Falling Men

News media and social media are awash with pictures and footage of Afghans running alongside and some even clinging tot he sides of departing U.S. military aircraft. The most macabre footage is of two black dots falling from the a plane in mid-air--bodies of men who were presumably clinging to the sides of the plane when it took off. Yes, not hiding in the wheel bays like stowaways but clinging to the sides of a plane as though it were a bus. How desperate (and clueless) does one have to be to take such as a drastic step, with a 100% chance of death? Or did they get caught up in a mass hysteria? The news got me reading about plane stowaways, 3 out of 4 of whom die on the journey. It was pretty gruesome reading. There are many ways to die as a stowaway--being crushed by the retracting wheels of the plane, hypothermia and hypoxia. But, apparently, the most common way is death by falling to the ground close to your destination. People who are not killed by hypothermia or hypoxia lose consciousness. As the plane starts descending to land, temperature and air pressure rises, reversing the hibernation state. But, if that doesn't happen quickly enough, stowaways are still unconscious when the plane lowers its wheels for landing and tumble  to their deaths.