Really, I was ready to let it go and move on. But then this floated by in one of those endlessly-forwarded emails that friends and family pass around. What’s so revolting is the utter inversion of justice it represents in the mainstream treatment of the accident.

God is routinely given credit and thanked for saving those people; but notice that He’s not similarly given “credit” for needlessly killing those geese, destroying that plane, endangering and distressing the people involved, and soaking up lots of resources to deal with it all. Nor is He reflexively given such “credit” for all the deaths that aren’t averted in other plane mishaps.

Such psychoses aside, the real problem I have with this is that it dilutes and distracts from the recognition genuinely earned by the heroes involved!

• The pilot trained long and hard to be able to fly planes of various kinds, and to identify and execute just such a lifesaving maneuver. Then, in the moment it was needed and under tremendous stresses, he kept his head and did an absolutely brilliant job.

• The crew trained as well in managing such a process — and when their moment came they likewise kept their heads and executed brilliantly.
• Engineers labored long and hard to design a plane that didn’t just fly, but which would have ever better chances in all sorts of rare and strange circumstances, working to reduce the odds and impact of the unexpected. The result is a craft that could withstand this sort of water landing and float long enough to get those people out.
• People on the ground sprang into action to scoop up the passengers and contain the danger.
• And on and on. How about the experts who will analyze what happened and use it to make people a little safer in the future?

These folks deserve all of the credit and admiration and thanks, and it’s an absolute injustice that the mainstream reaction would take even the tiniest sliver of their due and pretend it was earned by someone or something else.