One of those "Wow" stories

Last night, on News at Ten, they had one of those "wow" stories, from BLS's area. A pilot, out enjoying a flight in the sun with a videographer friend, has a malfunction with his engine. It reminds me of a joke.

Paddy and Murphy are on a long haul flight on a 747, when suddenly a loud bang is heard to come from the engine. The pilot announces that the engine has misfired, and has been shut down, but for this reason they will now be landing approximately half an hour late.
Twenty minutes later, and they are rather startled to hear another loud bang, followed by a hiss, only to be told again that another engine had malfunctioned, and had to be shut down. This meant they'd now be landing approximately two hours later.
Returning to their slumbers, they're awoken this time by the third engine catching on fire. A very apologetic pilot announces that the fire is out and under control, but unfortunately they will now be landing as much as 4 hours late.
Paddy turns to Murphy and says "I hope that fourth one doesn't go, or we'll be up here all night."

The fact of the matter is, we all know that returning to earth is inevitable, but how quickly. As this news item shows, or this one from Florida which is very choppy from this side of the pond and might be better if you're stateside, he was not only very skilled, but also very lucky. The sheer speed of his descent shows how the plane just falls out of the sky! Now I know it's their job, but surely twice in one year is enough for people to start recognising just how incredibly skilled pilots of today have to be. Admittedly in this video, the pilot isn't as calm as he could be (hence the bleeping, but I'd be bleeping too), but what with his landing and the Hudson River plane crash back at the start of the year, whilst it might not be a good time to be a pilot, who better then someone with that level of skill to control it and do what is needed?