For the Caravan and passengers descending toward the water in the video, there was no panic, no screams, no sparks, no smoke, no phone calls to loved ones, no I-love-yous to a nearby seated spouse, no hand-holding, nor even anyone reaching for a life jacket, unlike a very similar Grand Caravan “catastrophic engine failure” just two months earlier over Maui, where every one of those happenings was reported. How could the Kalaupapa passengers be so different from the Maui passengers? For the first-appearing crash-related ABC news segment, GMA, in which the plane’s engine noise was quite prominent, the narrator stated something that would seem obvious—particularly given the passengers’ lackadaisical demeanor—that (“Those passengers don’t know it yet, but they are seconds away from experiencing the worst fear of every air traveler.”) Absent the pilot telling them, the passengers should have had no way of knowing what they were about to experience, right? The videographer told us his video began “just a few seconds after the engine sound happened”. Since, as the video started, the pilot wasn’t in the middle of any briefing about an engine failure, losing power or their need to don their life jackets because they’re about to go into the water, the narrator seems to have had it correct.
Despite the GoPro recording’s good audio that has a clear, decreasing-frequency, running engine sound and stall warning horn, no one apparently said a peep, just as we heard confirmed by the Nightline narrator.
By the time of the second and third ABC news segments that covered the crash aired--although the month-old video recording obviously didn’t change--Nightline shows the videographer declaring, “You realize at the moment what was going on,” and its narrator saying, “All of these people know their plane is about to crash.” Just how was it they all could have known the pilot wouldn’t be able to make it back to the runway with his Caravan? Even if the videographer was a somehow extremely airplane-disaster savvy from his seat in 4B, how could all these passengers know? Are these particular passengers that savvy about aircraft failures? And if they did all know they were going to crash, why did no one put on a life jacket or act the least bit upset?
Which narrator had it correct? And why was there a 180-degree change from the first narrator’s declaration?
The pilot told the USCG on-scene commander he briefed the passengers about a water landing and told them to don their Personal Flotation Devices. Should we believe the passengers were all stiff-necked and noncompliant? Do we dare believe our own lying ears when we don’t hear any of the pilot’s self-interested representations to the USCG Commander on the GoPro audio?
Experiencing a catastrophic engine failure at 300’ during climb-out in a turn, as the pilot reported to the FAA, would inherently include a dramatic change in pitch attitude and most likely, very uncomfortable negative g-forces. But did these passengers react in any way as if such things happened just seconds before? No!
How could any of these things possibly be?
The videographer would have us believe not just he, but everybody realized at that moment they were going to crash onto the water, yet these passengers didn’t react in a way that seems to reflect any such thought. With no one even reaching for a life jacket, one would think these passengers had absolutely no fear for their well-being. Perhaps in their estimation everything was proceeding just about the way it was planned and explained to them in an earlier briefing, where they might have been told, “Just stay calm.”
Are these just laid-back Hawaiians, or did someone have a supply of inderal they shared before the flight?
Maybe we're watching the movie SPEED and someone's recording a film loop. It wouldn't do if someone put on a life jacket or removed a purse that the "studio audience" would see. There would be only one take for this one!
Who was telling the truth about this scenario and who wasn’t?