I watched the news reports of the Quantas 747 with a hole in it as they were coming in. What’s amusing is the media reaction. We’ve had the usual stuff about "terror at 30000 feet" and "passengers feared for their lives".

Problem is, we also have video footage. It doesn’t really back those headlines up. 

We can see passengers wearing oxygen masks and remaining calm while the flight attendants keep smiling. Nobody is running around screaming, and there’s a noticable shortage of stuff flying around or huge holes. The only thing most apparently noticed was a bang, followed by an emergency descent and masks falling from the ceiling. 

Of course, once it had landed the media were able to find at least two people who spun a teary tale of how scared they were that they’d never see family again. It’s the same with all of these things. 

What they missed, however, is the fact that this is a case of everything else working as it should. The panel blew out. The pilot realised something was amiss and dived to an altitude at which the air was breathable. Thanks to the design of the aircraft the missing panel did not cause it to fall apart. But that wouldn’t make such a good story would it?

You get these people everywhere now. After a channel ferry has had to hang around off Dover for a few hours due to rough seas there’ll always be some shrieking idiot saying it was "like Titanic". Well, it was a ship. Not many icebergs off Dover and I think all the passengers got off this one alive.

The sooner we in the Western world relearn the robustness of our Grandparents in response to crises the better. Panic helps no-one. An awful lot of people hailed as heroes are those who did not panic, but just got on with it and sorted the problem out as best they could. Those Quantas passengers behaved in a perfectly normal manner, despite what our Hollywood-addled media would have you believe.