It had all the makings of a thriller TV episode. Some important government spokesperson makes a speech, and cameras click menacingly — hungry for details. The tense faces of friends and family from the 'missing' plane aren't sure whether to hide from the media or broadcast their anxiety. Egypt Air Flight 804 'disappeared' over the Mediterranean Sea on its way from Paris, France to Cairo, Egypt.
Updates, since the plane has gone missing, have ranged from getting the usual experts and analyzers to hypothesize about how the plane went down. The usual statements from higher ups expressing "we're doing everything we can" and statements from several countries about whether it is too early to know what really happened. The breadcrumb trail of updates will hopefully lead to some answers, right? Yesterday, it was confirmed from the plane's communication and debris picked up west of Cairo that Flight 804 had caught fire in several different places and gone down. While the evidence has yet to be pieced together in tension building, minute-by-minute timeline of Flight 804's last moments.
What are we doing? Egyptian officials have been quick to label the smoke issuing from the plane and its subsequent demise as 'terrorism' but any terrorist groups have yet to claim responsibility. The names of the pilot and co-pilot were even released to see if that had any particular political party associations and it has been confirmed that none of the passengers on Flight 804 were on watch lists.
And still, the Islamophobia in countries continues to rise and 'terrorism' has literally begun to throttle us with fear. Flight 804 was a tragedy. There were people on the plane who had lives and loved ones waiting for them on the ground. When tragedies like this happen, can we not gather around each other to improve the mechanics of flight to be safer for others rather than trying to blame someone for the tragedy? Enough tragic things happen each day without the tragedy being blamed on someone else.
And what of our minute-by-minute updates? In our information age, we desire to know everything as soon as possible. Thinking we can know everything immediately increases our sense of anxiety when there are gaps in knowledge. We don't know how to deal with uncertainty anymore and the media only emphasizes what we don't know by hypothesizing.
Flight 804 will spark discussions about increased security and plane maintenance for a while. People will express sorrow, anger and confusion. I hope we will remember, not the fear this creates for travelers, but the reminder that fear is something we can give into, or deprive of its power. Change your language, change your viewpoint -- resist spreading fear over what we do not know and comfort based on what you do know.
