I can’t stand watching the news when there has been an air accident.
Being brought up with air accidents made me hate the news reports on them as they all spout utter rubbish and speculations whilst the damned wreckage is still smouldering and the pilot has yet to be found.
Take in case the accident at Bournemouth Air Festival today . Within minutes of it happening the TV news were all over it…
Not even 5 minutes after it had happened and…
- The pilot can’t be found.
- The pilot was killed.
- The pilot was pulled out of the river after ejecting.
- The aircraft were doing a display.
- The display had finished.
- The aircraft were landing.
- The Red Arrow had power problems & dived into the ground.
- There was an explosion & fire (my favourite – Most false witnesses see explosions & fire… even if it’s a glider crash or failed parachute display…).
- One news reporter actually fed the ‘witness’ lines during the interview (Sky).
RAF Red Arrows
I have the greatest respect for the crews, families and all directly involved. It’s a dangerous job, things can go wrong and yet they still do it. My hat is off to you and the rest of our armed services.
As for witnesses… they are near useless.
A witness (or even a group of witnesses) can go on for 20 minutes about an event that happened in a split second. You can’t take in and process all of that data that your eyes just saw, so your brain fills in the blanks with possible scenarios. If a witness adds anything to a scene it is usually confusion and speculation.
My dad put more faith in examining a hangar full of wreckage to find the cause, than he ever did a witness. So ‘witnesses’ and ‘News reporters’, just shut up & let the investigators do their jobs. They are trained to do it and funnily enough, they know more about it than you…
If you do want to run around like headless chickens, then I suggest you go HERE for that particular information.
UPDATE:
The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that the Red Arrows pilot killed on Saturday afternoon was Flight Lieutenant Jon Egging. He was 33. My sympathies to his family and friends.
This from the MOD Red Arrows site:
Sometimespace 
August 20th, 2011 at 8:58 pm
The best of the best, and always will be.
RAFAT Red Arrows.
God Bless Eggy, RIP my friend.
August 20th, 2011 at 11:53 pm
As years go by, technology advances & through the skilled pilots at the cutting edge we get safer aircraft.
It’s the pilots that push aircraft & themselves to these limits that are mostly unsung.
It’s the pilots at the front end of military aircraft that ride the cutting edge technology into battle. This can only be described as ‘dangerous’ at the best of times.
Heroes, the lot of them.