Uhm, isn't the sarcasm sign always on, on this site?
At least I assume it is, so, yes there are several reasons why all this happened: May be the pilot was just a wee bit drunk, so that, uhm that's always worked as an excuse in some courts in Montana, I think, but I could be wrong.
The traffic controllers may not have seen the plane hitting the lights. Because it was dark, and they
look at their screens which does not show any of these lights. So I give them a pass on that.
But yes, does it make sense to build any takeoff and landing strip anywhere - with lights that a plane actually could hit? Shouldn't these lights be further away? Or further down? So they cannot be hit?
This alone makes you wonder how far out of the usual path this plane must have been...
And how do I explain the luck that this plane didn't fully decompressurize during its flight? Well, there
must have been a cage of 17 chinchillas in the baggage hold, who escaped early on, before takeoff and these fluffy creatures must have been sucked towards the 46 cm gash during the flight and prevented more rapid decompression. Upon landing, these poor chinchillas crawled back into their cage, and none of the passengers and crew ever found out that their lives were saved by 17 chinchillas. Perfect explanation. Makes as much sense as any political statement.
How do I think that I know this? Because if a passing crew member checked out the baggage hold, on a mere hunch, saw the gash, and decided to fix it with duck-tape (Hmm, do the Brits know what duck-tape is?), then we would not have heard the end of "The amazing duck-tape hero of flight # XYZ".
Ok, ok, it could have been the outflow control valve, but that's a cold, prosaic, technological explanation. Chinchillas are much fluffier, fuzzier, newsworthier, so I have to stick with my story. Overall, we have to be glad just to be lucky.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
