Flight 1549 as Metaphor

Last updated on: January 21, 2009 at 7:34 am by Gene Veith

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Flight 1549 as Metaphor 2009-01-21T07:34:17-05:00 Gene Veith

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Anne Applebaum sees the crash of Flight 1549, with the marvel that everyone survived thanks to cool work from the pilot and passengers, as a metaphor for our times, indeed, as the undoing of 9/11:

If one were searching for an appropriate metaphor — and, on days like this, one is always searching for a metaphor — it would be hard to do better than US Airways Flight 1549 and its safe crash-landing in the Hudson River last week. This extraordinary event was, if you like, the anti-Sept. 11: A plane hurtled into Manhattan, but its pilots, instead of aiming for a skyscraper and killing thousands, aimed at the river, and saved the lives of all 155 people on board.

There was no panic. “Witnesses described a scene of level-headed teamwork,” wrote The Post. Instead of freezing in terror, passengers scrutinized the emergency doors in the seconds before landing, the better to get them open quickly. After the landing, strangers helped one another out of the plane. Tour boats, ferries and tugboats sped to the scene to assist, even before emergency services arrived. An infant and a woman in a wheelchair were both rescued and taken safely ashore. The pilot walked up and down the aisle to make sure the seats were empty before leaving the sinking plane.

As you listen to President Barack Obama speak today, as you watch him parade down Pennsylvania Avenue and dance at inaugural balls, keep this story in mind, for it describes with eerie accuracy the task ahead of him. He is, in effect, the pilot of a plane whose engine has unexpectedly exploded: Though a handful of people did predict the financial crisis of last autumn, almost no one in mainstream politics did so, no more than anyone would have predicted that a flock of geese would bring down an Airbus. Challenged like that pilot was, Obama’s task is to prevent the unexpected financial crisis from leading to a catastrophe. To do so, he must demonstrate competence and professionalism, qualities so rare in public life that those who possess them are — like that pilot — widely described as “heroic.”

But — to extend the metaphor one step further — successful completion of this task depends not only on the pilot but also on the passengers and the bystanders who keep calm. In other words, if large numbers of people use this crisis to expand their own fortunes or push their own agendas, they might wind up sinking the whole plane.

Good analogy, or stretching it?

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