the passengers… and not have done as well as our pilot did, as a result. And that he did possess both those qualities, both the experience, and the caring, means that we can brush this one off our foreheads, and breathe a collective sigh of relief.
My concern is that we properly identify the motivations, in this case. Because if we do that, we can properly apply what we’ve learned to other situations, such as what I brushed up against in the last paragraph.
Here’s the thing; in most other situations that we might apply this learning to, such as what I suggest in the last paragraph, an outright hero isn’t necessary. We don’t need to consider somebody with a particular plan or other, a hero. All we really need do, is recognize the reaction of human nature to various stimuli and adjust our plans accordingly.
Adam Smith had that one fairly close.
By the way, Great to hear from you.
January 19th, 2009 at 14:21
I have two trains of thought that can come out of these posts:
1) The fact that I am a private pilot. All pilots are trained to think of each takeoff as an attempted takeoff and to think about where you might put a plane down if you lost an engine on takeoff. For some airports, the answer is obvious. For other airports, you just hope. Even while flying, I find myself watching for spots where I could put a plane down if I suddenly lost an engine. Sometimes I can see that a body of water is my only option, as much as I’d hate to get wet. This is the way I think, as should all pilots. For this captain, with all his experience and training, I have no doubt that the answer became immediately obvious to him once he knew he couldn’t make any of his airport options.
2) Having been thrust into a life or death situation when my wife suddenly collapsed in front of me with no heartbeat, I think often about the thoughts that were going through my mind while I was attempting CPR and waiting for paramedics to arrive. She went 8 minutes with no heartbeat. My mind was racing with instructions on what the 911 operator was instructing me, questions on what the hell was happening to her, and thoughts such as, “She’s too young to die. She needs to see her grandchildren!” I often wonder what caused me to think the way I did and to react the way I did. She miraculouly survived, but after going through quite an ordeal. If you want to read about it, plus all the media attention she attracted, here is the link: http://www.precelsus.com/marysmiracle.htm
January 19th, 2009 at 16:01
Indeed.
I had forgotten you’re a pilot, Paul, but given that factor, you know better than most what I’m talking about when I speak of experience and training being a almost a mechanical function.
You points about your thoughts in your wife’s sitrep are well taken, but I submit to you that in that situation you weren’t in much of a position to be doing anything worthwhile, (You were neither trained or equipped for such a situation) and so had time to entertain those thoughts… (for lack of a better term to apply)… while you waited for people who WERE both so trained and equipped. That helpless feeling is a terrible position to be in; Trust me, I know, for reasons I won’t get into here.
To the rest of you; Paul’s story is worth a read.