Most people think that when you die in a plane crash, your crossing into the afterlife, is very sudden.
The passengers on the planes that hit the Twin Towers, vaporised in a fraction of a second.
If it has to happen, surely my first choice.
However, many plane accidents give you plenty of time to realise, what is about to happen and plenty more to contemplate your destiny.
Japan Airlines, Flight 123 suffered a severe structural failure and decompression, including the loss of the vertical stabilizer. Someone on the ground, even managed to take a photograph of the doomed plane.
For approximately 30 minutes, the pilots tried the best they could to fly this aircraft, while the plane was pitching and rolling uncontrollably.
30 minutes is an awfully long time.
Many passengers managed to fight their own panic and wrote “goodbye notes” to their families.
This is the only reason, I decided to write this answer: not to scare someone who is already afraid to fly (including myself), but to give credit to these man and women that for no-fault of their part, found themselves in a hopeless situation and still managed to find the inner strength to focus their last thoughts to their loved ones rather than themselves.
Nobody can tell how they would react in those extreme situations: it can’t be neither learned nor taught.
After we peel away all the layers imposed by society, life experiences and even self-preservation, what does remain?
The plane, will end its path in the side of a mountain, 100 kilometres from Tokyo.
For some of the passengers, this wasn’t even the end of the road.
Some, survived the impact, but died during the night for the delayed rescue operation.
Yumi Ochiai was one of the four that ultimately made it.
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