Left out lefties

When the Air Force search and rescue team reached the crash site to fetch the flight cadet who had ejected from a trainer aircraft, to their...

When the Air Force search and rescue team reached the crash site to fetch the flight cadet who had ejected from a trainer aircraft, to their horror, they found his lifeless body. The parachute was found unopened in its pack. On examination, the doctor found the flying overall about his right abdomen torn into shreds and incipient bloody crusts coating several deep lacerations therein. These discoveries flummoxed everyone.

If an aircraft develops unrecoverable flight condition or system failure, the pilot has no alternative but to eject — to save his life. Pulling the ejection handle sets in motion the automatic ejection process: the canopy gets jettisoned first, followed by the seat along with the strapped-up pilot; the powerful rockets in the seat accelerate it to 35 times gravity to avert collision of the forward-moving tail fin with the ascending seat and to propel it roughly 45 metres high; during the descent, the seat disjoining first followed by the deployment of the parachute. The pilot takes over thereafter.

If the parachute does not deploy automatically then the pilot has to pull the emergency D-ring (it is shaped like the alphabet D), which is located on the left side of the harness at belly level. The D-ring activates a cord that opens the parachute manually.

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The mystery of the flight cadet’s death was solved once his instructor and mates revealed he was left-handed. Though the initial ejection process was flawless, due to a malfunction (something very, very rare), the parachute did not open automatically. He took the next step — pulling the D-ring.

By now, the unopened parachute and the unfamiliar free fall had not only rattled him but froze his thinking faculty too. Since he could not keep his wits about him, despite having practised the ejection-drill countless times and once before every take-off, being a left-hander, he used his left hand, not his right, to pull the D-ring — and hunted for it on the right side of the harness. The D-ring — and hunted for it on the left so that it can be accessed and yanked easily with the right hand — the natural hand of the majority. Panic transformed into mortal scare. The sheer terror made him dig his left hand fingers ferociously into the right side with all his might, for the elusive D-ring, but it only tore open his harness, the flying overall and finally his flesh. He fell like a stone, to his death. Not just aircraft cockpits but even safety equipments are designed for the right-hander.

Recently, I related the above mishap to Shibu K. John (the lone southpaw among us batchmates of Sainik School, Kazhakootam), when he assailed the sinister discrimination against the lefties during an e-group discussion, to reaffirm that this is a right-handed world, a perdurable one at that, and at times a lethal one for the left-handed.

Shibu, as defiant as ever, hit back in his typical vernacular of bravado, ‘They say everyone was born right-handed, and only the greatest overcome it.’ Righties, take that!