JUNE 30 Former law minister Datuk Zaid Ibrahim has received a lot of flak for criticising the pilot of AirAsia Flight D7237 for asking passengers to pray during a turbulent flight that forced the plane to turn back to Perth.
Zaid had tweeted: Good lord, I much prefer pilot dont tell me death is imminent. Pilot has to give hope, and leave the rest to God and the passengers.
Some reports quoted a passenger as saying that the pilot had said: I hope you all say a prayer; I will be saying a prayer too and let's hope we all get back home safely, while other reports said the pilot had twice asked passengers to pray.
The key issue is really whether the pilot had followed SOP during emergencies. Does aviation SOP require passengers to be informed if a plane crash is inevitable?
It must be pointed out that Flight D7237 passengers were reportedly told to get into the brace position for landing. So it wasnt as if the pilot just asked everyone to pray without also giving them practical instructions on what to do during an emergency landing.
According to the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the safety rule to follow is aviate, navigate, communicate. The top priority is to Aviate, which means flying the plane, before figuring out where you are and where youre headed (Navigate). The last step, Communicate, is talking to air traffic control or someone outside the plane. No mention of talking to the cabin.
Some have defended Zaid by saying that prayer should be a private matter and that the pilot had caused unnecessary panic.
Their sentiments are understandable, given how religion is often exploited in Malaysia for political purposes. PAS has often called for alcohol to be banned on Malaysia Airlines, ignoring the fact that the airline serves passengers of all faiths.
No one has a problem if you choose to abstain from alcohol, premarital sex or anything else, but that doesnt mean everyone else should be forced to follow suit. Its a bit like asking your friends to stop eating ice cream just because youre on a diet, or calling for meat to be banned just because youre vegetarian.
However, we shouldnt allow such instances of religious extremism to cloud our perspective.
While asking passengers to pray may have caused some to panic (theres no evidence of this based on videos showing relatively composed passengers on the AirAsia flight), prayer also has a calming effect.
We should recognise the serenity that prayer may bring to some people at times of powerlessness.
For atheists, well, they probably wouldnt be unduly panicked at ominous warnings anyway since theyre likely to see death as a natural part of life.
The most important fact is that the pilot did his job he flew the plane well and got everyone to safety despite the failure of one engine on the twin-engine aircraft. What he said to passengers was secondary and didnt seem all that frightening (it wasnt as if he said Were all going to die).
There have been worse cabin crew announcements on other planes, such as one on Ryanair whose passengers were reportedly told by a flight attendant: We have ice on the wings and we don't want to die (a bad joke). Then theres a Southwest Airlines pilot who said: Were in trouble, were going down (the plane landed safely).
Of course, Captain Eric Moody on British Airways Flight 9 from Kuala Lumpur on June 24, 1982, showed the ultimate sangfroid when the plane flew into a cloud of volcanic ash caused by the eruption of Mount Galunggung in Indonesia.
He told passengers: Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress.
The plane landed safely in Jakarta.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
Originally posted here:
Should a pilot tell passengers to pray? - Malay Mail Online
