His lucky day

I’m departing from the bagpipe theme for this post to comment on an article that appeared in the Bangor Daily News on Tuesday: “Mail plane pilot unscathed after crashing on Islesboro.” Read it, then come back.

This article is interesting to me for two reasons: first, I like to hear of people surviving things that could very well kill them, and second, the pilot is a friend of mine. First and foremost, I’m glad that he’s ok. I haven’t spoken with him since this happened, but I did send him an email to say that I heard about his incident and that I’m glad he came out of it intact.

Before I started talking about the article, there’s something you need to know about me.

I don’t believe in luck. I’m not superstitious, and therefore I don’t believe in good luck, bad luck, lucky charms (except the cereal of course), unlucky charms, curses, jinxes, omens, guardian angels, blessings, or predestination. Call me a naysayer if you wish, but I prefer skeptic. That doesn’t mean that I doubt things, but rather that I apply some common sense before deciding to believe in them. While we’re on the subject, I do believe in coincidence, that things can happen and not mean anything, and that dreams are just an excursion of the subconscious and don’t reveal any truths or premonitions. I  don’t believe that bad things (or celebrity deaths if you like) come in threes, and I don’t believe that there is an energy field created by all living things that permeates the universe and binds it together. This last one is why I’ll never be a Jedi Knight, which is too bad because it would be so cool.

So let’s get back to that article. There’s a quote I’d like to comment on, which comes from Fred Porter, the director of public safety in the town where the crash happened: “[The pilot] was a little shook up when I arrived on-scene. It’s one of those good stories. This is a good day for him to buy a lottery ticket.”

Now I were the pilot I’d be shook up too (maybe shaken up, but this is Maine and we don’t talk that way). The fact that I know the guy is a bit unsettling, so I can’t imagine what he’s been feeling. I also agree that it is “one of those good stories.” Like I said above, I like hearing about things like this. I also like stories of people overcoming tremendous adversity to achieve their dreams, so I’m a sucker for the human interest stories broadcast during the Olympics.

But the last sentence I don’t like, the one I highlighted in bold. Yes, the guy survived plane crash, and I’ll say he got lucky in regards to the circumstances of the crash (completely contradicting my earlier paragraph, I know), but I’ll attribute his survival to his training and experience as a pilot instead of the guardian angel looking over his shoulder.

What I like even less is that it implies that one lucky thing carries over for the rest of the day. If he had gone out and bought a lottery ticket, his chances of winning the jackpot would have been… the same as if he’d bought a ticket any other day of the year. Even if he had a certain amount of luck for the day, I’d say that he used up all of it in the crash and wouldn’t have any left over for the lottery. There’s also the fact that the drawing wouldn’t be on the same day as the crash, so I’m sure that would make things a bit more complicated. True there are daily drawings, but if it really is his lucky day why settle for the small jackpots?

I always think of this sort of thing when I’m watching sports. Athletes themselves tend to be very superstitious; tales abound of players wearing the same socks or not washing their undergarments when they’re playing well. Sometimes the fans are just as bad: I remember an NFL commercial a few years back where a guy in a bar was watching the and waved his pickle at the TV in disgust; the next played they scored. The pickle waving is now a tradition in the bar whenever the team needs to score. It happened once, so it must work, right? A bit closer to home: my dad has a football jersey of a certain player on his team, and he stopped wearing it while watching games because it seemed that every time he wore it the team lost. I explain it this way: think of the tens of thousands of people watching a game at the stadium, and the millions more watching at home. How do the actions of just one (or a small group) of those people affect what happens on the field? It doesn’t, of course.

So no, I don’t think my friend was having a lucky day when he survived the plane crash, I think it was just one of those things that happened, combined with his 20+ years of experience as a small plane pilot. Some of you might not agree with me, but I think the pilot would.