Member-only story
father and son
I was not aware of an airplane crash in China. My son called me on the way home from karate, his mom driving, and she asked if I got April 15th off. Son asked why. I said you’re coming to visit me. He said, “No, I am not flying ever again.” I was like, “Oh? What changed?” “You didn’t see the crash?” Crash? What crash? His mom said something went wrong with this flight in China. Son, seven, 8 in April, said, “No, that wasn’t mechanical failure. The elevators were still working.” I am like, oh, hell yeah, he has been paying attention to my aviation lessons. And then I was like, what the fuck did happen? “John,” son said. “They flew the plane straight down.”
I can’t find an argument against his statement. Planes don’t fail and go straight down. Even that American Airlines flight that lost the empennage, it didn’t go straight down. I suppose I could speculatively assume autopilot took over and did that? We can only wait for the black box to be recovered. Son’s first response was, “maybe the pilot had a seizure?” He asks good questions. Mom said, “What about the copilot?” Son, “Maybe he had Covid?” So, yeah, he is still only seven!
No More Flying Away Home
Mom was mad because I introduced him to ‘Fly Away Home.” The car crash at the opening got him asking questions about car crashes and death…
