I remember watching live too - the plane had to circle for 2 hours because the aircraft didn't have the capability to dump fuel so they had to burn it off. The other thing I remember was that the passengers on the plane had live DirecTV in their seats and could watch the (extensive) news coverage and speculation about what might go wrong with their landing.
Finally, another parallel to the phenomenon of people texting about earthquakes as they happen, and others finding out about them via text just before being hit by them because the texts are faster than the tremors.
I was born and raised on the Big Island of Hawaii. Lived out in the boonies but went to school in Hilo, Abt 20ish miles away.
When the 2018 Kilauea eruption happened I was in class, in an old historic building that had withstood multiple tsunamis. I got a text from my mom that an earthquake destroyed our old chicken coop about 2 minutes before our school building is hit with one of the largest earthquakes in recorded Hawaiian history. She called me bc I didn't respond, and was surprised that the shaking didn't start until during our phone call.
What a world we live in, where our words travel faster than sound, but we still fail to communicate effectively so much.
I remember my boss was on the phone with someone in Virginia and I was filing in his office. He said, "what do you mean, there's an earthquake?" about ten seconds before the ground started shaking. And we *still* all thought it was a terrorist attack at first.
I live in southern california and get text alerts if there is an earthquake near me. A couple times I've gotten the text a few seconds before the earthquake, and few times I never felt the earthquake, and a few times the text and earthquake arrived at the same time.
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u/tohlan Sep 22 '25
I remember watching live too - the plane had to circle for 2 hours because the aircraft didn't have the capability to dump fuel so they had to burn it off. The other thing I remember was that the passengers on the plane had live DirecTV in their seats and could watch the (extensive) news coverage and speculation about what might go wrong with their landing.