I did not agree with him then, and still do not...

I did not agree with him then, and still do not...

... But disagree with him less (my ego prevents me from saying I agree with him, howsoever lightly it could be).

There was a senior employee in the consultancy company I was employed in, and he took much pride in how he sees things differently (based on structural designs as developed and deployed in Russia). It was not just his effort to distance himself from all of us, the hoi polloi, but his smugness (many characteristics one can ascribe to me! Like poles repel each other, after all) that rubbed me the wrong way.

One day a heated argument ensured about safety becomes a concern only after a disaster. Today, if my senior remembered it at all, he should feel vindicated. In response to airplanedisaster in Allahabad, the Indian government has instituted a body of experts to find ways and write-up a report on how to avoid such incidents reoccurring. “Ha, ha, I told you so,” I hear my senior guffawing, but with a sneer! Not so fast, I tell him.

My argument about three decades ago was not that society does not respond to disasters in the way he described. Rather, when a disaster has been averted and none being aware it does not register in the conscience of anyone−the professionals, regulators, the constructors, and fabricators, the first responders including medical professionals, disaster management authorities, layman, and lastly, religionists.

It is not outside the capability of the professionals to design a super-safe anything, but it would cost a bundle. Is the system of governance designed to accommodate this luxurywithin its public fiduciary responsibility? If it is a luxury yacht as you go around the globe in a multi-million dollar super-yacht, affordable only by a select few and about which the nation can crow for decades to come, what is its implication for government finances? Typically, the government would allow the owner to write-off that cost under some head or the other. You see, the word super appears readily and nonchalantly. Let me know, if other than the cruise ship workers, any layman was on the ill-fated Titanic. I doubt very much.

Does anyone remember the L’Aquila earthquake in Italy in 2009 C.E? It is good to revisit that even if you remembered it. A team of experts in earthquake discounted the possibility of an earthquake in L’Aquila; as bad luck would have it, they were asked to assess the probability as a crackpot pseudo scientist posited that that Radon concentration is high in the air and this foretold the earthquake. The team of earthquake experts discounted that too. Yet, the earthquake happened and the team were imprisoned. I believe it was the author of the report who was incarcerated while the others were released on appeal (there might be errors in some details−only in details−as this disaster happened fifteen years ago; please excuse).

Just for the asking: under that scenario, would any expert (comb for one, worldwide) come out and say positively that any plane ever taking off from any airport (again worldwide)guarantee safe landing at the destination? And, given the reputation of airlines, add the following: would their checked−in baggage come down the carousel at baggage retrieval?

It is all probability. As biologists and neurologists aver our brains are hardwired for probability, they need to go back to school to learn about human beings in the 21st century! Apparently, people are asking how in that cataclysmic event one passenger, only one, survived. They are fishing for controversies. Go tell them about probability. I did, but I don’t think I got to the neo cortex of the brain in that human being. Sad.

Now, to get to where I started. One should be careful in extending any aposterioriknowledge. You know a disaster happened and prior to that there were these sequential events. Taking the cue from these prior events we should not have allowed the plane to fly. Someone screwed up. Go get him/her!

My senior is wrong in asserting that disasters can only be responded to and not foretold. This is correct only if we define disaster as having caused losses. There could have been any number of collisions that were averted due to the alert pilot, train driver, the ship helmsmen, and others, including alert drivers on the highway. These people took their responsibility seriously, and in the case of the Allahabad air disaster, the pilot was helpless. He could not have done anything, as I now understand. The experts in Italy bet the wrong way. 

If we understand the nonsense term “near miss” in aviation as “near collision”, and include all the “near collisions” as disasters with a lower weightage, say between zero and one, than a realized disaster (at weightage 1.0), we are on a truly meaningful platform and my senior’s idea goes for a toss.

Raghuram Ekambaram