I’m sure you all remember that plane crash in the Hudson a while back, in which all the passengers survived thanks to the commendable competence of the pilot, Chesley Sullenberger, and the crew. What impressed the atheist community, too, was that this was not a case where the crew credited some fickle deity for keeping them alive — it was good old skill, training, and keeping a cool head in times of danger.
What if, instead, the pilot had trusted in a god? We’ve got an example of that, too.
A plane made a similar emergency water landing off the coast of Sicily in 2005. In this case, the Tunisian pilot panicked, and instead of taking emergency measures or even trying to reach a nearby airport, he instead chose to pray loudly. I’m sure that was reassuring to the passengers.
Sixteen people died.
Reason gets some revenge, though. The pilot has been sentenced to 10 years in jail for his neglect of his responsibilities. I like that; resorting to prayer represents an abdication of responsibility.
That’s precisely what it is. If only we applied such a standard to jobs where millions, not tens, if lives hinged on a person’s actions.
At least we can give thanks to god that no more than 16 people died.
:/ that should be “…of lives…” I blame my scheming keyboard and its wicked scheming. Or maybe my own inattentiveness.
I’m so glad that he got punished for this. Unbelievable stupidity. Next time I fly I’d prefer to know what the pilots stance on religion is.
It’s obvious those sixteen people died because they didn’t pray, or pray fervently enough. The pilot prayed and he’s alive, right? Therefore, prayer works.
I could feel my brain cells convulsing even as I typed that…
So religious fundamentalists and aircraft controls don’t make for a happy ending. Who would have thought it!
If 10 years is fair for killing 16, what should one get for invading a country and killing 5000?
He was convicted in an Italian court? He must not have been using a catholic prayer.
7#
A pilot is trained to understand the systems he controls…or realise when there is a system out of control…and the recommended protocol from the manual to rectify or minimize that defect.
Praying to god admits that he was not professional enough to rationalise a situation.
It was an abdication of his duty to those passengers that died.
A politician by default has no such responsibility and even less rationalisation…they boogie by public opinion at the time!
A slight but important difference.
Well, resorting only to prayer does. He’s not a priest, he’s paid for doing something else than praying.
Of course that something is devotion to materialism and to naturalism, the belief that it is only matter that has any kind of importance to flying and to saving souls in their earthly bodies. Frankly, I’m appalled at such bigotry, but it’s rife throughout the world.
The only fair thing to do is to teach both materialistic flying, and prayer flying. Only then can we be certain that the atheists don’t dominate flying as they now dominate biology and the causes to which it limits our investigations.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
The Presidential Medal of Freedom?
(Oh, and much more than 5,000 were killed in the invasion of Iraq. See here.)
However much we might wish that it doesn’t really make a difference what others believe, it’s still important. Atheists have an obligation to speak out on behalf of society. Perhaps no atheists spoke strongly enough to this pilot.
Well that clears that up. Instead of groping and harrassing passengers before they get on a plane, the authorities would be better off scrutinising the religious tendencies of pilots and cabin crews.
I once worked with a man that claimed that, in the event of an emergency, he wouldn’t move a muscle unless God told him too. I regretted that God could have just given him brains, then he wouldn’t need to tell him what to do every time.
And yet for some reason a politician can listen to that higher power telling them to invade iraq and there is no accountability. To think that the country of mussolini beat us to the punch on this kind of justice…..a shame.
Praying is not the least you can do – it’s the least useful thing you can do.
@#4 “Next time I fly I’d prefer to know what the pilots stance on religion is.”
As a pilot in training in a university that specializes in aviation (ERAU), and knowing those who have had internships at airlines, I can tell you that American pilots tend to lean towards fundamentalist Christianity and are generally Republican on the political side of things. However, even the most religious pilots are generally professional enough to know that emergencies can’t be dealt with using superstition. They’ll be throwing praise and glory towards their personal gods in the media afterward, but they sure as well wouldn’t do so in the cockpit…
…the good ones at least. You should be more afraid of the standards that pilots are held to in this school and others. There are many people who graduate out of here that just shouldn’t be flying planes (or designing them, but that’s a whole different story).
… a Tunisian pilot, huh?
All that shows is that he was probably praying to the wrong god.
It’s a blessed miracle the plane wasn’t smote by lightning on the way down!
Google news currently lists 6 stories on this verdict. Only the Reuters story mentions the praying-instead-of-flying aspect; the others focus on an improper fuel gauge, and the resultant ordering of too little fuel for the return trip.
Was the prayer, as mentioned in Reuters, a part of the prosecution? If so, the other stories are seriously lacking. Kudos to Phil Stewart, though.
Yet more proof that skill and education are generally better option that superstition and prayer. :)
Flying along on a wing and a prayer
Works better for songs than for planes;
Trusting in God, when the fuel isn’t there,
Is a poor way of using your brains!
How dare you criticise this pilot! Can’t you see it’s all part of the sky fairy’s plan that you mere mortals could never know!
Sheesh, so naive.
But if he read ‘The Secret’ he would know how LOA really works in regards to federal aviation.
“Reason gets some revenge”
I don’t think so. Punishing someone for praying is just one of the many evils of modern society.
“…resorting to prayer represents an abdication of responsibility.”
Precisely!
Absolutely!
Every time!
And if the “prayor” doesn’t get the requested response, s/he can always revel in the resulting pain and anguish as a sign of god’s love.
It’s ironic that xians can abdicate responsibility for everything and yet sit in judgment on those who do take responsibility. I find it all highly amusing at times.
Its interesting to me the fact that the pilot of the Hudson plane crash was a seasoned, very experienced, years of training older person instead of some over-optimistic, depend on the auto-pilot, over-religious young punk.
Nothing against hiring the young people but something about years of practical experience and hands-on work adds more creditability.
(yes, I’m showing my age)
BTW PZ: love the web site, it’s my morning online paper in the morning.
We train hard and often for most emergencies. What is sad is that it was only a fuel gauge inop malfunction. Given that he should have been doing his paperwork and carrying reserves – 16 deaths could have been easily avoided. However what is surprising is that the airline checks did not pull this nutter off the line.
Quoth Vic (#14): “I once worked with a man that claimed that, in the event of an emergency, he wouldn’t move a muscle unless God told him too.” (sic)
If that was my friend, I’d punch him in the diaphragm. In response to the resulting angry and confused look on his face, I’d explain that it wasn’t my fault because god failed to make him dodge ;)
@#26 And the paradox of hiring pilots is unearthed. Everyone wants experienced pilots but nobody wants to hire young.
Unfortunately, as with sports, the younger you start, the better you will be in the end. Many of our most famous aviators started flying in their mid teens. If you keep hiring experienced pilots, a lot of young potential gets thrown away to other careers, and soon there will be no experienced pilots left.
Of course, that may all be left to robots, but I will not give up the good fight.
DEATH TO SOFTWARE ENGINEERS!!!
#4:
Yes! Let the market decide! Airline A advertises that its pilots are all atheists who have extensive training in emergency landing techniques. Airline B advertises that all its pilots are devout Christians who will rely solely on prayer in the event of an emergency. Which airline do you think Christian flyers would choose?
Ah yes, truly inspires confidence. Sounds like a ‘Say… there wouldn’t happen to be any chutes handy, would there?’ moment if ever there were one.
Someone on another forum I read made what I see as the fair point that this probably wasn’t so much excessive religiosity as blind panic. He may as well have been calling out to mommy.
I am not saying this removes his responsibility for crashing the plane, however (as he shouldn’t have panicked).
@#26: And how would you propose these young pilots get these “years of practical experience and hands-on work” if people like you won’t hire them, hmm?
It’s less an issue of prayer so much as an issue of cold-bloodedness.
Nothing scares me more than being a passenger in a vehicle (whether airborne or on wheels) with a driver/pilot who freezes in the face of fear. It has happened to me on a few occasions, one of them with my own mother at the wheel, and all I wished was that I was the one driving instead of her.
The type of people who are not cold-blooded, those who tend to freeze like rabbits on a high-traffic highway, should be barred of piloting, or of any other job in which they can face responsibility for others in high-danger situations.
So… you don’t want God as your copilot. Clears that up.
One of the guys at work got his pilots license several years ago. He kept pointing out that the first rule in an emergency was to “keep flying the plane” while you figured out options. Praying =/= flying.
Perhaps he’d been listening to Carrie Underwood’s Jesus, Take The Wheel beforehand. The gist of the song is, “When I screw up, I abdicate all responsibility and turn everything over to an invisible, immaterial religious figure.”
Must be some way to apply the idea that prayer = abdicating responsibility to the Texas BOE and the Oklahoma Leg…
First prize awarded for missing the point. The pilot was not punished for praying. The pilot was punished for praying when there was a better course of action. Big difference.
If you were in the middle of a crisis situation, which would you pray for; a person in charge who acted who a person who took the precious seconds to pray.
Oh, you poor persecuted christian, tormented by secular modern society.
The pilot will be free until the appeals process is complete. What is to stop him from praying again?
BS
#33:
I can guess. Flying around dropping bombs on foreigners? Isn’t Mr Sullenberger a former USAF pilot?
While there is some justice in this result, I think it more likely reflects the tendency of non-US courts to criminalize accidents, which I think is unfortunate. Note that the pilot wasn’t the only one to get jail time.
No, no, no, this is just gods way of letting the survivors know how much he loves them.
Isn’t there an old joke about a very religious guy whose boat is wrecked at sea and he’s alone, clinging to a piece of flotsam, praying fervently. Along comes a guy in a speedboat who tells him to climb on board, but he says “no, I’m waiting for my god to save me” and returns to his prayers. The speedboat guy goes away. Along comes a large ship which hails to him, but he says “no, I don’t need help, my god will help me”, and he continues to pray. The coastguard send out a helicopter and the winchman comes down, but the guy refuses to be winched up: “no thanks, my god will come and rescue me”. The following night, his bit of flotsam breaks up and he drowns and ascends to heaven, and passes through the pearly gates. When he meets his god asks “god, I prayed so much, why did you not rescue me?”. And god looks puzzled and says “what about the speedboat, ship and helicopter that I sent for you?”.
Yup, prayer works – if people do all god’s work for him!!
Could be, but I suspect having the concept of prayer in ones head at all, and considered a good thing, increases one’s tendency to throw up one’s hands and cry for help.
I thought this was how God answered prayers, 1)Yes 2)No 3)Wait. Maybe God just said No, you’re SOL.
Evasion, in one of its many guises. Some drink, some take drugs, some freeze (retreating to some inner space), some take religion.
Everything but face the fact that you and you alone can get you out of this mess.
Now you wonder why religion and other magical thinking a la “The Secret” are attractive and addictive ? Everybody once in a while would wish somebody else was there to solve his/her problems, like when mom and dad could (but that was an illusion) when we were small. Some of us simply refuse to grow up.
With sincere and heartfelt apologies to Harold Adamson and Jimmie McHugh…
One of our planes was flying
Over water, just south of Rome
The fuel gauge, sadly, was lying
There was not enough gas to get home
The engines were skipping and stalling
The plane started tossing about
And the passengers found it appalling
When they all heard the pilot shout out:
Comin in on a wing and a prayer
Listen up, god, I know that you’re there
Though we’ve run out of gas
I know god loves my ass
Comin’ in on a wing and a prayer.
What a show, what a flight, boys
We’re gonna hit some whitecaps here tonight
How we pray as we limp through the air
Look below, there’s just waves everywhere
With all our fuel gone
We can still carry on
Comin in on a wing and a prayer
Comin in on a wing and a prayer
Listen up, god, I know that you’re there
Though we’ve run out of gas
I know god loves my ass
Comin’ in on a wing and a [splash].
http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2009/03/wing-and-prayer.html
I thought this was how God answered prayers, 1)Yes 2)No 3)Wait. Maybe God just said “No, you’re SOL”.
he was hoping for a miracle and edned up with a tragicle.
10 years in jail when he is responsible for killing 16 people is ludicrous.
He was not just incompetent, he was negligent. He should have been sentenced at least to 10 years EACH for the 16 deaths, to be served consecutively.
I don’t know what the penal laws are in Italy (or if they even have them) but in the US, this guy might be out in 3 years.
It’s a wonder the moron didn’t start singing “nearer my god to thee” and steer for Naples, and yell out, “more souls for thee”. Oh hell, let’s really dramatise this scenario and have him crash the plane into Vesuvius, set off a cataclysmic seismic eruption and wipe out metropolitan Naples. Now there’s a rapture on a biblical scale.
#50: Edward Current FTW! :D
Janine @ 39
I didn’t miss the point, you did. I am saying that this decision isn’t a win for reason. I will ignore your ad hominum attack.
AVSN,
I think the pilot abdicated his training as a pilot in favor of his training as a prayer monkey. This choice was not reasonable according to the judge, prosecutor and jury apparently. Many here agree.
Prayer, if you must rely on it, is a private matter between you an your special friend. If you substitute it for reasoned public behavior, you lose. Always.
Navin #35 “So… you don’t want God as your copilot”
Nope. I want a copilot as my copilot – someone who actually knows how to help me fly the damned plane.
Not some imaginary sky fairy, flying spaghetti monster or feathered serpent.
Glad this guy is having to face consequences for his incompetence.
About the young versus experienced pilots there’s a fairly simple solution. Every commercial airliner has a pilot and a copilot. Pair up the more experienced pilots with the least experienced for copilots.
@#57: Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Thanks for replying.
Here’s a link to another example of what can be done correctly and without prayer to land a plane with a fuel problem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transat_Flight_236
I would guess the Tunisian pilot lacked enough training or, if you’ll pardon the phrase, he had a lack of faith in his own abilities.
AVSN #54
It wasn’t a win for superstition either.
If you were ignoring it you wouldn’t have made this comment.
I want to see Atheist Airlines.
I want to fly with a carrier where I know the pilot and crew are atheists. Where I know they will, in a crisis, do stuff that might actually, you know… make sense and help…. rather than retreat into infantilism.
A Presidential Library, most likely.
Punishing someone for praying is just one of the many evils of modern society.
No-one has suggested that anyone be punished for praying, anymore than anyone has suggested people be punished for wanking. It’s the circumstances in which you choose to indulge in it that make it culpable.
Had the pilot decided he just had time for a quick one off the wrist before, um, splashdown I sure the results would have been the same.
New England Bob writes:
10 years in jail when he is responsible for killing 16 people is ludicrous.
He was not just incompetent, he was negligent. He should have been sentenced at least to 10 years EACH for the 16 deaths, to be served consecutively.
If the idea of a criminal “justice” system is to punish, then you’re right. If the idea is to cure/correct social misbehaviors, then I have to question what’s the point of putting someone like this in prison at all — surely he’s learned from his mistake to a degree that I shudder to contemplate. Those who howl for punishment are so… old testament.
Years ago in a training situation far away I sat through a session on very effective pilot training and why it was important. For part of the training we listened to the cockpit tapes of a DC-10 that lost a cargo door coming out of Paris, with a resulting crash that killed everyone aboard. When the sound of the cargo door blowing out was heard, one of the pilots immediately started praying. When they figured out what the problem was, both pilots said their last prayers as the plane plunged into the ground.
A few weeks later an American DC-10 was miles above Detroit, Michigan, when the same thing happened. When the cargo door blew, one flight attendant was killed immediately. The cockpit tapes were much different. The pilots heard the noise, asked what it was, and then cursed. They got a report from another flight attendant about the disaster that had just struck them. More curses.
Then, with just a trace of discussion on what to do, they got on the radio to Detroit’s airport, explained they were spiraling down to make an emergency landing, and with most of their hydraulics to the back gone and rudder control almost non-existent, and with a few more curses, they landed the thing in Detroit. One life lost.
I don’t know whether either pilot held to faith, though I suspect at least one did, just knowing the numbers of faithful among pilots. The difference is whether the crew understands that they have any power over the situation, and whether they use it. There are times when it is a bad idea to make God the default copilot, or worse, autopilot. I don’t care what the faith of the pilot is, so long as the pilot will do everything she or he can to keep the plane and passengers safe.
I do worry about non-union airlines, though. I prefer an airline where I know that if a mechanic or a pilot wants to ground an airplane for a safety issue, there is a union that will back up the pilot or mechanic in a contest against the company, before the FAA.
Thing is, PZ kind of underminds it right there in the text. The salient point here is that the pilot panicked, not that he prayed, even if that’s the story the media liked.
If the pilot had been an atheist, and instead of praying, he’d just screamed like a little girl, he’d have been just as negligent, he’d have been just as deserving of jail time. But I wouldn’t be reading a big block of triumphantalism about those religious fools getting theirs, and how sweet the schadenfreude is and all that.
I don’t see anyone arguing that this pilot made a reasoned (but incorrect) decision that prayer was the course of action most likely to produce optimum results. The man panicked, which he oughtn’t have done. Unless you mean to argue that atheists are inherently less prone to panic — that one can be held together in a crisis by the magical powers of one’s atheism, and draw strength from it, then it doesn’t really say a whole lot.
A man lost his nerve in a moment of extraordinary stress, and people died as a result. To revel in this as a shining example of the evils of religion is both irrational and, um, kind of a jerkass thing to do.
I imagine that there’ve been plenty of atheists who have panicked in an emergency and acted irrationally. The only difference is that they choose something other than “Oh Jesus!” to shout when it happens.
Ross, you totally miss the point. The pilot is trained, when emergencies happen, to fly the plane. It is his job to bring it in somehow, and in a way to minimize fatalities, both of the passengers and on the ground. By not flying the plane when he was praying, the pilot increased likelyhood of fatalities. Compare this to the Hudson River landing. The praying pilot didn’t do his job. He deserves punishment, and mocking for not doing his job to pray.
Ross,
Fair point apart from the dig at little girls, who have often been known to stay calm in a crisis.
It could be argued that atheists know that in that situation prayer is not an option, so the choice is between scream in panic and die or fly the bloody plane. Option c – put it in the big feller’s hands – is not available.
You people who keep pointing out the bleeding obvious, that the prayer was probably the equivalent of “Oh my God,” are missing the real point, which is that prayer happens not to work.
You miss it because it’s so obvious that not only secularists but even most religionists much prefer to rely on anything but prayer if they can. And yet the supposed “efficaciousness” of prayer continues to be espoused by any number of leaders.
While PZ didn’t break any ground by noting that prayer doesn’t do a damn thing, the same message was repeated for the simple fact that it doesn’t take in many minds.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
Uh, no. Anybody here wants God as their anastesist at their next surgery ?
not only do I not want an imaginary sky pixie as a copilot, I don’t want a pilot who wants an imaginary sky pixie as a copilot.
Is that because a large fraction of them are products of the U.S. Air Force, and specficially of the U.S. Air Force Academy, which is a notorious hotbed of (unconstitutional) conservative Christian indoctrination?
That last bit has always struck me as strange, BTW. I know Colorado is a “red state,” of course, but the campus architecture at the Air Force Academy is aggressively modern, and the campus is surrounded by a natural environment that smacks you in the face with geology… so it’s hard to understand this as a place that harbors so much 15th century supernaturalism.