A NATION MOURNS ITS YOUNG BUT LEARNS NOTHING

There was an horrific plane crash in the pine barrens of North Andros on 10 July 2026. That was Independence Day. It was supposed to be a day of celebration for a nation that had earned its stripes in the world for 53 years. Instead it turned into questions of disbelief, and screams of pain and incredulity. A lot of questions about why and calls for recriminations for an accident that should not have happened.

In the aftermath of the crash, the officials got to work and began their investigations. Last week we joined the chorus of those with rational voices saying that we ought to await the outcome of the investigation and not jump to conclusions that may be in error.

That did to stop the speculation, however. The one that gets us is that somehow there is a curse on the nation because the killing of these young people took place on Independence Day. The lawyers call it the improbability of coincidence maybe. There is no curse on this nation. The accident has a rational explanation.

You may remember that after the first Pope John Paul died in 1978 within 33 days of his becoming Pope and head of the Roman Catholic Church.  When there were expressions of disbelief at that time, one commentator reminded us that 70 year old men died every day.  The Pope was not an exception, therefore.

The same can be said about the accident. Every day young people die: some by accident and misadventure, others by natural causes.  This is not to soften the shock of it. The shock is the natural response.

We are not saying that we should not mourn and cry.  It is human to do that. It is human to sympathize with the family and excoriate the perpetrators of the accident but here is what we keep saying. We could have seen this coming. Why did our systems take so long and why did we have to wait until ten people are dead before our regulators took action to prevent what happened?

Perhaps we are wrong but that seems a logical conclusion.

This should not happen again, and the real tribute to these dead young people will be if we learn the lessons of why the inattention to detail in The Bahamas should stop and these accidents are not repeated.

Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 18 July 2026 up to midnight: 1,014,670;

Number of hits for the month of July up to Saturday 18 July 2026 up to midnight: 2,336,486;

Number of hits for the year 2026 up to Saturday 18 July2026 up to midnight: 26,421,963;