Wonderful writing by Patrick Smith on Salon.com. Gives us an insight into the emotions & fears of an airline pilot. I love this behind the scenes stuff…
Though perhaps that’s a good thing as well. We’re all afraid of flying on some level, and is that not perfectly healthy? And the pilot’s job, in essence, is the management of contingency. Fires, explosions, physics gone bad, all the nasty scenarios the simulator instructors love — they’re all there, coiled behind the instrument panel, waiting to spring in a game of comfortable, though never perfect, odds. And the pilot’s role is to spring right back. Do pilots worry about crashing? Of course. As a matter of practicality, they have to. It’s in their best interest, and yours too.