About four days ago, a small airplane crashed
in the western mountains of Romania. There are two particularities of this
airplane accident: First, the passengers were medical doctors who were
transporting an organ for a transplant – life savers. Add to this that the
pilot of the plane was more or less of a “media personality”. The second
particularity of this accident is that everyone survived the impact. However,
due to injuries the pilot and a medical student died before help reached them
(which took about 6-7 hours).
Not surprisingly, the mass media was and is
full of stories, news etc. regarding this accident and some heads (including Minister
of Internal Affairs) rolled as a punishment for the chaotic manner in which the
saving operation has happened. (Just as a note: a lot of hindsight bias here).
Not surprisingly there is a lot of emotion attached to this sad event and this
led to it overshadowing other events much more important for the country, but
this is not what I want to talk about…
The public opinion is outraged of the fact that
two people died because help arrived at the scene too late. I would see the
up-side… help arrived in time to save another five people… in case you don’t
know it’s literally freezing in the mountains in winter.
And the weather and winter conditions are what
I want to talk about. Thick snow (between 30 and 60 cm) is one of the causes
that led to help arriving late (another is a bit of traditional Romanian
idiotic management). Cold weather and thick snow for sure didn’t help the
people who were in the airplane after it crashed. Broken bones and being in the
cold for seven hours are not exactly a pleasant mix.
But there is another thing about cold weather
and thick snow: I believe that it was the thing that saved the lives of the
five people who survived. It sounds a bit paradoxical since thick snow and the
cold caused a delay in help arriving (hiking on mountains in the summer time is
wonderful, doing so in winter is dreadful). Moreover, low temperatures might
have contributed to the death of the two victims.
Leave these negative influences of the snow and
cold weather and think how come that all seven passengers survived the actual
impact… the airplane is a small – light-weight one… and as you already know mountains
are made of rock and the soil (ground) on top of the rock is quite thin.
Without claiming that I am an expert in physics, I believe that the thick lair
of snow on the mountain had a huge contribution in making the impact non-lethal…
Naturally the pilot’s actions played a role too… may he rest in peace…
Add to this that there was no fire, despite the
airplane loosing fuel … When metal hits rock there can be sparks… when it hits
snow, not so much…
Something that is the cause of a bad thing can be a hidden cause of something good…
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