Most Misleading Headline of the Year Goes To...

Full story here.

Read this first paragraph. 

MULTAN, Pakistan (AP) — Panic gripped passengers when a Pakistan International Airlines plane made unusual noises while returning to Pakistan from Saudi Arabia, but the aircraft safely landed at the Karachi airport, a passenger and airport officials said Thursday.

So this seems pretty standard. Nobody likes planes making weird noises. That’s standard. Planes should be silent except for the inexplainable white noise I’ll hear in my ears for the next 12 hours. However, despite the fact that we a plane passenger can see their end at any second, preceded a strange noise or not- it’s ultimately up to us to recognize that fear as irrational. Just like hearing a bump in my closet as a kid and thinking I’ve got a monster who’s going to eat my eyeballs, I hear a misplaced creak in airline seat and mentally prepare myself to crash into mountain. Maybe it’s not so much an irrational fear as it is us projecting our fear of the unknown. Non-academic lingo, being afraid of noises makes me out to be a pussy. Am I afraid of the scary noises on a plane? Definitely. Do I admit it out loud to my seat mate ? Never. So, as it stands right now we’ve got a large number of sheeple reading this Associate Press story about nothing when they could instead be reading heresablog.com, a blog about everything.

Now read this next paragraph.

Passenger Zafar Iqbal told The Associated Press that the flight crew consoled passengers when the plane made unusual noises and “when the plane landed at the Karachi airport, then the crew shared only this information that there was a fault in a part of the plane but we safely landed.″ Iqbal, who commented after reaching the Multan airport, said passengers prayed and recited verses from the Quran.

He said some passengers were so terrified they thought about travelling to Multan from Karachi by road.

Yeah well see they turned it around on us here. This is a classic misrepresentation of facts. This is a different situation. It’s simply not fair to say these people were JUST afraid of noises, because there was actually something wrong with the plane. Not only that but there was a plane crash just a few weeks ago in the same area. They were not afraid of noises. And not only were they were afraid of things breaking, they were afraid of things breaking that have a PRECEDENT of breaking. They just didn’t know it yet. We’re not talking some middle-aged salesman gripping his armrests like 13 year old Keegs gripped his fragile weenie because the toilet seat squeaked. We’re talking People being afraid of people being afraid that their plane was about to fall apart at 20,000ft. HOW IS THAT NOT A BETTER HEADLINE?

Reminds me of a time in 2017 when I was heading back from a trip to Miami with my friends. We were flying into JFK and with about 30 minutes left in our flight the plane speeds up noticeably and then just dives. I’ve never experienced anything like it and it was fucking terrifying. Lady on my left is praying and tearing at the window. Buddy next to me is closing his eyes thinking of how much he’ll miss spaghetti. I’m petrified thinking we’re about to lose all footage of our shot-for-shot remake of Dirty Dancing. It was awful.

Now, as far as I know it was routine so I always add that caveat at the end of the story. “Yeah at the moment I thought we were about to die but also I’m a giant, sad coward.” Now if the flight attendant had come out after landing and told me that the plane had gone into a dive because the pilot passed out and detached an engine, then I’m telling everybody who’s everybody about my near death experience. I’m never buying a daiquiri again. Give these survivors the credit they deserve AP. You owe all of these souls a Piña Colada.