When I interviewed Yehezkel Caine earlier this year (IJN Generations, July 3), I never dreamed that one of the topics about which we spoke would manifest a few months later. After all, a pilot hijacking a plane is “exceedingly rare,” according to Caine. If anyone should know, it is he. Caine is an expert in aviation medicine, which among its many facets includes the physical and mental health of airline crews.
One of the jobs of a pilot and co-pilot, Caine said, “is to keep an eye on your peer.” Smit Machchhar certainly fulfilled that last week, when his co-pilot Hamam al-Hammami violently attacked him and took over the plane with the most malignant of intentions.
Severely wounded, Machchhar managed to allow passengers into the cockpit to deal with the situation before he became fully unable to do so.
Machchhar wasn’t facing the exact situation Caine and I were discussing, when in 2015 a co-pilot took over a GermanWings aircraft and murdered everyone on board in a deliberate crash landing. For FlyDubai, a 12-country investigation is pointing to the likelihood that al-Hammami’s motivation was like those of the 9/11 terrorists.
The four billion passengers who travel annually can go to sleep reassured that a dangerous mental health episode in the cockpit remains extremely rare. But if any kind of danger arises on an airplane, it’s hard to imagine a better scenario than a plane full of Israelis.
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A tale of two elections
As Israeli and US election approach, Oct. 27 and Nov. 3, respectively, an obvious contrast pops up. To vote in Israel, one must be physically present. In the US the voting process is an ideological battlefield. Some say that requiring voter ID is akin to Jim Crow-era poll taxes while others claim that not requiring voter ID has led to widespread fraud.
I disagree with both of these viewpoints but do fall on the side of in-person voting (with some specific exceptions of course).
Voting is serious business. I would swap Juneteenth for Election Day becoming a federal holiday; it would do far more for civil rights — and civility. In a world of screens, in-person voting brings one into contact with real people. Suddenly the people with whom you may vehemently disagree are your neighbors. As anyone who has ever had to wait in a long queue knows, camaraderie develops.
In-person voting might just be the fix our society is in desperate need of.
shana@ijn.com
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