Infallible

March 31 2020

In level flight

there is no sense of motion.

The fizzy drink

in a clear plastic container

doesn't quiver or slosh

on its seat-back tray.

A steady current of air

from the overhead nozzle

is brushing your face,

a constant cooling flow.

While the flight attendants

are taking their break

the serving trolley's been stowed away

the central aisle is vacant.

And meanwhile

in the subdued light of the placid interior

you flirt with sleep.

Your eyes fluttering closed

to the engines' steady drone,

their white noise

tucking you in

like a snug wool blanket.

In the cramped fuselage

of the long narrow cabin

at 30,000 feet, 500 miles an hour.

Where the cold rarefied air

would be instant death.

Wondering . . .

   . . . if the skin

of woven carbon fibre

can withstand all that force

   . . . if the mechanic

might not have crimped some crucial wire

when he slammed the access door

   . . . if the two engines

will keep purring reliably

both starboard and port

   . . . if the pilot

in his captain's formal attire

has had enough sleep,

and not more than one drink

that restless night before

   . . . if the air-traffic controller

in his cool dark bunker

in the ghostly light of screens

has gotten over the divorce

   . . . and if the laggard goose

hasn't left the gaggle and lost his way,

sucked in

to the hungry jet engine;

his fat feathered body

shattering the blades

of its rapidly whirling compressor.

Trust

bad luck

contingency.

But they say little goes wrong

on level flight

at cruising speed.

The mind races.

The great turbine continues to roar.

There is a lot of talk these days about contingency, complex interdependent systems, cascading failures, knock-on effects, and best laid plans.

So this poem comes to mind.

I'm not a fearful or nervous flyer. More of a fatalistic one. And either way, not at all enthusiastic.

I trust technology, but know it isn't infallible. I trust human error less, but count on it happening on someone else's flight.

I think about 500 miles an hour, and about Newton's law that an object in steady motion is no different than an object at rest. Then think back to the very earliest trains. Maybe 15, 20 miles an hour? And there were genuine fears then that this would be far too much for the human body to withstand. That terrible things would happen to our internal organs. That the speed of a horse was a natural and sensible limit. That mankind was being presumptuous – again. (This, by the way, is where the poem began: a segue from a modern jetliner to the first rudimentary passenger trains. But I couldn't make it work, and wouldn't have known where to take it from there if I could.)

How remarkable. From the Wright brothers to a modern jetliner in less than 50 years.