And no the picture doesn’t go with the title.

I’m talking about the Air India plane crash except I’m not really even talking about that, not exactly. I’m remembering the 1987 crash of flight 255 here in southeast Michigan. It crashed shortly after takeoff from Detroit Metro. A 4-year-old girl was the sole survivor. My daughters at the time were two-and-a-half and a few months. Was I freaked out? Yes yes yes yes.

If you live in my area, there has been a lot of talk about that incident since the Air India crash. And a lot of it is incorrect. For instance. When the girl was found alive, a woman (strapped to her seat) was found on top of her (something like that). Everyone jumped to the conclusion that her mom had positioned herself that way to try to save her child. Nope. When things got sorted out, it turned out to be a random stranger. When something like this happens, my brain, despite me trying to get it to shaddup, usually tries to imagine the chaos of the interior of a plane going down. I don’t think the people on that plane had any more than even a few seconds to think about anything, even pray or whatever they do. I think it was sheer bedlam and total panic and who knows how that woman landed on top of the young girl. (I know the girl’s name but I’m not going to name her. Y’all can do the google if you want.)

Also, I’ve seen multiple comments from people who say there have been THREE catastrophic plane crashes at Metro in 30 years or so. Nope. I’m sure there have been incidents in which smaller aircraft have crashed or whatever or individual people have died. Those kinds of incidents are tragic but they don’t take up the news cycle for multiple days. I don’t remember anything else where hundreds of people lost their lives and the google doesn’t turn anything up either.

So. The girl, according to all accounts, doesn’t remember the crash. She was raised by her aunt (mom’s sister) and uncle and they WISELY kept her completely out of the spotlight. A few years ago (can’t remember how many), she was included in a documentary featuring sole survivors of plane crashes. I believe she did talk about some of the emotional stuff involved in losing her family all at once and I don’t know what else because I don’t really want to watch it. The important point is that, as an adult, she could make the decision to participate and control her own narrative.

Here on the west side of The Planet Ann Arbor, the Landfill is under a Metro flight path. I can hear a jet as I write this. At this point in the flight (arriving or departing), planes are very visible but far enough above that if you aren’t outside, you usually can’t (or don’t) hear them. I enjoy watching them pass but not as much as I enjoy watching lake freighters thrumming along up and down the upper St. Marys River in front of the moomincabin.

The pic is a black widow spider and her babies. I did not take the pic. Although it might be a simple point-and-shoot, it feels artistic to me. I just hope the photographer didn’t tangle with it. If they had, I’d’ve heard…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 18th, 2025 at 6:07 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.