It was after church Sunday when I saw the news alert about a plane crash in South Florida. Nine people had died. For a moment, even the election predictions dominating the news gave way to the tragedy.
Several things made the crash stand out. It happened only miles from President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. A dashcam captured the impact, giving the disaster a shocking image.
Just because technology allows us to hear someone’s final words, does that mean we have a moral right to listen?
Plane crashes command our attention. Fatal car crashes are more common, yet we imagine them differently. A car crash can be sudden. A plane crash can leave passengers and crew with time to realize that death is approaching and nothing can prevent it.
Those moments of awareness are terrifying. What would you think about? Could you overcome panic and pray?
That brings me to a question. It is personal, but as an ethics professor, I also believe it is an ethical question: Should we listen to a stranger’s last moments? Just because technology allows us to hear someone’s final words, does that mean we have a moral right to listen?
In Sunday’s crash, the pilot’s final radio communications with air traffic control were recorded and shared publicly. We can hear the moment when the pilot realizes the plane cannot be saved. Those words, spoken in the face of imminent death, are now available for strangers to replay.
I don’t think I should listen. Not because it would be horrifying to hear or because I didn’t know the pilot. Certainly not because I don’t care.
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The radio calls were made to air traffic control, not in private. Investigators have good reason to hear them. But that doesn’t settle whether the rest of us should listen out of curiosity.
The moments before death are among the most personal in our lives. We are leaving this world whether we want to or not. The things a person thinks and says at such a moment seem to belong to God and perhaps to their closest family and friends. Turning those words into a social media clip for strangers to gawk at seems wrong to me.
Perhaps I am wrong. The public has reason to know what happened in a disaster. But do we need to hear a dying person’s last words? Is that understanding or what used to be called morbid curiosity?
For me, the crash is a reminder that our lives are incredibly short. The time will come when each of us is taken from this life and asked to give an account before God. How will you conduct yourself in those last moments? Are you ready to meet God?
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[H/T Blaze Media]
