I have always been made uncomfortable by the spontaneous applause which generally erupts upon landing of Caribbean Airlines aircraft in Trinidad. Now I do not have any proof that this response is culturally unique to the Caribbean but I have never experienced it with any other airline on which I have flown. It could either be that other travellers generally take it for granted that pilots transporting them are in control of their faculties, guided by training and experience and the aircraft is subjected to the most stringent maintenance protocols or that Caribbean people travel by air only thinking they don't know what the hell the pilots are doing in the cockpit and any landing is a crapshoot. It could be genuine appreciation or safe passage. Either way it has always been a little off-putting for me because I have often wondered what foreigners on the plane must be thinking. "You mean there was a chance that the pilots would not pull that off?" I swear the only thing more embarrassing than that was sitting on a BWIA plane coming back from Canada next to a Guyanese man squeezing a large sack of green fig between his knees. Who the hell buys green fig in Toronto to take back to Guyana?
Caribbean Airlines flight BW523 touched down in Guyana in what was reported to be fog during the small hours of Saturday morning to the typical celebratory applause which quickly turned to howls and screams of horror as it became evident that something had gone terribly awry. Back at home, the news agencies responded and by news agencies I mean Facebook. The television stations were shockingly slow to get on the ball. While reporters had to be scrambled, the first television reports were available just before 10 in the morning. Another television station had the temerity to begin its broadcast of the events at 11 o'clock on Saturday morning. The paucity of official information created a vacuum happily filled by Facebook speculators and Saturday morning aviation specialists. First it was pilot error, then it was a faulty altimeter, then it was the fog, then the landing lights; someone else offered the "crappy Jamaican plane" theory and from there the debate descended into whether this was a Caribbean Airlines aircraft with an Air Jamaica logo or not, and so on and so on quite entertaining really. Make no mistake about it, this was an unprecedented event for the Caribbean and for CAL. Its communications apparatus went into overdrive very early in the morning.
The presenters who were dragged from their beds happily swallowed and regurgitated the copy provided to them by the airline: "Just to be clear, the airline is insisting that this is not an air crash, the aircraft overshot the runway." I appreciate CAL's predilection for semantics on that morning, an otherwise unblemished reputation is at stake. I can imagine the dishevelled flight attendants with their multi-coloured neck sashes (or whatever they are wearing nowadays) all mussed up, guiding the passengers to the nearest emergency exit with a preemptive remonstration, "Watch your step ma'am and remember doh tell nobordy you was in no crash eh, de plane overshoot de runway, yuh heeeaaar!" I am sure the passengers who were rattled like ice in a cocktail shaker are grateful to contemplate the distinction between the two as they recall, even now, jumping from the broken plane into the darkness below. That actually brings me to another point: flight crew members were commended for their professional response in the disaster but going on the accounts of the bruised passengers, they were on their own getting out of that plane. From the reports I have read, they were fleeing the smell of aviation fuel and clearly stated that there was no one to guide them. In the fullness of time I suppose that the truth will be revealed and I make no judgment about the performance of the flight attendants in this crisis.
Should some argue that they are human too, well that is precisely what their training is designed to counteract-the tendency to panic that is human nature. As stated, however, a thorough investigation should put to rest any concerns on that score. There has also been a tremendous amount of speculation about the response of the Guyanese airport emergency services. One Guyanese official countered on the radio, "Well the crash actually occurred outside of the airport perimeter fence..." (Hey you bastard, we talked about this word "crash.") In my mind I am picturing the emergency crews racing down the runway and upon arriving at the perimeter fence saying, "OK, well the Georgetown fire department will take it from here." The only humour in what was obviously a grim situation was provided by the enterprising taxi drivers who rushed to aid the survivors by charging to drive them to the terminal. "Lemme tek yuh to de eeaarpoort torminal...is onleh feeftie dallaz. Whey yuh grip dem?" The first face of the T&T Government was Minister of Trade and Industry Stephen Cadiz, who happened to be there for some conference or the other.
It was however the Prime Minister's visit which, for some reason, seemed to incur the ire of the public.
Seeing the video of Kamla Persad-Bissessar at the crash site so rankled some that they were inspired to write in to the newspapers. "What de hell is the Prime Minister doing there touching the aircraft and contaminating the crash site!" WDM?
This is not a murder investigation so I cannot see how the Prime Minister "tramping all tru de crash site" is going to hobble the inquiry before it starts. People out there are really watching too much CSI. Her "accusers" have conveniently ignored the fact that, if you are to lend any credibility to their ridiculous theories of crash site contamination, there were already scores of people tramping through that very crash site; they were called the "survivors." I wonder what the response would have been if the Prime Minister did not show her face? "She cyar eeem self show she face an de people suffa-in!" Whether the Prime Minister's visit was a public relations gambit (it most certainly was, at least in part), she is the head of the Government and Caribbean Airlines is the national carrier, so I am really not sure what the fuss is about.
I did not hear any complaints about the visit of super sleuth Ian Alleyne to Guyana. Well they can forget about that black box, Ian Alleyne is there so we will finally get to the bottom of this, ent Mr Director?
As to concerns about the reputation of Caribbean Airlines, I am hard-pressed to divine a scenario where this could have a lasting deleterious impact on an otherwise impeccable record. Ultimately, I suppose, it will depend on the outcome of the investigation, but if you look at the recent history of crashes around the world you might appreciate that we have been very fortunate thus far. My only concern though is: has that been purely a function of statistical probability?