There are few things that attract the news cameraman.  Close ups shots of children, shots of tragedy, people crying or even death.  They also get attracted to flying planes.   If a cricket match is organised in a venue near an airport, you can be assured of video footage of planes flying at some point of time or the other.

The shots are considered even more attractive if a crash is captured on camera.  Channels will be ready to spend a fortune on amateur footage capturing a plane crash.  Some years a holidayer caught a plane crashing into water from his domestic video camera.  The footage got splashed in all the major news channels.  The incident by itself would not have been covered in the Indian local media, however because of the footage available all channels decided to show them.

Similar was the case today morning (March 3, 2008). A Lufthansa plane had a narrow escape in Germany.  Under high winds the plane was trying to land but the footage showed that the plane could have only toppled not landed.  The alert and intelligent pilot managed to make the plane airbound. Later of course the plane landed safely.

One immediate thought that came to my mind was how should the pilot be awarded for saving the lives of so many people.  After all a few months back an air traffic control person was murdered for having done a mistake ( which resulted in a crash many years back) by one of the relatives.  Would the relatives of those saved now reward the pilot?