Plane Crashes

I’m in Hong Kong at the moment. I come here a few times a year to do something like business and staying here is one of the few times I actually watch a little TV. At home I almost never tune in. For some reason, every time I’m in Hong Kong I end up seeing the same program – Crash Scene Investigation.

China Airlines Wreckage

This rather sensational program does a pretty good job of laying out the mountains of evidence from plane crashes. In under an hour it illustrates the tiny details that resulted in a shocking loss of life.

I always thought it was an odd show to watch in Hong Kong. Most people in hotels here are probably like me – they’re flying in from one place and will soon be flying off somewhere else. Hong Kong has one of the world’s busiest airports and the average visitor only stays here for 1 or 2 nights. The day after watching Crash Scene Investigation at the hotel, they could be in a plane waiting for take-off, and start looking around the cabin for some tiny flaw that could lead to disaster.

The day before I left for Hong Kong, a 737 owned by China Airlines burst into flames after landing in Japan. It was a spectacular scene, and fortunately no one was seriously hurt. As I waited for my flight to Hong Kong, all the free newspapers in the waiting lounge had full color photos of the burning plane. No one seemed to mind these shocking images. Maybe it’s time to start showing movies with plane crashes as part of the in-flight movie.