I heard on the radio that when the plane went down off Miami Beach this afternoon, a flotilla of private boats were on it almost immediately to try to find survivors. It's similar to what happened in 911, when a large number of people spontaneously evacuated lower Manhattan across the rivers to New Jersey and Brooklyn.

Unfortunately, this time, even as rapid as the response was, it looks like the people were beyond saving.

[Update at 7:30 PM EST]

Here's a link from a local blogger.

I don't understand something here.

Why is this fact particularly noteworthy?

Nothing unusual about it at all.

I live in SE Florida and anytime there is an event like this there are boaters that will help out. When planes go down in the Everglades, there are usually airboat owners who jump at the chance to help there too.....

Billy Beck says, "I don't understand something here."

Well, there's a first time for everything.

He then asks, "Why is this fact particularly noteworthy?"

It doesn't have to be in order to be blogged about. It is merely another minor example of a tendency some people consider a good thing, whereby people take it upon themselves to respond to emergencies instead of sitting back and waiting for the nanny state to take care of everything.

Billy - It is shallow Libertarian triumphalism! Evil anti-government wingnuts who think private citizens should be involved in helping their fellow man; a task clearly in the domain of the federal government! Quick, delink him (stoptheaclu.com style) before you get any crazy ideas...

"It is merely another minor example of a tendency some people consider a good thing..."

That must be why I'm nonplussed: I presume behavior like this from human beings in advance of any given episode. Nothing about it surprises me when it happens. Quite this opposite. This is normal. It's abnormal when it doesn't happen.

"Quite the opposite."

Good god. "What 'preview'??"

Just call Homeland Security and have me thrown out of here, already.

I'm sure George Bush is responsible for this crash and I'm sure some moonbat will shortly determine how.

I'm sure George Bush is responsible for this crash and I'm sure some moonbat will shortly determine how.

What goes around comes around!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2003/09/13/do1303.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2003/09/13/ixop.html

Which I found linked here
http://www.transterrestrial.com/archives/003055.html

What is noteworthy is as once was the calling of ordinary people to do extrordinary things, the call is not only remaining, but enhanced. EVERY man is a policeman of sorts. Not a state policeman, but a nation of those willing to help is a nation of those willing to live, help, and succeed to solidify humanity as a whole.

I live a few blocks away from the tragedy, and liveblogged during it, including pics.

(This blog doesn't allow links to my url, so alas, you cannot read it unless you Google "Futuremd", etc.)

I'm not sure why people have reacted in the comments like they did.

Rand posted about the fast private citizenry response to the tragedy. Someone replied that he didn't understand why this was newsworthy.

(Did he mean the whole incident, or the rapid response?)

People then ran with it, as if he meant the private citizenry reaction was unusual somehow.

I don't think that's what Rand was commenting on, merely that there WAS a private reaction similar to the 9/11 attacks.

Either way, the situation is as follows:

20 aboard, 19 confirmed dead, all 20 presumed dead.

17 passengers, 2 crew.

Tragic.

Cheers,
Victoria

My point is that the government doesn't understand this, if one is to go by their policies and pronouncements.

I'm not sure that I understand the post from newc, mostly because it's grammatically fractured, at best.

In any case, what's noteworthy to me is that such a story actually made it onto the news, albeit at a radio station. But, if you read the link that Rand posted, over to Glenn's page, it's rare that anyone in the MSM reports anything about good deeds anymore. After all, "if it bleeds, it leads".

Of course, Rand filed this under "Sociall Commentary", and not "MSM Criticism", so I could be totally wrong, and he's just pointing out that it's nice to see that there's a little bit of humanity left in the world.

I'm sorry that our glasses aren't as rose-colored as yours, Billy Beck. Why you have to rain on Rand's parade in this case is beyond me.

Well, John. I was just concluding that you'd written the best clarification of matters that I'd yet seen in a pretty not-bad set of comments, when I got to the last paragraph. Speaking only to you and not anyone else like your "our", you should have glasses like mine, mate. And Rand's parade, if you insist, is going to be just fine, even if your insinuation were true. In any case, your point about the story making it isn't instantly dismissable: bleeding's been where it's at for a long time. Everybody knows that for sure. I'd probably be interested to see data on the rarity of good deeds reporting, though. I burn MSNBC most of the day around here and I suppose I could start keeping a file on what just about moves the twits to tears, bless their hearts. The other day, they ran the Kid-Catch story from the Bronx all the time. I see a lot of it. I see it when I travel, too. I'm not keeping data.

Rand: the whole premise of government -- up, down in & out -- runs counter to this sort of thing.

To the best of my knowledge, Chalk's is the oldest continuously operating airline in the world and until now has been accident-free. They started in 1919.

Qantas is number 2, starting in 1922, and has not had a crash yet.

Billy: Auf englisch, bitte? Didn't understand a word.

Rand: Thanks for the manual linkback.

The story is pretty much over, and no where near as newsworthy as the Air Marshall/poor bezerko passenger crying bomb.

Nevertheless, it is tragic, and worthy of coverage by MSM, blogosphere, SOMEONE.

Especially observations like Rand's.

Cheers,
Victoria

QANTAS has had a number of crashes. They haven't had any fatals in jets, but a QANTAS 747 overran the end of the runway in Bankok in 1999 and cost about $100m to fix.

Before jets they had fatal crashes in 1927, 1934, 1942, 1943, 1944 and most recently 1951, when all seven passengers and crew in a Drover died in a crash in New Guinea.

Air New Zealand has a perfect record other than the 1979 crash when a tourist DC10 flying low level VFR in Antarctica flew into Mt Erebus.

IIRC Southwest Airlines had their first oops when they ran off the runway at Midway...