US Air Flight 1549 Crash Lands In The Hudson And Bush Tries One Last Time To Convince Us He's Not The Worst President In Modern History
Hi everybody. Tonight we had Campbell Brown in for Anderson Cooper, who is somewhere doing something (I'm all about the specifics, yo). In all honesty, I did some flipping around tonight. I understand why they do non-stop saturated coverage on a story like the plane crash and can't really even fault them for the decision. But when it comes to this kind of thing, once I've heard the facts, I feel like I'm pretty much good to go. Hence the flipping. So sorry, no review.
What a story it was, huh? To recap, this afternoon US Airways Flight 1549 departed LaGuardia Airport for Charlotte, N.C. and almost immediately collided with a flock of birds (according to initial reports). The pilot then attempted to return the injured aircraft back to the airport, but was ultimately forced to ditch the plane in the frigid Hudson River. By all accounts, Captain Chesley Sullenberger did a remarkable job landing in a most unconventional spot. All 155 passengers and crew survived and were fairly quickly rescued. Amazing.
Predictably, the situation has been deemed the 'miracle on the Hudson.' I have a pretty high miracle standard, so I couldn't help but roll my eyes a bit. We just seem to be a little too loose with the term is all I'm saying. For some reason anytime anything good happens, it's suddenly a miracle. The miracle in Missouri (finding Shawn Hornbeck). The miracle at Sago (boy, they jumped the gun on that one). And so on. Personally, I'm more apt to call this a case of a really competent crew.
It could have very easily gone terribly bad. To know what that would look like, we just have to travel back to 1982. We've seen this before. In January of that year, Air Florida Flight 90 took off from Washington National Airport in a snowstorm and immediately struck the 14th Street Bridge before plunging into the Potomac River. Only six of the 79 on board survived the initial crash and only five made it out of the river alive. Four motorists on the bridge were killed as well. The man who never made it out of the water, Arland Williams, drowned after repeatedly letting the other survivors take the rescue line ahead of him.
So, even though it's a bad story, for once we get a happy ending. Hey, you know who might have been handy to have around during all this wall-to-wall coverage? Miles O'Brien. In fact, according to Chez at Deux Ex Malcontent, CNN apparently realized that too and used Facebook to try to book him for a phone interview. Unbelievable. What gall. Yeah CNN, it turns out sometimes expertise is a nice thing to have in-house. Too bad you gave that up for holograms and CNN Grills.
Transitioning to the subject of the Bush speech. There's really not much to say because, well, I didn't watch. Did you? I just found it hilarious how little time 360 spent on the thing. I mean, the guy was our president for eight years and it's his last speech evah and everyone is like, "meh, oh, is he still here?" Dubya's last big attempt at legacy-saving was almost completely bumped out of the news cycle by everyday Americans competently doing their jobs. There couldn't be a more fitting ending. Well, okay, two shoes to the face might have been better, but I take what I can get.
What a story it was, huh? To recap, this afternoon US Airways Flight 1549 departed LaGuardia Airport for Charlotte, N.C. and almost immediately collided with a flock of birds (according to initial reports). The pilot then attempted to return the injured aircraft back to the airport, but was ultimately forced to ditch the plane in the frigid Hudson River. By all accounts, Captain Chesley Sullenberger did a remarkable job landing in a most unconventional spot. All 155 passengers and crew survived and were fairly quickly rescued. Amazing.
Predictably, the situation has been deemed the 'miracle on the Hudson.' I have a pretty high miracle standard, so I couldn't help but roll my eyes a bit. We just seem to be a little too loose with the term is all I'm saying. For some reason anytime anything good happens, it's suddenly a miracle. The miracle in Missouri (finding Shawn Hornbeck). The miracle at Sago (boy, they jumped the gun on that one). And so on. Personally, I'm more apt to call this a case of a really competent crew.
It could have very easily gone terribly bad. To know what that would look like, we just have to travel back to 1982. We've seen this before. In January of that year, Air Florida Flight 90 took off from Washington National Airport in a snowstorm and immediately struck the 14th Street Bridge before plunging into the Potomac River. Only six of the 79 on board survived the initial crash and only five made it out of the river alive. Four motorists on the bridge were killed as well. The man who never made it out of the water, Arland Williams, drowned after repeatedly letting the other survivors take the rescue line ahead of him.
So, even though it's a bad story, for once we get a happy ending. Hey, you know who might have been handy to have around during all this wall-to-wall coverage? Miles O'Brien. In fact, according to Chez at Deux Ex Malcontent, CNN apparently realized that too and used Facebook to try to book him for a phone interview. Unbelievable. What gall. Yeah CNN, it turns out sometimes expertise is a nice thing to have in-house. Too bad you gave that up for holograms and CNN Grills.
Transitioning to the subject of the Bush speech. There's really not much to say because, well, I didn't watch. Did you? I just found it hilarious how little time 360 spent on the thing. I mean, the guy was our president for eight years and it's his last speech evah and everyone is like, "meh, oh, is he still here?" Dubya's last big attempt at legacy-saving was almost completely bumped out of the news cycle by everyday Americans competently doing their jobs. There couldn't be a more fitting ending. Well, okay, two shoes to the face might have been better, but I take what I can get.
posted by eliza at 11:52 PM
1 Comments:
Hey Eliza,
Thank you for speaking out about Miles.
Yesterday I was dragged from the high of viewing Slumdog Millionaire to the low of seeing a plane in the Hudson river.
CNN's all evening coverage did nothing to assuage my sadness and yearning for Miles to bring us the details as only he could.
Frankly, I can totally imagine CNN calling him. They clearly have no shame. I find it heartless, disgusting and shamefully selfish. Hopefully he told them to 'eff' off.
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