TUNOSHNA, Russia — A Russian jet carrying a top ice hockey team crashed just after takeoff Wednesday, killing at least 43 people and leaving two others critically injured, officials said. It was one of the worst plane crashes ever involving a sports team. The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said the Yak-42 plane crashed into a riverbank on the Volga River immediately after leaving an airport near the western city of Yaroslavl, 150 miles (240 kilometers) northeast of Moscow…. The plane was carrying the Lokomotiv ice hockey team from Yaroslavl to Minsk, the capital of Belarus, where the team was to play Thursday against Dinamo Minsk in the opening game of the season for the Kontinental Hockey League.
On Wednesday, a plane crash in Russia killed at least 43, among them the entire Lokomotiv team. The tragic nature of such an event can hardly be understated…and yet the crash has received comparatively little coverage in this country. I watched SportsCenter on the morning after the crash, and, unless I traveled to another dimension for a few moments, there was no mention of the crash. If an entire NHL team had been killed in a plane crash in the US or Canada, it would have been front page news and the lead story on every news and sports program from coast to coast. Something similar happens in Russia, and we get…crickets? Really?
It would seem that by ESPN’s logic (and that of other American media outlets), a plane crash in Russia is unfortunate, but not unfortunate enough to cut into the endless speculation over the state of Peyton Manning’s neck. Good Lord, y’all…an entire hockey team was killed in an instant…and it’s barely considered newsworthy on this side of the pond? Have we really become that divorced from humanity?
As if I need to answer that….
In contrast to how the story has been handled here in the US, it’s (understandably) a national tragedy in Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union. Lokomotiv was headed to Minsk, Belarus, for the opening game of their KHL season. Dynamo Minsk had already sold the arena out, and, not knowing what else to do, they provided a very classy and touching tribute to those lost in Wednesday’s crash. It remains to be season how the KHL will handle the hole left by the loss of the Lokomotiv team, but it appears that there are plans in the works to restock the team and carry on with the season.
The show must go on….
It’s likely too early to begin assigning blame for the crash, but it’s been an open secret that the Russian aviation industry has been far more interested in cutting costs (and corners) than safety. The Russian government has launched an investigation into what happened, but I imagine they’ll learn what’s long been suspected about the Russian aviation industry- that safety is an afterthought, and old planes are kept in service far longer than would be considered safe in the US. Heads will roll, politicians will cluck disapprovingly…and then things will continue exactly as they have since the fall of the Soviet Union. I’ve flown on Russian jets before, and I’m no fan. Still, when you have to get someplace and that’s your only option, what are you going to do?
It would be nice to think that the death of 43 humans, especially in a case like this, would be treated as a horrific tragedy by the American media. Instead, the story’s been handled as if it was in agate type in the scoreboard section of the Peoria Tattler. Stay classy….
