[Kharon]

The power of words

“We’re going in, we’re dead”. A solemn statement, a sobering account, my stomach churns knowing this man had less than a breath left in him....... R.I.P

But the mind is a powerful thing. The brain is not yet fully understood. Only dead men know what the final seconds of life are, and they aren’t around to tell us about it. Ok, sure, we have the CVR, it tells us much including vocal pitches, words spoken rapidly or calmly, voices loud or subdued, screaming, and other information. But humans bond with ‘things’. Men bond with planes, motorbikes, cars and their Tiger Woods golf set (women do too, but for this discussion we have two crashes which involve male pilots).

So was Capt. Wichita off his dial due to drugs or some other unexpected  conniption? Or was the Captain simply at one with his aircraft, his trusty machine that always took him from A to B without fail, sometimes with delays, sometimes with a broken part, but they always got there, together. We bond with non-human ‘things’, and planes are one of those non-human items. I owned a Mach One Mustang, 18 years I had her. I knew every rattle, squeak and cough. I knew where her creases in the panels were, where the tiny piece of minute jagged plastic was under the gear shift, where the three brown dots on the roof lining just above the left passenger rear seat were. When I sold her I was devastated. Cried I did, a lot!! I still have the photos, still think of her daily, and still feel a part of her in my heart. Almost 20 years have gone by. She is still my baby. There is a bond that will never be broken.

I’m just saying, throwing it out there. Quite simply the phrase of “we’re going in, we’re dead” could be nothing more complex than a man and his machine working as one, being as one, acting as one. Hence the plural in the Captains final words?