Amid this week’s sorrowful, sobering news in Miami, something good happened | Editorial

It hasn’t exactly been a slow news week, has it?

And nightmares have been front and center on the front pages. A year after the collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside, what seems like a bad dream remains a haunting reality for the survivors of the 98 victims who died in the horrible early-morning hours. But many of the first responders — who heard the pleas for rescue, and then the murmurs, and then the silence coming from beneath the rubble also have been dogged each and every day since.

Then, what for many — especially women — was the nightmare scenario feared ever since the draft ruling leaked last month became stunningly real when the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday officially overturned Roe v. Wade, kicking abortion policy to the states and leaving pregnant women at the mercy of their ZIP code.

But what shouldn’t get lost is Nightmare Scenario No. 3 — and its happy ending. Commend the pilots, crew and passengers of RED airline’s Flight No. 203. They understood the assignment: Get the hell off this airplane.

The airliner, which had departed from the Dominican Republic, made it to Miami, then crash-landed when the landing gear malfunctioned, skidded off the runway and burst into flames. Could have been worse. Could have been what the flight attendant — providing the voiceover for colleagues pantomiming the use of seatbelts and oxygen masks — euphemistically calls a “water landing.”

Everybody got off the plane alive. Shocked and panicked, but alive.

Kudos to everyone who did the right thing, including fire and rescue crews on the ground. They all averted the ultimate nightmare.

This comment originally was published as part of the Editorial Board’s weekly opinion newsletter The MIami Debate, delivered to your inbox for free. To subscribe, go to miamiherald.com/TheMiamiDebate.