Landing on water

Compare if you will my flight on a recent trip to visit my good friends in the Netherlands, the Van den Borrens, with the flight experienced by a group of British Airways Trans Atlantic passengers.
There was I, sitting back in business class sipping chardonnay and picking at Olives on a trouble-free 45-minute transit, while my fellow flyers were somewhere over the ocean between London and Miami hearing the following message: "This is an emergency, we will shortly be making an emergency landing … on water."
If you're wondering why you've not heard about this aviation incident it was because the whole thing turned out to be a false alarm caused by someone accidentally setting off an automated emergency message.
Understandably, many of the passengers on-board were upset, traumatised even. "We looked at each other and figured we were both about to die. Families with children were distraught and people were in tears. It was very distressing," one told the Daily Telegraph.
"Upset", "traumatised" – I think I would have suffered instant cardiac arrest, and if not I'd very probably now be in a straightjacket!
So, next time you're enjoying smooth airborne transit, whether you've on the way to visit the Van den Borrens in Holland, the Fords in the US or the Nissans in Japan, spare a thought for those whose aviation journeys compare unfavourably to yours.