Tragedies come faster than we can keep up with these days—war and famine, earthquakes and hurricanes, floods and droughts. Everywhere, it seems, as people go about their daily lives, the unthinkable happens. And nobody will ever be the same again.
But why does an air crash feel different? Is it because of how close to home it is for me personally? An Air India flight from my home country, flying to London, where I currently live? Is it because of the additional tragedy of its crashing into a medical college? Is it because of the lone survivor, who miraculously walked away via the emergency exit, as if chosen by God? Is it because the crying mothers and broken brothers in the images and videos flooding Instagram have skin the same color as mine, and language that rolls off my tongue?
The tragedy wears heavily because, like all tragedies, it is sheer luck and nothing else that it happened to someone else, and not us. They did nothing to deserve this; we did nothing to be spared it. But it’s also different.
Whenever you fly, you are in a suspended state of being. Drinking orange juice, watching movies, reading books, or applying lip balm—however ordinary the action, whatever you do takes on a surreal feeling. It’s the fact that you’re doing it thousands and thousands of feet high above, surrounded by clouds, defying gravity.
You think of the many things you’re going towards, or the many things you’re leaving behind. You wonder how it will all work with you—or without you. To fly is to take action, to move with purpose. It is an acknowledgement of a world outside of your own. It is filled with possibility. To fly is to dream.
And it is how so many dreams can come true, which is why the stories hit so hard. The husband bringing his family back to live with him; the couple on vacation heading home in good spirits; the sweet girls visiting their grandma for her birthday. Dreams within dreams, shattered in seconds.
This is a time to remind ourselves that flying is not just a dream, but a great privilege. It is reliant not only on technological prowess and human skill, but on the mercy of nature and, not least, the benevolence of fate. And therefore with flying comes responsibility.
How often have we ignored pilot announcements, or barely looked up from our phones while flight attendants have taken us through safety briefings? Or how people rush to disembark before we’ve come to a complete stop? How many times have we snapped off our seatbelts as soon as we could, or groaned when asked to give up our cozy blankets and straighten our TV screens before landing? How many times have we seen people rudely treat flight attendants, instead of giving them the respect they deserve as highly-trained professionals whose primary responsibility is ensuring our safety, not making a cup of tea or masala chai at 35,000 feet?
We will eventually know what caused this awful tragedy. but whatever series of events caused it, let’s think of this as a turning point in how all of us fly. Safety is an irrefutable priority—the only thing that really matters. So let’s not forget this sentiment as time goes by.
Because when we lose an airplane, we lose faith in the idea that everything around us will work as it should, and that our lives will go as we imagine they will. We face the brutal truth that refutes the fairy tales and life lessons we tell ourselves: that our dreams will come true if we work hard, that doing good begets good.
When we lose an airplane, we must confront the distinct possibility that there is no method to the madness, no divine plan. We lose any sense of comfort or faith that we are living as we should. When we lose an airplane, we remember that losing everything in an instant is a distinct possibility, and we can only pray for those for whom this is now a reality.
A version of this article originally appeared in Condé Nast Traveller UK.
