There is something uniquely haunting about an air crash. It is the kind of catastrophe that is both sudden and protracted, a fleeting moment of terror seemingly suspended in time, leaving behind the kind of wreckage that is measured not just in debris but in the lives it claims and the lives it shatters of the loved ones who are left behind.

Last week’s midair collision near Washington Reagan National Airport claimed 67 lives, making it the deadliest aviation disaster on US soil in nearly 25 years. In those final moments, flight recorder data indicates the pilots of the doomed American Airlines flight fought against fate itself, pulling the nose of the plane up, desperately trying to salvage even a sliver of hope, similar to what occurred to PIA 8303 in Karachi.

But it was too late, unfortunately. In the seconds before impact, perhaps they too, like many others before them, felt their entire lives unfold before their eyes, as I had experienced in my case.

For those of us who remain, there is something deeply unsettling about a tragedy like this. We cycle through horror, grief, and a helpless kind of sorrow, knowing that nothing we do can rewind time or rewrite history. But........

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