JUMPING DARKNESS PARADE: DAATH’S EYAL LEVI ON PLANE CRASHES (AGAIN!)
Daath just completed our first tour for The Concealers album cycle. The tour was with Dragonforce and our personal heroes, Cynic. It was a US Secondary Markets tour. For those of you who sent us angry messages about why we didn’t play your city…. We appreciate that you care and we promise we’ll be there are soon as we can.
Anyways, after our portion of the tour was over Dragonforce was scheduled to play some South American dates on their own before returning to France. Their last dates were in Brazil I believe and they would have been flying the same, if not similar route as Air France flight 447 which peaced out mid flight over the Atlantic Ocean last week.
Any excuse to write about a plane crash right? Well this one just fascinates me as much as it hits close to home. I believe we made friends with the Dragonforce dudes and to think that they were days away from that flight is definitely creepy.
The closest I’ve ever been to a plane crash was when I went to Charles Du Gaul airport in 2000 about three days after the Concorde crash. I don’t know if you remember that, but a bunch of tourists had chartered a Concorde. The flight that took off prior to the Concorde lost a bolt from an enigine during the takeoff roll. When the Concorde sped down the runway one of its tires kicked up the bolt into an engine and, how do I say, fucked everything up. They flew for a little but ended up getting 50,000 bonus points by taking out a hotel. I wonder how many points you get for people you take out on the ground.
I mean, I know that when I’m driving and I see a family that’s at least 10 points per parent and 15 per kid, but that’s too easy. You gotta go for a skateboarder because at least they can evade. A skateboarder should be worth at least 50 points.
Anyhow, I digress. How many points for the people an airplane takes out on the ground? I’ll leave that up to discussion.
So back to flight 447. This one freaks me out for a variety of reasons. First of all. Nobody knows what happened because the plane was off radar. Did you know that when you get 200 miles off coast you are technically off radar and just free balling it? If you crash, like these fuckers did, its just a guessing game as to where you may possibly be. Your remains and plane wrekage may never be found. So far the wreckage is said to be spread out over 140 square miles in water depths of up to 24,000 feet. The most rugged submersibles only go down to 19,000 feet. GOOD FUCKING LUCK FINDING THOSE BLACK BOXES.
So we may never know what happened. Which is freaky. Because right now people are saying that the pilot flew straight into a thunderstorm. I thought that pilots don’t fly into thunderstorms. I thought they flew around them. I’ve been getting more and more comfortable flying because I THOUGHT THEY FLEW AROUND THEM. NOT THROUGH THEM. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU FLY THROUGH THEM.
Anyways, some people are saying that weather alone probably wouldn’t have brought down the extremely modern plane. That pilots are equipped for this. Well…. Maybe it was a bomb? I mean… that sucks and all… but I would rather it be a bomb and I’ll tell you why. There are far less bombs that make it onto flights than pilots. Fact. So that makes the chances of a pilot being an idiot and flying you into a thunderstorm far greater than the chances of it being a bomb that brings you down.
So there you have it. I hope it was terrorism. It would make me feel a little better about flying.
-EL
[Eyal Levi is the guitarist for Daath, and the only Jew in the world even more neurotic than Axl Rosenberg. Visit Daath on MySpace to get the full itinerary for their summer tour with Goatwhore, Abigail Williams, Abysmal Dawn, and Success Will Write Apocalypse Across the Sky.]