Sunday, July 20, 2014

Last thoughts

These last few days, my thoughts keep returning to the Malaysia Airlines jet shot down over Ukraine. It is difficult not to picture yourself in the same situation and imagine how it must have been. The missile strike would not have killed all the passengers and crew outright, and it's possible that some may have survived the cabin depressurization at 33,000 feet, which means that at least a few died on impact. At that altitude, it would take a little over three minutes for a person to fall to earth. Knowing you were going to die in just a few minutes, what would your last thoughts be?

UPDATE 10/13/15: I was watching The Today Show this morning while eating my corn flakes and there was a piece about the downing of flight MH17 and a recent finding that the warhead was from eastern Ukraine. The announcer said that "most" of the passengers died or were rendered unconscious when the missile hit the plane, which is not completely true. Coverage I watched back in July 2014, after writing my original blog post, indicated that some passengers' bodies found at the crash site were seatbelted into their seats with oxygen masks covering their faces.

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