CNN: National Enquirer Goes TV

R

Rich Lucibella

Staff
I've been watching the CNN coverage of JFK's disappearance all morning and have come to the conclusion that they have sunk to their lowest level yet, in attempting to scoop all the other news agencies.

Here's the facts from the standpoint of a high time private pilot, IFR certified, crash survived (me):
While I'm rather fond of JFK Jr, only an idiot flies a single engine plane, at night, over open water, absent instrument rating, into instrument conditions, without a flight plan and without requesting flight following while in the air.. Period. The chances of continuing a flight in a single engine plane with engine out are nil. The chances of successfully ditching a single engine plane at night, in quarter moon, are little better than nil. The chances of your plane being pinpointed without requesting flight following from Air Traffic Control are zero.

That's all that's newsworthy here.

Switch to CNN coverage:
-Press conference featuring an unrelated reporter grilling the rescuers as to "why" they waited several hours before starting the search...hmmm, might it not have been the pilot's fault for not filing a flight plan and letting the rescuers know where he was going and when to expect him (not to mention route)? That's exactly why pilots file flight plans!

-Switch to some regualr CNN Washington corespondant who happens to be a private pilot. Suddenly, this boob becomes a resident expert on everything from impact forces to the Coast Guard's detailed procedures in Search and Rescue. He's even able to tell us exactly what strategy the rescuers will try next...including what's going thru their minds.

-Switch to a lower level source stating that they have discovered baggage with the sister-in-law's name on it. This gets reported as confirmed by the Coast Guard(?) Admiral....until one of the outside commentators corrects them. (The fact that it tured out to be true is not the issue...the issue is the family's at home getting the information in this manner.)

-Switch to some CNN idiot interviewing a private pilot at the take off site. Pilot mentions that he and his girlfriend had seen JFK's plane at the airport last night. Correspondant reports that, "as we can see" people at the airport are shaken and praying with the rest of the nation for JFK's safe rescue.

OY!
I call this off color drama: Grade C-
As far as news reporting: Grade FFFFF-
Rich
 
The Nation Prays?

I thought The Nation outlawed that?

Oh, I get it... Sure... Now that The Nation NEEDS His assistance...

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Every man Dies.
Not Every Man Truely Lives...
FREEDOM!

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE
 
The truly sad part of this mess is that if it were anyone not a celebrity it wouldn't even make page 3 in the newspaper.

Somehow the FAA will be made to look culpable because they didn't just "automatically" track the aircraft on radar.

And the Coast Guard is gonna take the heat for waiting "nearly 5 hours before starting the search."

News media my a$$- it's all about entertainment.

Jim
 
I may be wrong, but I am under the impression that you can't fly without filing a flight plan....won't get clearance, etc.

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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes"
 
DC-
Filing is not required. However, you generally will not get clearance in the air to violate certain types of airspace (notably JFK, in this case) without an IFR Flight plan on file. As I recall that airspace, you can get around it by staying about 10 miles off shore at certain altitudes. Thus, you wouldn't have to even contact.

However, this is plain stupid. At the very least, you'd contact Kennedy Approach from the air and request "Flight Following". In this manner, you continue as you choose, without violating any special airspace, but they give you an individual squack code and hand you off to the next controller.

More stupid is the attempt by a VFR only pilot to try to do an over-water night flight. Upon reaching the tip of Long Island, you loose most ground reference (lights) and therefore your horizon reference. As a result you're on instruments...instrument rating recommended/required.

In any case, the media will screw it up. They'll demand immediate search every time someone's girlfriend calls to say their S.O. is late; waterproof ELT's; waterwings on planes; regulations; regulations; regulations.
Rich
 
Nothing reveals the stupidity and ignorance of news hounds as much as having one of them report on a subject in which we have some expertise. I ALWAYS cringe when a reader-bunny tries to describe a gun incident. Today all of the networks, not just CNN, are displaying their ignorance of the subject of flight. Why should we be surprised? Watching the ASR C-130 taking off from Otis, I also wondered if they would be doing the same if it were me lost out there? And then I came to my senses...I'm not some Golden Boy who thinks that the angels will bear him up if he dashes his foot on a stone...I would have filed a #%@&*%$ flight plan and asked for FF. I wouldn't fly over water at night in fog. Waddayaknow, I would have MADE it to Hyannisport, and given CNN a dull day of reporting record hot weather. What a shame. slabsides
PS: Think Teddy will demand a 'one airplane a month, and 5 day waiting period' rule, now?
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An armed man is a citizen; an unarmed man is a subject; a disarmed man is a slave.

[This message has been edited by slabsides (edited July 17, 1999).]
 
Exactly, Private planes should be banned! They are simply too dangerous. The ones already out there should have propeller locks. If we could save just one life. It's for the children.
 
As the saying goes, "There's old pilots, and there's bold pilots, but there aren't many old, bold pilots." It would appear the Kennedy arrogance has once again proven to be unwarranted.
 
I was listening to the radio on the way home from the range :) and the blabbering heads were in shock as one of thier so called "aviation experts" explained how what JR. did was not illeagle.

Finally as a postscript to the segment, one of the jabbering fools said "Perhaps this will be a catalyst for much needed tighter aviation regulations", followed by the required momentarily heavy silence.

As Rich mentioned, his actions were extremely foolhardy. I have spent the better part of my adult life in aviation. On the ground and in flight and I can definitely say JFK JR. made some very stupid decisions, and tragically, they apparently were fatal.

Last I checked, you couldn't regulate stupidity.



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Dan

Check me out at:
www.mindspring.com/~susdan/interest.htm
www.mindspring.com/~susdan/GlocksnGoodies.htm
 
I grieve for anybody losing a relative in a senseless accident. I agree with Rich in that JFKjr did not use good sense on this flight.
And yes I am sick but I cant wait to hear what WJC has to say on the tragedy involving his honorary blood relative.

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Better days to be,

Ed
 
You know, we may be able to make some new allies out of this. As John Ross pointed out in "Unintended Consequences" most of the same politicians that vote for more gun control also vote for more regulation of aircraft and pilots. Pilots must be bracing themselves right now for an onslaught of useless legislation, just as we do after some highly-publicized shooting. Why not try to get the AOPA and other pilot orgs to join forces against a common foe?


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"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken
 
Ipecac: The FAA is to private pilots what HCI is to the NRA, except with regulatory power...

Hunt up "US Aviator" on the Web. The editor/publisher, "Zoom" Campbell, regularly has FAA commentaries. I dropped all the slick-paper airplane mags when I found his rag, some years back.

W/rt JonJon, well, evolution works...46 hours since solo, took off VFR, flew at night into "visibility six miles, with haze", plus ground fog at the destination. A buddy of mine, talking about pilots with many hundreds of hours, commented, "The graveyards are full of guys who flew IFR once a month."

Yeah, Rich, yesterday's TV tabloidism was repulsive. I've skipped the Sunday Yawp shows to avoid further nausea...

Art
 
Regarding the flight, and after discusing with a couple pilots I know, common sense and experience dictates that he may have stepped a bit beyond his level of experience.

Regarding the coverage, my wife and I were surfing around and would come across the coverage once and a while. It was incredible how much reporting was going on over nothing. No details, no facts, nada. Typical talking heads. Feh. I was expecting such banal drivel such as "Rescuers found a gum wrapper on the beach this morning, and one of the plane's passengers has been known to chew gum. Experts believe they may have been chewing gum as a source of nutrition during this harrowing ordeal, so the search continues..." Or a reporter asking one of the Coasties, "It's our understanding that it's dark at night over the ocean, can you tell us how dark exactly?" Some of the stupidest questions, asked a number of times, to people who have said repeatedly that they did not have such information, or those facts, or the question didn't pertain to their specific expertise. Like repeating the question one more time would garner a new and exciting answer. God, I hate the media.
 
I tried staying away from those shows also, but every now and then while surfing, you still catch a stray round. What got my stomach churning was the comment that "The
Kennedys were the closest thing to royalty this country has ever had [sniffle]". Gads,
I thought all that media-created "Camelot" b/s was put to bed long ago. The Borgias of Italy would be more like it.
 
One of my favorite media questions:

Katie Couric interviewing Coast Guard admiral Larrabee:

KC: I understand you spoke to the Kennedy and Bisset families tonight.
Adm'l: Yes, I did, around 6 pm, I was apprising them of the current results
KC: What was that like?
Adm'l: What was what like?
KC: Talking to the families during this tragic time

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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes"
 
Yeah, all you pilot types, I'da done this, I'da done that, the answer is obvious given the situation.

I'da filed IFR or gone commercial.
 
As a student pilot dropout (after a few solo flights, I ran out of money and time ;(), even reckless old me can see that he was foolish to undertake that flight in those conditions.
It appears that he was possibly made late by his sister-in-law or wife.. but he didn;t have the cojones to tel them it was too late for him to make the flight.
Whatever the reason, it is tragic that God has again seen fit to wreak havoc on the Kennedy's, but this really was a bit of a gamble.
First JFK, sr. lets his security get lax and he gets whacked.
Bobby doesn't take the hint and catches lead himself.
Teddy has almost been a dead a couple of times, hasn't he?
Seems like one of the Kennedy's died in a skiing accident along the way....
Now this. Old Man Joe really lived dangerously, but he made it a lot longer than his offspring. Maybe the recklessness is genetic....
anyway......

Someone earlier predicted it on the nose, since yesterday, the major "news" channels have reported about the Boston Globe article in which the FAA put off a controller on Martha's Vinyard about the plane's whereabouts. Differnet reporters alternated between stressing that the FAA could've takne the opportunity to get a 4 hour head start on the search and criticizing the controller for not specifically mentioning that the plane was overdue and the pilot was not rated to fly in the current conditions.

Furthermore, I heard a president of a "pilots association" mentioning that he hoped this would make a case for stricter guidlines and more extensive training for private pilots. Something tells me that guys llike Rich must agree with that as much as I agree with the spokespeople from many "police officer associations" on most gun issues... ;).

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-Essayons
 
New take is that we mustdemand more training, more hours, and spend more money to get to be a pilot.

"We must do *something*!"

Everyone here at work seems to think that's the answer.

So, bad things won't happen then?

Personal responsibility be damned! Let's make another regulation!

L.P.
 
My favorite quote was some twit comparing the Kennedy family to the Adams family :D Of course, the pontificator was referring to John Adams/John Q. Adams, but all I could think of was:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>
They're Kreepy and they're Kooky, Mysterious and Spooky, They're altogether Ooky, The Addams Family.
[/quote]

[This message has been edited by Ewok (edited July 22, 1999).]
 
that's all msnbc is talking about this morning. they've got that mess on instead of imus, the only one that's grouchier then me in the mornings. i'll bet that this will last as long as the di thing. on&on&on, they love beating a dead horse, &on&on&on.......

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what me worry?
 
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