Have we become so complacent that we are more worried about missing choir practice, or our favourite show, rather than making it to our destination safely?
This past week, I was working a flight from Chicago to Champaign, IL. Normally it's about a 28 minute flight at the most. Pretty painless right? Well not this day... We had just taken off from O'Hare and were climbing to our short cruising altitude, when my flight crew expearienced a malfuntion in one of the indicators that tells them how much fuel we have on board the airplane. Thus, just to be safe, we had to turn around and go back to Chicago to have the aircraft checked out. Without knowing how much fuel we had on board, or if it was LEAKING, the safe thing to do was to turn around. My crew called me briefly to tell me the situation, and that we were going to be having a normal landing back at O'Hare. This was the LAST thing that I wanted to hear, because I knew that my day was going to be even LONGER than it already was. AS we got closer to O'Hare, my captain made an announcement to the passengers telling them what was happening, and that we were turning around. That was then that the complaints starting coming my way...
"WHY can't we just go to Champaign, don't we HAVE enough gas to get there?"
"I CAN'T believe this!"
"What's going to happen NOW?"
Most everyone was more upset that we were going to be late, rather than the fact that it's better to get some place safely than not at all, because we crashed due to a potential fuel leak! It turned out that there was nothing seriously wrong with the aircraft, and as soon as we were checked off, we went on our merry way back to CMI!
1 comment:
What you don't understand is that most people are selfish, self-centered whiners. If something negatively affects them, they will complain -- usually out loud -- and not think about anyone else. Your "problem" is that you think of the greater good, which means more than your own concerns. Don't forget ... you were late, too, and yet more concerned about everyone's safety than your schedule.
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