Question, do they EVEN TRY

[McMooney]

Pilot had no qualifications to fly when a single-engine plane crashed in West Michigan (msn.com)

[N201MKTurbo]

Are you saying the reporter has no idea what they were talking about?

Would you be happier with: “small plane crashes after inadvertently entering instrument meteorological conditions”?

[Shadrach]

Pretty bad reporting and writing skills…Editor is really on the ball.

”An instrument rating is the qualifications a pilot must gave in order to fly safely.”

[201er]

2 hours ago, bluehighwayflyer said:

Remember this the next time you get too worked up about anything you hear on the news.

Or next time someone is mad about pilots sharing their two cents about an accident. The most unqualified pilot will still share better analysis than the local news.

[carusoam]

There must be a college news writing class…

That focuses on aviation accidents…

 

Write a few like this one… including the misspellings….

Automatically qualifies you for the big league…

 

Go USAToday!

Best regards,

-a-

[midlifeflyer]

7 hours ago, carusoam said:

There must be a college news writing class…

That focuses on aviation accidents…

 

Write a few like this one… including the misspellings….

Automatically qualifies you for the big league…

 

Go USAToday!

Best regards,

-a-

It's no really an aviation thing. Any specialized area gets its share. 
"Do they even try?" is a legitimate question. If a lot of people know about the field, they do. With aviation, they generally don't. I recently finished an excellent novel. Compelling story. Known writer with a good resume. Small Aviation 101 errors that broke into the feeling of reality. 

[Pinecone]

How would they know?  And how would they know who to ask to learn?

All that assuming the want to do a good job.

[midlifeflyer]

1 hour ago, Pinecone said:

How would they know?  And how would they know who to ask to learn?

All that assuming the want to do a good job.

Calling a local flight school would seem obvious. Most of the errors are really simple stuff, not the inner workings of a power plant. I've known local reporting media that have done that and ended up with a go-to for quick questions. Besides, media loves quoting an expert precisely because it adds credibility. 

"All that assuming the want to do a good job."

Edited July 26, 2022 by midlifeflyer

[Fly Boomer]

5 hours ago, midlifeflyer said:

Calling a local flight school would seem obvious.

Getting it out is way more important than getting it right.

[0TreeLemur]

I've noticed a trend in the past 10 years or so towards less attention to detail in the press.   Also, many things that used to be common knowledge aren't. 

e.g. Did you know that there was a thing called a "Cold War"?  

Get off my lawn!!!

[A64Pilot]

Diamond DA 42 flipped the other day in high winds at Orlando, crushing the cockpit and killing an occupant.

It was on the news with video of the flipped over Diamond, while the news caster describes it as a small single engine airplane like a Cessna, the twin props were plainly visible. Two propellors, maybe means two engines?

People are just stupid, line boy wanted to put jet in a R-1340 powered crop duster I was in. We were standing right beside that big 9 cyl radial, kid had no clue. Probably couldn’t have identified the spark plugs if shown them. He parked me, did it sound like a Jet?

[DXB]

On 7/26/2022 at 11:44 PM, 0TreeLemur said:

I've noticed a trend in the past 10 years or so towards less attention to detail in the press.   Also, many things that used to be common knowledge aren't. 

e.g. Did you know that there was a thing called a "Cold War"?  

Get off my lawn!!!

That time frame approximates the full demise of the traditional economic model that supported print journalism - it is now reflected in deterioration in size and quality of their workforce.  There are real consequences for society - absurdly bad aviation accident reporting is perhaps the least of them.

[steingar]

Used to be local news stories were just that, local.  They were often poorly written and full of mistakes, but few saw them.  Now local stories can go nationally and internationally thanks to the World Wide Web.  Han't improved the writing or the reporting any.  I've noticed that things get marginally better when you climb up the food chain.

[A64Pilot]

It’s a function of the average person knows very little about the subject, the reporter is an average and I’ll add lazy person so they write what one person tells them.

Which irritates people who know better.

There is this movie where Robert Redford is sailing single handed and hits a floating container and holes the boat, from there on his actions are stupid and way out of place with reality for people who know better, like shaving while the storm approaches and then in the middle of the storm is trying to put his storm sail up. Most enjoyed the movie, sailors couldn’t get past all the incorrect things he did to see the movie. 

[neilpilot]

42 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

There is this movie where Robert Redford is sailing single handed and hits a floating container and holes the boat, from there on his actions are stupid and way out of place with reality for people who know better, like shaving while the storm approaches and then in the middle of the storm is trying to put his storm sail up. Most enjoyed the movie, sailors couldn’t get past all the incorrect things he did to see the movie. 

Last night I wasted 90 minutes watching the movie Horizon Line on Amazon Prime.   The star of the movie is a GippsAero GA8 Airvan, somewhat similar to a C-208 Caravan.  If you want to see some amazingly stupid aviation scenes, they begin about 25 minutes into the movie.  The scene where the heroine refuels the left wing tank, in flight, using several whisky bottles is particularly incredible (as in not credible).

[N201MKTurbo]

5 minutes ago, neilpilot said:

Last night I wasted 90 minutes watching the movie Horizon Line on Amazon Prime.   The star of the movie is a GippsAero GA8 Airvan, somewhat similar to a C-208 Caravan.  If you want to see some amazingly stupid aviation scenes, they begin about 25 minutes into the movie.  The scene where the heroine refuels the left wing tank, in flight, using several whisky bottles is particularly incredible (as in not credible).

Speaking about incredible. The movie The Incredibles got the aviation thing pretty right, for a fantasy cartoon….

[carusoam]

4 hours ago, neilpilot said:

Last night I wasted 90 minutes watching the movie Horizon Line on Amazon Prime.   The star of the movie is a GippsAero GA8 Airvan, somewhat similar to a C-208 Caravan.  If you want to see some amazingly stupid aviation scenes, they begin about 25 minutes into the movie.  The scene where the heroine refuels the left wing tank, in flight, using several whisky bottles is particularly incredible (as in not credible).

Somebody posted a review of that movie on YT…

Probably BrYan….

The review is quite humorous…

-a-