It's important to use the situation to remind yourself how fortunate you are to still have a human body and a perfect human rebirth which is most difficult to find, and that you have met the Buddhadharma and the virtuous friend.

Remind yourself how it's most fortunate to still be a human being and not to waste it, and to practice the holy Dharma to purify and collect merit and actualize the path.

Use these kinds of situations to be inspired. The 270 people who died in the airplane accident, the sixteen Sherpas who died on Mount Everest and so forth—use all these situations to remind yourself to practice Dharma and to generate compassion for those sentient beings and for all the suffering sentient beings.

This isn't the first time [they have suffered and died like this.] They have experienced the suffering of pain, the suffering of change and pervasive compounded suffering numberless times.

Then it's helpful and becomes a meditation of the path of the lower, middle and higher capable beings. Think of the suffering nature of samsara that has been experienced numberless times. This makes it useful when you hear that information and news.