Words Have Meanings, Pt. 1: Miracle
miracle |ˈmirikəl|
(noun) a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural orscientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency : the miracle of rising from the grave
I wasn’t going to talk about this, mostly because it happened a few days ago and I assumed it would be old news by now. But the story still has legs (or wings, as it were). News channels are still going wild over the “Miracle on the Hudson.”
Here’s the deal, though. It isn’t a miracle. Miracle is a word. It has a meaning. That meaning is not “when something works out well.” Things work out well all the time, but they aren’t miracles.
The pilot was calm, experienced and well-trained. He made a difficult choice to land in the Hudson River – a water landing isn’t the safest option around. But, it was still worlds better than landing on top of an apartment building or crashing into a school. To call it a miracle, as if some divine hand is what averted a catastrophe is absolutely insulting to the pilot, who fought with an airplane still taking off, and who reports say walked up and down the length of the plane twice to make sure everyone is off.
It is insulting to the rest of the flightcrew who helped get the passengers off the plane. Despite being treated like the waitresses (and waiters) of the skies, flight attendants are safety personnel, first and foremost. They are trained to make sure people get off the the plane safely. Their other duties are extras – bringing drinks and pillows to people is a bonus for fliers. Attendants are not treated as they should be, however.
Calling it a miracle is also an insult to the ferry operators who went to go pick up the passengers. And the ferry management/unions who fought for that kind of training and equipment. It is insulting to the rescuer workers that spent time on the cold Hudson river that morning, treating people for exposure.
To the air traffic controllers who helped the pilot deal with the crisis and contacted the authorities. The aircraft producers that spent thousands of hours designing, researching and building engines that could take a bird strike at incredible speeds and still have enough function to get the plane down.
And it is an insult to those who regulate the airline industry – the ones who design the safety procedures, make sure that training is adequate, and ensure that the plane is properly built and maintained.
Sure, there was luck involved – the waterway was not packed with ferries at the time, but they were close enough to help rescue passengers. The plane could have suffered more damage. All kinds of things went right. But if it wasn’t for the people involved knowing what had to be done, a disaster still would have happened.
Miracle is a big, shiny word. It looks great on a headline. It’s a lot more elegant than saying that things worked the way they were supposed to, and people went above and beyond what was expected of them. But it also cheapens it.
–Words Have Meanings is a semi-regular feature to highlight the fact that words have actual definitions. They mean something. You can’t just throw them around willy-nilly.–
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