Saturday, January 17, 2009

A Thing of Beauty

This is Coast Guard surveillance video.  After approximately 2 minutes of a fairly static scene, you can see a splash line to the left. The video zooms in and you can see the passengers exiting.

For me the most amazing thing is that the picture very quickly pans right to capture the first commercial ferry steaming to the plane.  It reaches the plane about FOUR minutes after it ditches.  Two others join the fray and in less than 10 minutes, people are being rescued.

Hollywood could not write this scene any better.

3 comments:

Sidhe said...

All I can say is, "wow!" This is a fantastic clip.

Everyday I am saddened by the way people treat each other but things like this remind me that there is hope for us humans. I just wish that it didn't always take something so scary to bring out the kindness in human beings.

Happy days!

Aliceson said...

Truly amazing!

laurie said...

this story is one of the most amazing i've ever read or seen. i cannot imagine being herded out to stand on an airplane wing in the middle of a freezing river.

the video also shows someone sliding off the wing into the water, and someone else crouching down and hauling them back up.

it is absolutely inspiring.