{"id":56198,"date":"2013-12-26T17:00:50","date_gmt":"2013-12-26T22:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=56198"},"modified":"2013-12-26T19:31:56","modified_gmt":"2013-12-27T00:31:56","slug":"working-through-the-crash-landing-in-san-francisco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/12\/26\/working-through-the-crash-landing-in-san-francisco\/","title":{"rendered":"The Unsung Heroes of the Crash Landing in San Francisco"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re celebrating the end of the year with our most popular posts from 2013, plus a few of our favorites tossed in. \u00a0Enjoy!<\/em><\/p>\n

Like many people, I’ve been following news about the crash landing in San Francisco. It’s a frightening reminder of the risks that come with air travel, but an uplifting one thanks to the small number of casualties. \u00a0The Mayor of San Francisco was quoted saying: “We’re lucky we have this many survivors.” \u00a0And the Chief of the San Francisco Fire Department said that it was “nothing short of a miracle…” \u00a0At CNN, after mentioning the two confirmed fatalities, the reporter writes, “Somehow, 305 others survived.”\u00a0Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook,\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0that it was a “serious moment to give thanks.” \u00a0But to whom?<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot_1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There’s a kind of person who is trained to maximize survival in the case of a plane crash: the flight attendant. \u00a0Airlines don’t advertise the intense training their flight attendants receive because it reminds potential passengers that air travel is risky. \u00a0As a result, most people seriously underestimate the skills flight attendants bring on board and the dedication they have to the safety of their passengers.<\/p>\n

Flight attendants\u00a0have to learn hundreds of regulations and know the safety features of all of the aircraft in their airline’s fleet. They must know how to evacuate the plane on land or sea within 90 seconds; fight fires 35,000 feet in the air; keep a heart attack or stroke victim alive; calm an anxious, aggressive, or mentally ill passenger; respond to hijackings and terrorist attacks; and ensure group survival in the jungle, sea, desert, or arctic.<\/p>\n

It isn’t just book learning; they train in “live fire pits” and “ditching pools.”As one flight attendant once said:<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think of myself as a sex symbol or a servant. I think of myself as somebody who knows how to open the door of a 747 in the dark, upside down and in the water (source<\/a>).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is why I’m surprised to see almost no discussion of the flight attendants’ role in this “miracle.” Consider the top five news stories on Google at the time I’m writing:\u00a0CNN<\/a>,\u00a0Fox<\/a>,\u00a0CBS<\/a>, the\u00a0Chicago Tribune<\/a>, and\u00a0USA Today<\/a>. \u00a0These articles use passive language to describe the evacuation:\u00a0“slides had deployed”;\u00a0all passengers “managed to get off.” \u00a0When the cabin crew are mentioned, they appear alongside and equivalent to the passengers: the crash forced “dozens of frightened\u00a0passengers and crew<\/em>\u00a0to scamper from the heavily damaged aircraft”;\u00a0“passengers and crew<\/em>\u00a0were being treated” at local hospitals.<\/p>\n

Only one of these five stories, at Fox,\u00a0acknowledges that the 16 cabin crew members\u00a0worked<\/em>\u00a0through the crash and its aftermath. \u00a0The story mentions that, while passengers who could were fleeing the plane, crew remained behind to help people who were trapped, slashing seat belts with knives supplied by police officers on the ground. \u00a0The plane was going up in flames<\/em>; they risked their lives to save others.<\/p>\n

I don’t know what the flight attendants on this plane did or didn’t do to minimize injuries or save lives, but I would like to know. \u00a0Instead, they are invisible in these news stories as workers, allowing readers and future passengers to remain ignorant of the skills and dedication they bring to their work.<\/p>\n

Cross-posted at Jezebel<\/a>,\u00a0PolicyMic<\/a>, Huffington Post<\/a>, and\u00a0BlogHer<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re celebrating the end of the year with our most popular posts from 2013, plus a few of our favorites tossed in. \u00a0Enjoy! Like many people, I’ve been following news about the crash landing in San Francisco. It’s a frightening reminder of the risks that come with air travel, but an uplifting one thanks to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":56199,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[233,126,23384,2104,129,23703,293,76],"class_list":["post-56198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-death","tag-disaster","tag-social-construction-discourselanguage","tag-knowledgeintelligence","tag-media","tag-marketing","tag-social-construction","tag-work"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2013\/07\/Screenshot_14.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56198"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60809,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56198\/revisions\/60809"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}