The poor people in the 'plane, would they have suffered?

[hellymelly]

The news is so shocking, have avoided the tv news for days but read the papers today. Combined with the terrible images of injured children in Gaza it is all so upsetting. I can't help but think about the passengers in the downed airoplane, would they have been alive when they hit the ground? Or would they have passed out from lack of oxygen before then? I just hope that they knew nothing and were killed instantly but I realise that is probably unlikely. .

Speculating about the details of someone's murder in net forums is not humane, caring or human nature. It is appropriating someone else's tragedy to personalise it. How appallingly self-aborsbed.

I can only imagine how offensive I'd find it if a bunch of randoms were speculating about the details of my child's murder to assuage themelseves. WTAF?

And those children were not going to visit their grandparents, they were going home to start school.

What Diorella said - its one of the better facets of humanity, caring to some degree about the fate of others you do not know.

Their anger should perhaps be directed to the Dutch representative to the UN, who opened precisely these details to a global audience.

I had thought such deaths were extremely quick, but he made an on-the-record public statement giving harrowing detail. The 'speculation' here is far less detailed and intrusive than the (presumably medically sound) official version from the Dutch Government.

i cant understand why anyone would dwell on this either who didnt have a relative on the plane.

my dsis died in a car crash - and i have often tortured myself over her last moments...
but i also deal with a lot of car crashes at work - and i dont torture myself with their last moments, because if i did, i could not do my best by them.

i think its natural if you are personally involved to wonder if a loved felt pain or fear, but if we were all to speculate generally over every stranger who died i think we would go a bit mad....it is a bit morbid.

....... and yet expat, you crop up on all of these threads, whether it's Peaches Geldof or the victims of MH17, to tell people off for their interest. To make them feel bad for caring, to tell them their interest isn't human, it's wrong.

Regularly you comment that posters are wrong to comment. You are reacting correctly, other posters are reacting wrongly. And yet you tell others they are self-absorbed.

I'm sorry but you haven't got the right to tell others how to react or how to feel or how to post, or how interested to be. You haven't got the right to go around telling people they are ghouls for caring about something that was in the news. People care and people communicate.

I never claimed the right to FA. I express my opinion within talk guidelines and will continue to do so however I see fit.

Anyone is more than entitled to disagree, naturally, within guidelines. That's the nature of the board. Scolding or lecturing won't stop me from continuing to do this,many as I do not name change, it's easy to spot.

I still and always will find speculating on the details of the death of strangers in the news self-absorbed, immature and pathetic behaviour.

I do, in fact, have the right to express any opinion on here so long as I adhere to the talk guidelines, as do any posters.

You see it as caring, I see it as ghoulish.

OP i understand completely why you posted. I have tried really hard to avoid the reporting and yet snippets of information still manage to get into my brain. I think it would be impossible not to think about it even for a fleeting second as there is news of it everywhere and its understandable that this thought stuck with you as even with a conscious effort some thoughts are hard to dismiss completely.

Yes, but it's not your place to tell others how they ought to feel, react or post following a tragedy. If you find others' posts immature, pathetic and self-absorbed that's ok, but don't keep posting to tell others that they are self-absorbed immature, pathetic. There is no one correct way to react. Allow other people the right to have a reaction.

I don't feel this is just someone else's tragedy though, entirely. Surely it is also a tragedy for all of us, and that is the very basis of community? The villagers in the area where the 'plane landed have said that they will say prayers every year for the dead, even though those dead are not relatives of theirs. And in that I don't mean to minimise the grief of families who are directly affected, because that is personal to each and every family, but we can be indirectly affected and find this sort of event profoundly upsetting, even though the people are strangers to us, surely? That is why I have knitted squares for the woolly hugs blankets, and all sorts of other things along those lines, because I do care about other people, even if they are people I haven't ever met, and I believe strongly that in a society that so celebrates the cult of the individual, acting as a community is particularly important. The flip side is then that one can get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of horrendous news reports, as I did with the news this week, and I looked for reassurance here, when perhaps it would have been better not to have posted. I don't think I am "appallingly self absorbed" and I find that a really hurtful comment. I have always lived in communities where taking care of each other is the norm, I was brought up to help strangers in need , and sometimes I then feel painfully impotent when there is no way of helping. I am sure that is true for many people watching the news this week, clearly i am not alone.

hellymelly+1 you're not alone. I'm also shocked reading about what's going on in Israel this week. So much news, so constantly available.

Caring is one thing is one thing, speculating about the details of their death is another. Some have done this.

do you want to use up energy telling people what to think though? Is that energy that you have to spare?

i have avoided all news. i dont watch tv news. i dont buy papers. of course i feel very sad for those poor poor people on that plane - but i dont want to think about their last moments, whether they felt pain, or fear, i think its a horrible thing to speculate on - what if they did feel pain? were conscious? what good is this doing?

expat is speaking as the mother of a child who died, sadly, so to her, all this dissecting of others fear may well appear to be distasteful. i understand where she is coming from.

i have done a fab job of avoiding all of this - if i want to watch the dutch minister regaling us with how the dead may have suffered i would turn on the tv....

i understand people are sad, and i think when you have kids you empathise so much more with people - but i cant see why anyone would want to hear or read about those harrowing details either, much less discuss them on a parenting forum....but thats just me. im not unfeeling. i find it tragic. but really....reliving their last moments? no thanks.

Thank you Diorella for voicing what I too had been thinking, but I'm a far more eloquent way.

These questions are not ghoulish. This thread is not gleeful speculation. These are normal, human trains of thought. No one has any right to berate others for voicing them.

I thought it was a reasonable question and perfectly normal post until the mention of the look on a deceased child's face.

There was absolutely no need for that, pure speculation and regurgitation of sensationalist news that you thought was oh so harrowing yet chose to repeat it?

I understand why you would empathise with the passengers but not why you wish to know the details of their final moments in such detail, that is what I disagree with.

What Diorella said.

You do this a lot Expat, and in a way that makes people feel very uncomfortable about disagreeing with your opinions.

If people feel uncomfortable about expressing thei annonymous opinion on an annonymousannonymous forum because of an anonymous poster then perhaps they shouldn't let their delicate little souls onto the internet

Holy shit that was a long anonymous :o

You see it as telling people what to think, and take it personally, on a huge, anonymous Internet forum. That is your lookout.

I see it as expressing an opinion on an anonymous Internet forum. It doesn't take any more energy than typing.

If people have a problem with opinions on a forum, it's, well, as pointed out, their problem.

OP I don't think you are being ghoulish in the slightest.

I share your hope that the suffering was minimal and have found the scientifically/medically knowledgable posts on the thread reassuring myself.

I do think talking about the expression on the children's faces is a step too far. And I didn't see what the Dutch man said at the UN, but I don't think I want to.

Jim Swire whose daughter died in the Lockerbie bombing wrote to the DT the day after this tragedy talking about this very subject as he had obviously done a lot of research to put his own mind at rest. His conclusion was that they would have been unconscious in seconds.

Reading on here that some might have regained consciousness as the plane descended is horrifying.