Oops

I have since responded to an unfavorable review of this essay and challenged the reviewer in this email. My essay was published in Orson Scott Card's paperback book Lost . I stand by what I wrote. From: Clayton Davis: cd19 AT verizon.net To: craig AT craigchilds.co.uk

Mr. Craig,

On Amazon.Com website In your review of Getting Lost: Survival, Baggage, and Starting Over in J. J. Abrams' Lost (Smart Pop series) (Paperback) by Orson Scott Card (Editor), you wrote "Oops" and the Encyclopedia are both out of date, due to events that been aired since the publication of the book.

I am the author of the chapter "Oops" and would like to know which events make it out of date, please.

A Review of

Survivability of

Passengers in thePlane Crash, First

Episode of theTelevision Series

BY CLAYTON DAVIS

 

 

One word: Spoilsport.

Oops. I guess technically that was three words.

Now eleven.

I mean sixteen.

 

 

IN THE OPENING SCENE the hero is in pain lying flat on his back. Regaining

consciousness, he is aware of the burning sun. In terrible pain he

hears screams and sees a bamboo forest. He is overwhelmed with the

realization the plane has been torn into large pieces in midair, and it

has crashed on a Pacific island. He is a doctor and people need his

help.

 

I am a professional aviator with Flight Instructor and Airline Transport

Ratings with forty years experience in everything from gliders to

jets. I find the crash premise totally bereft of logic. First, they hit an

air pocket, and just before the disaster the scene shows oxygen masks

dropping down for passenger use. They probably flew near or into

the Jet Stream and encountered Clear Air Turbulence.

 

Conversation amongst the survivors indicates they were flying at

40,000 feet. If a plane hit turbulence at that altitude it would not be

ripped into large chunks of falling parts. Moreover, should that have

happened, the chunks would have splattered like rotten eggs when

they hit the ground.

 

If the fuselage cabin had been splintered and ripped open there

would not have been any living souls on board before the unplanned

descent started. There is not enough oxygen sufficient for human life

at that altitude. The temperature at 40,000 feet is minus seventy degrees

Fahrenheit. Everyone would have been frozen solid.

 

Clear Air Turbulence at high altitudes is usually the result of disrupted

air around the Jet Stream. This river of air is similar to a fire

hose pouring a vicious stream of water high up in the Earth’s atmosphere.

It flows from west to east. All airline pilots know about it and

recognize the onset of turbulence near the Jet Stream.

 

Pilots are taught to throttle back to Maneuvering Speed upon

encountering turbulence. Maneuvering Speed is sometimes called

Rough Air Speed. That is a slow speed in which abrupt full-control

movement will not overstress the airplane. Turbulence requires control

movement to keep the airplane on an even keel. At cruise speed,

abrupt full-control movement would break off the airplane’s wings.

Or at least this would leave deep dents and wrinkles in the airplane’s

skin. There would also be unseen cracks and stresses within the aircraft

structure.

 

Therefore, it is my belief that the pilots in this episode would never

have allowed their airplane to suffer destruction from turbulence

and air pockets.

 

Turbulence cannot break an airplane into large chunks that provide

a ride for passengers falling to Earth. The most likely thing

would be for a wing to separate and leave the fuselage to plummet

intact to Earth.

 

From 40,000 feet the passengers would immediately be frozen to

death or suffocate from lack of oxygen. In the opening scene of this

television series when the big chunks of airplane smote the planet

Earth they would have broken and splattered like rotten eggs.

 

Dialog among the survivors indicated they thought they would be

located very soon because the aircraft was equipped with a Black Box.

More likely, an Emergency Locating Transmitter would send a tone

for search parties to locate the wreckage.

 

Having one of the engines still spooling in idle as the wreckage lay

on the ground was not possible. The impact would have stopped the

engine if fuel starvation did not do the trick.

 

 “We smell gas,” was heard from one of the passengers. Jet airplanes

are fueled with kerosene or diesel fuel, something called Jet-A. It will

burn but not blow up. And it smells very different from gasoline.

 

After considering the question of survival from such an airplane

mishap alluded to in the first episode of the television series Lost, I

ponder the shock value of using airplanes to introduce a television

program. Television viewers and media consumers, in general, are

fascinated by big loud machines that transport hundreds of passengers

in a confined space high above Earth. This fascination is not

related, in any realistic way, to the risks and realities of airplane disasters.

 

But what if the pilot was incompetent or poorly trained? Does this

make the events somewhat more likely? The answer is no.

 

The Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) is the government agency

that makes sure all pilots are qualified. Pilot certification is based on

accumulated experience. The FAA issues certificates which authorize

people to conduct operations in airplanes, helicopters, gliders,

balloons, and probably anything else that will fly. Listed under the

requirements are a certain number of hours. All the hours are cumulative,

starting from the first lesson. For example, the requirement of

ten night takeoffs and landings to qualify for the Commercial Certificate

would be satisfied when you completed them for the Private Pilot

requirements.

 

Here are the rules for different pilots: a student pilot must be sixteen

years old to fly solo and have a Third Class medical certificate.

No, that doesn’t mean the pilot is less healthy than everyone else. It

means the medical certificate need not be renewed as often as Second

Class and First Class.

 

A Private Pilot must be seventeen years old, have a Third Class

medical certificate, plus forty hours’ flying experience.

 

Next is the Commercial Pilot certificate. It is for people who can

and may be the co-pilot in the right front cockpit seat of a commercial

airliner. That person must be eighteen years old and have a Second

Class medical certificate. 200 hours of flying experience is the

 

minimum requirement to be a Commercial Pilot, and that pilot can

also be rated as a Flight Instructor to give flying lessons.

 

You may want to know what kind of pilot the captain in front of the

airliner is. He/she is an Airline Transport Pilot who is at least twenty-

three years old with a First-Class medical certificate and 1,500 hours

flying experience.

 

Would any of these minimally qualified pilots be flying a commercial

airplane? Not likely. Ask any pilot you meet and the answer is

the same. It is a long, hard process to land a job with an airline company.

 

 

Each and every pilot is given a flight check by an instructor every

two years. It is called the Biennial Flight Review. This mandatory

flight review is about as welcome as income taxes or a dental appointment.

Sure, you can fly without it. There are some drawbacks,

however. Your insurance policy will no longer be any good. Plus, one

other thing, the Federal Aviation Administration will probably put

you on their list of Most Watched Pilots. Make that agency mad and

you’re in a heap-o-trouble. Like dental appointments and taxes, Biennial

Flight Reviews come due.

 

There are two quick ways to accomplish the Biennial Flight Review.

Fly with an instructor or find an instructor willing to sign your

flight log over a cup of coffee without flying with you. It all depends

on how well he knows you. That “coffee shop sign-off” is highly illegal

and frowned upon by the FAA.

 

The long, hard way is to train for another rating, perhaps the Commercial

Pilot certificate. You’d be good for another two years. Even

Airline Transport Pilots get a Biennial Flight Review.

 

The bottom line is that the pilots flying that ill-fated airliner in the

television series Lost were unlikely to allow total destruction of their

flying machine.

 

In my informed opinion, the script writers would have been more

believable using a yacht and running it aground. Gilligan’s Island already

did that. Okay, let’s make the airplane disaster a little more realistic.

Have it run out of fuel and land it on a wide, sandy beach.

 

Running out of fuel can conceivably occur under conditions where

the crew might be lost and off course. That would be more accurate

than having large chunks of airframe find an island and conveniently

plunk down right on the beach at the edge of the jungle.

Lost is a very entertaining series, with many fantastic and hard-

to-explain events, from polar bears on a tropical island to bad-luck

lottery numbers. But perhaps the most fantastic event was the crash

itself. I’m looking forward to the explanation.

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