In a spectacle that would have made Gibbon blanch, we are treated to the latest pantomime of modern heroism: bystanders smashing jet windows to rescue passengers after a crash. The footage is visceral, the narrative intoxicating. But let us pause before we canonise the mob. For every shattered window, we must ask: at what cost to the edifice of expertise?
The crash itself is still under investigation, but the response is telling. The UK pilots union is reviewing safety protocols, an act that suggests not a catastrophic failure of machinery but a creeping rot in the culture of aviation. Once, we trusted pilots as the guardians of the skies; now, we are one viral video away from replacing them with the nearest crowd with a smartphone and a brick.
This is the age of the amateur, where every passenger is a potential rescuer and every expert is a suspect. We have traded the studied calm of the cockpit for the fevered chaos of the tarmac. The bystanders acted, yes. But acting is not the same as knowing. The mob does not have the training to assess structural integrity, to weigh the risk of explosion against the urge to 'help.' They see a window, they see a trapped soul, and they act on instinct. This instinct is noble, but it is also dangerous. It is the same instinct that toppled statues and stormed airports: a conviction that passion trumps procedure.
Consider the historical parallel: the fall of Rome was not merely a collapse of walls but a collapse of institutions. The barbarians did not smash the gates; they were let in by a populace that had lost faith in the legionaries. Today, we see a similar erosion of faith in our pilots. Every delay, every missed connection, every uncomfortable flight becomes a grievance. And when a crash occurs, the grievance mutates into action. The windows are smashed not because the passengers needed immediate evacuation but because the bystanders needed to feel relevant.
And what of the pilots union? Their review of safety protocols is the bureaucratic equivalent of a shrug. They will likely produce a report recommending more laminated cards and perhaps a sternly worded memo about crowd control. They will miss the deeper malady: a society that no longer trusts its experts. The pilot, once a figure of authority and respect, is now just another employee to be overruled by the will of the people. The union, in its defensive crouch, only reinforces this perception. By reviewing protocols, they imply that the fault lies in the system, not in the overzealousness of the amateurs.
This is not to condemn the bystanders; they are merely symptoms of a broader decadence. Our culture fetishises the ordinary, the relatable, the uncredentialled. We celebrate the viral hero while ignoring the quiet competence of the professional. The pilot who spends decades mastering his craft is invisible; the passenger who swings a fire extinguisher is a star. This inversion of values is a sign of intellectual and moral decay.
The crash, when the investigation concludes, will likely be attributed to mechanical failure or human error. But the real failure is cultural. We have forgotten that some tasks require deference to expertise. The skies were once ruled by the priesthood of pilots, their authority unquestioned. Now, they are just another trade union, negotiating safety in a world that values spontaneity over system. The shattered windows are a metaphor for a society that breaks what it does not understand.
Let us hope the review is more than a palliative. Let us hope it reaffirms the primacy of trained judgment over impulsive action. But I am not optimistic. The mob has already had its victory: it has been seen on the news, its heroism validated. And the pilots union, meanwhile, will convene in a room somewhere, reviewing procedures, while the culture outside cheers the amateur. Rome burned, and they fiddled. Today, the windows are broken, and we applaud.
We should not. We should mourn the loss of a world where expertise mattered, where the pilot was the final authority, and where a crash was a tragedy, not an opportunity for a populist uprising. Until we recover that world, every crash will be a circus. And every window will be a target.
