Airplane!

Townhall.com ^ | July 8, 2013 | Neal Boortz

[Kaslin]

OK … I’ll admit it. I did get a little testy on Twitter (@Talkmaster) Saturday afternoon while watching coverage of the crash landing of that Asiana 777 in San Francisco. There’s an explanation.

My first hint at a problem at SFO was a video a follower sent me of the smoke from the burning aircraft. I immediately went to the usual sites on the Internet and TV to see what was going on. Nothing. Nobody had a clue. Twitter beat out the big boys.

Eventually, though, the coverage started to break on CNN and Fox News. I chose Fox. This was the only way I could be assured that Piers Morgan wasn’t going to be part of the coverage. Right off the bat it became clear that Fox was relying on reports from people who barely new the difference between a DC7 and a 777. The errors and impossibilities in the reporting were laughable, so I switched to CNN. Not much better there … and loyalties are loyalties … so it was back to Fox.

We need Fox News. Oh, I know Fox drives the proggies nuts. They’re so used to having a lock on the principal news outlets that they can scarcely believe there are people out there reporting from a different perspective. Without Fox News we never would have known of Obama’s failed gun running program Fast & Furious. Fox News kept us in the loop on Benghazi. While other networks, broadcast and cable, were telling us the story on the IRS scandal was pretty much over, Fox was still revealing new angles; including the fact that the orders to drop the IRS hammer on conservative organizations came from the Obama junta.

I’m persona non grata on Fox these days. Maybe it was that sports coat I wore on Cavuto. Perhaps they think I was the one who goaded Beckel into dropping that F-bomb. Maybe they didn’t appreciate me telling folks that although Shep Smith is an incredible anchor, he really is quite a jerk in person. Who knows? I’m retired, and I’m fine with it. The makeup made my face break out anyway. But I still watch Fox News (right up until Hubcap O’Reilly at 8:00) and I revel in the way they clobber CNN and annihilate MSNBC in the ratings.

So here’s the problem. Fox News is attacked constantly by the left because they dare to report what the leftist media won’t. To repel these attacks, Fox News has to work harder than most to retain its reputation for accuracy in news reporting. People who hear absurdities solemnly presented in the coverage of a major aviation story are very likely to lose confidence in the political side of Fox reporting as well.

Just what mistakes did various Fox reporters make this weekend? Well here’s a few:

• “The plane skidded on its back down the runway.” That gem was repeated for fully five hours after the accident and after half the free world saw the plane sitting upright in the dirt next to runway 28L.
• "We don't know if there were one or two pilots. Presumably there were at least two." You don’t know? There are ALWAYS at least two pilots on a commercial flight. This time there were four.
• “The plane overshot the runway.” Heard this several times. Tell me … if you overshoot a runway how do you manage to leave a debris field at the very beginning of the runway? Look up “undershot.”
• “The plane cartwheeled down the runway.” Though it did lift in the air at one point before it slammed back down, the plane actually spun down the runway. It did not turn cartwheels.
• Explaining video of one of the jet engines: “That’s the engine. That’s what makes it go.” Really? Now to be fair, don’t remember if I saw that one on CNN or Fox.
• Now here’s one I didn’t hear myself, but got it from multiple Twitter followers. One reporter said that the problem might have been caused by the plane landing into the wind. Uh huh. Airplanes always land into the wind, Sherlock. Also heard that one reporter said that the airplane “landed first, then crashed.”
• I truly thought that if kept listening I would soon hear someone say that the accident was either caused by global warming, George Bush, or the fact that gravity is always stronger over water than it is over land.
• This wasn’t a part of this particular incident, but I am reminded of an accident in Atlanta. A small plane encountered a sinkhole while taxiing to the runway for takeoff. A wheel went into the pothole and the prop struck the ground. The local news anchor said “the plane crashed on takeoff.”

Part of my angst here is surely due to my own personal interest in aviation. I studied aerospace engineering. I’ve been a pilot for about 35 years. I’ve heard liberals like Obama demonize the evil “rich” people who own and fly their own private aircraft, even though the average value of a single-engine piston airplane flying today is less than the cost of a new bass rig.

Aviation and the flying public are poorly served by people who know nothing about the subject engaging in wild and mindless speculation when an incident happens. Fox, CNN and the rest of the broadcast media can, and should, do better.

[Signalman]

I heard one ditzy reporter say, the plane landed on runway 28”el”, not runway 28 Left.

She obviously had no idea what runway numeric (the number indicates the approximate magnetic heading) or letters, the “L”, “R”, and “C” (center) mean.

[reg45]

The question is why did the chief pilot allow him to fly it.

This was part of the standard training process that has served all the airlines that use the 777 well for the last eighteen years. The pilot had only 43 hours of flight time on the 777 and was obviously trying to get more. One other thing, of the five or ten hours of flying credit that he (or she) would have gotten for this flight only five or ten minutes is part of the landing process and the most critical part of that only accounts for about thirty seconds.

[InterceptPoint]

While this is a very sad story, why has it pushed the Egyptian craziness off the news? Because it makes Kerry & Obama look incompetent again?
++++++++++++
In the case of Fox, they were totally AWOL on the Egyptian Revolution during PrimeTime on the big day - July 3. They ran per- recorded Zimmerman segments all evening. So why would anyone be surprised that the SFO crash would dominate Fox News. It even pushed Zimmerman aside for a full day.

I’m sticking with FR. My Fox News time is down 10 db from a year ago. Boring, predictable and mostly commercials.

[reg45]

If the seawall is ramped too gently or too steeply, it would be more subject to erosion by wave action. It is probably optimized for erosion protection.

[JLAGRAYFOX]

Ditto....All TV news coverage all day long on Saturday was an outright farce. All the inputs brought forward by pundits and news folks means zilch. The “Black “ boxes never lie and the testimony from the operating flight crew will carry major weight. I will stand back and let the Black boxes, Boeing, Asiana Airlines, NTSB & the operating flight crew gives us the correct factual information as to why and how this devastating incident occurred.

[T-Bird45]

FTA: ...or the fact that gravity is always stronger over water than it is over land.

It's not????? My golf balls seem to think so!!! LOL!!

[T-Bird45]

AIRSPEED RUNWAY AIRSPEED RUNWAY are the fundamentals of landing an airplane .

I'm just guessing here but I bet that's how you got to be an "oldtimer", right???

[fuente]

Interesting...hyperventilating hysteria...with gross inaccuracies and wild speculation? I wonder if Neil listens to his own broadcast. Neil, you are not on ANY news programs, because you act like an ass with the tact of a chainsaw. Some would even call it bullying or verbal bludgeoning. As for Shep? He suxes, period. Arrogant beyond and it shows through on screen. Only one on the Fox News Team more bent on hype and on screen hyperventilation is Whore-aldo.

[miss marmelstein]

I flipped over to the insipid Fox & Friends this morning hoping to get an update. They were actually talking about soap operas while Egypt continued to burn. The modern day media is filled with idiots.

[Robe]

My favorite was the reporting the the 777 decented at 1400 FEET PER SECOND !!!!! (that’s something like 84000 ft per min ... faster that the Space Shuttle)

[reg45]

I didn’t know that the 777 was capable of supersonic flight. The speed of sound is around 1100 feet per second.

[John O]

Speaking of Kerry. Fox and Friends reported this morning that he suffered a seizure

Fatal, I can only hope.

[John O]

It was his wife.

This is truly sad. Her only mistake was marrying him in the first place.

[okie01]

Every time I hear the mainstream media report on a subject that I have considerable knowledge about, they always demonstrate their stupidity. As a 777 pilot, this is no exception.

I was involved in an industrial espionage event back in the mid-sixties.

When I read the account of the event in Time Magazine, I didn't recognize it.

[Kaslin]

Correction: His wife Teresa Heinz Kerry had the seizure

Secretary of State Kerry's wife in critical condition

[Kaslin]

Yeah I just read it. They didn’t specify it on Fox and Friends and I assumed it was him

[Kaslin]

He has also flown the particular air plane only 9 times according to reports

[NCC-1701]

Possibly the dumbest question I EVER heard a reporter ask someone was when Elvis died. A local Memphis reporter asked the paramedic working on Elvis on the way to the hospital, and I quote, “Did you want him to live”? The paramedic had that did-you-ACTUALLY-ask-me-that-question look on his face. That has stayed with me ever since.

[Kaslin]

This is all fine and good but he has never flown in to the San Francisco airport with the particular type of airplane and according to reports that I heard the San Francisco airport is not easy to land in because of the location or something like that

[Kaslin]

That was long after they talked about the crash. You missed it