Headed to the Airport Again Tomorrow: It Feels Riskier

I live in Gloucester, MA, known as a lobster (and fishing) capital. Before I moved here, I thought lobsters were all the same color. It turns out lobsters can be found in a wide range of colors and, importantly, a wide range of sexual orientations. Lobsters, it turns out, are remarkable creatures. And, blue lobsters are rare, one in two million. The rarest among the blue lobsters is a blue cotton candy lobster, one in 100 million. I’ve seen one right here in a marine center in Gloucester. That is the special blue lobster pictured above.

These rare lobsters are not the ones we eat (generally speaking), although apparently, regardless of shell color, all lobsters taste the same. True, there is variation of taste that occurs but that is largely due to lobster age and size and storage and cooking method and recipe, not color).

Risk

The risk of dying in a commercial airline crash in the US is, apparently one in 11 million, a rarity by any measure. Rarer than finding a blue lobster (not as rare as a cotton candy one). But, after the DCA crash (and I was flying into DCA the day of the crash (1/29) and out of DCA the day after the crash (1/30)), I’m scared.

This isn’t rational thinking. I get that. But, when you are close to risk (as in seeing rescue boats in the water and rescheduling a flight because the DCA airport was closed), risk feels like it is in your backyard (because it is).

Folks tell me that flying in the next few days (including my flight out of DCA the day after the crash) are among the safest times to be in the air. Everyone within the aviation system is on high alert and acting better and with greater appreciation for life and risk and the need for decency. And, best as I can tell at the somber DCA on January 30, 2025, folks were moving quietly, being respectful and recognizing the trauma that abounds and abounded.

So, tomorrow (Feb. 2), I head off to CA in a commercial jet from Logan Airport. Logan isn’t a peachy place to fly from or into if the truth be told. Water is everywhere and I am fully aware (since the weather today is snow and ice) that planes have skidded off the Logan runway. I haven’t searched the safety record of the CA airport where I am landing. Ignorance presents a certain kind of bliss.

Now, driving to CA isn’t safer than a plane by a long shot. And true, a train is safer that a car. (For the record, a plane is safer than a train… who knew?) Yet, both driving and training take more time than I have at my disposal to go coast to coast. This means I fly tomorrow and navigate my risk and find some peace in the added levels of caution that abound in the aftermath of horrific tragedy.

Danger We Can Control

I recently wrote a piece about making a report to the medical affairs office of the MA Department of Motor Vehicle. There is an individual where I live who should not be driving. The reasons are plentiful, made all the more ironic since some of her trips are to a church! So, ponder this: one drives dangerously to/from a place of worship, a place where one honors the rights of the other as one threatens the lives of others to get there. And, I feel very satisfied with reporting her dangerous driving, something I realized I could not ignore and had to do after the DCA crash.

Here’s why identifying and controlling risks to the extent we can has meaning, even if there is blow-back (in the above case from the driver and her family I am sure).

Start here.

We can’t control lots of risk. Flying in a “tin can” requires that we rely on airport maintenance workers, pilots in our plane and other planes, air traffic controllers at the end points and in-between. In short, once we buckle up, there is only so much we can do to improve our risks.

True, if we see smoke out the window or smell smoke in the cabin, we can and should report it. (That’s why, as another example, smoking inside a condo building or outside under a ledge of a building that is constructed of wood is bad. There could be a fire and there is secondhand smoke too). If we see something odd like a passenger carrying a weapon or dsyregulating, we can get flight attendants to intervene. We can avoid drinking alcohol in the air (our metabolism changes at altitude) and we can limit the food we eat on a flight (it often isn’t good or healthy). We can drink fluids galore and we can move about and exercise in our seat (judiciously) while in the air to prevent blood clots.

And, in our day to day lives, we can mitigate some risks. And we should. The list of risks we can lessen is long. Ponder these easy ones. And this list goes well beyond stopping impaired drivers from driving.

We can make sure our sidewalks are sanded in the winter. We can make sure we have lights on the outside of our front doors so we and visitors don’t fall at night. We can make sure that, whenever possible, we use vehicles with technology that signals when we are moving into the wrong lane or when someone is passing us on the left or right. Technology addresses our blind spots while on the road.

Here’s a thought: might it be an idea for older folks (say 75 and up) with impairments to drive newer cars with these advances? And, if they can’t afford them, perhaps their adult children can chip in; and if they can’t, it might be safer and wiser to stop driving if one has a way old car. The available guardrails are missing.

We can exercise restraint and avoid driving if the weather is bad and the roads are slick and icy. We can exercise restraint too on how much alcohol we imbibe at restaurants before we drive home. (Drink coffee and wait.) We can avoid high heeled shoes or boots when walking on cobblestones (don’t I know!) or marble floors. We can cross streets at the walkways rather than jaywalking (oops). We can wear gloves in sub-zero weather to prevent frost bite.

And these are just the things we can do protect ourselves; there is lots we can do to protect others affirmatively and reduce their risks. Let’s save that long long for another blog and speak here in generalities.

My Point

Here’s my point here: there are plentiful risks outside our control; these are challenging risks. They are hard to navigate. Then, there are risks over which we have control and choice, and we all draw the line for what risks we will undertake with our own lives differently. Look, some folks do risky sports, knowing the risks. We play the stock market. We visit casinos.

But, there are also risks we can mitigate for others. If you don’t protect yourself, that is a choice one makes. But, if you fail to mitigate the risks of others when you can do that, shame on you. If the crash at DCA teaches us anything positive, it is to do all we can to protect the other. Life is short; life is filled with uncertainty. Bad things happen.

Here’s what is certain and it serves as an exemplar:

If you are impaired, whether due to age or medications or lack of sight or hearing or have slow reflexes or some combination of these items, don’t harm others by driving a metal can on our shared roadways. (Don’t drive a boat or a plane either.). We don’t let pilots fly the tin cans in the sky if they are impaired. Engineers aren’t permitted to steer trains either if they are inebriated. Why would or should we let drivers who are impaired go out on our roads?

Like the sky, our roads are crowded and there aren’t air traffic controllers to guide our journeys. (Yes, there are some police who can catch us speeding or driving with a broken headlight or weaving across lanes.) So, start small and step up and speak out to help make all of us safer in a world filled with uncertainty and risk.

In short, let’s limit the risks in our lives to the extent we can and then work to manage in the balance of the world where risks outside our control abound. We feel the horror and anguish of the plane crash at DCA; let’s try to limit injury and death to others if and when we can. It is the least we can do in a world filled with tragedy and trauma.