How technology may have just saved my life
Don’t know about you but it’s never happened to me to have an autopilot landing on a plane. Tonight, on my flight back to Milan, because of the very deep fog the pilots couldn’t see shit so they had to rely on the autopilot.
This made me think how incredibly advanced some technologies are. It may seem not that impressive but in my opinion it’s a big deal. What would’ve happened if the plane didn’t have this feature? Would the pilots have risked a blind landing? Would we have waited in the air for who knows how long, probably ending up with no more fuel. Would we have gone to the next closer airport?
I don’t know you but this really fascinates me. When the commandant announced it on the radio no one seemed to care, like it was nothing to be interested by. We live in a world where the technologies are so advanced but almost no one gives them the credits they deserve and actually everyone seems to complain every time the internet is a bit slow. Don’t you understand, you little fucker, that what’s in your hands, that small gadget, allows you to connect with people from the opposite side of the globe in a matter of seconds?! Quoting Louis C.K. “Give it a second! It’s going to space.”
A strange thing is that we’ve been asked to switch off all the digital devices, not to enable airplane mode but to totally turn them off. I wasn’t even allowed to use my 3rd generation iPod Classic that has absolute no connections of any kind. I have no idea why. Maybe the hostesses, not knowing the characteristics of all the devices, just tell everybody to turn every type of digital gadget off, or maybe some weird thing can actually cause problems with the plane. Anyhow I obeyed, I didn’t want to crash because I was listening to Johann Strauss on my iPod during the autopilot landing, even though I really don’t think my old “tank” would’ve caused any harm.
Interesting how a normal and, usually, very boring standard procedure as a plane landing created this contorted, but worth sharing, thought in my mind.
