TALKING HEADS REALLY BOTCHED FLIGHT #214

THE NEWS MEDIA

AND

TALKING HEADS

Let me preface this column in letting you know that I am a talking head. I do aviation reports for 2 TV stations in Phoenix and have appeared as a guest on 2 aviation podcast. I try to never speculate when doing an interview, and if I do not have the facts, then I do not comment. Therefore I declined to do an interview on 214.

My wife and I were in Cali when the 214 crash occurred at San Francisco (SFO). There is a 24 hour news radio station that tied into the TV broadcast. This station ran out expert after expert that had no information what so ever. The problem is TV needs to say something, and media expects their experts to say something whether they have the facts or not. You just can not have dead air on TV.

While we were driving listening to this event unfold some very famous talking heads come on the air for interviews. They talked about microbursts and wind shear even though the weather was severe clear. Then they talked about the glide slope being out of service as if one could not land a plane when cleared for the visual approach. Have they forgotten when they learned to fly that every approach was a visual approach. It was a very disgraceful event for our industry. Instead of speculating why not wait until they had some facts. Some people interviewed were as far away as Chicago. They then interviewed people on their staff that happened to be private pilots. Things got worse on the air.

It was not only the talking heads who were a disgrace. The news media did a wonderful jobs of botching things also. Perhaps the worse was Channel 2 in Oakland that announced the pilots of 214. They put a graphic on the screen and the newscaster read the names which were:

Captain Sum Ting Wong

Wi Tu Lo

Ho Lee Fuk

Bang Ding Ow

I still can not believe she read this and never figured it out. She later apologized half heartily when she said that the NTSB put out this information. I do not know if she still works at Channel 2.

There are some good people in the media that take time to digest the situation. About 4 weeks ago there was a midair NW of Phoenix Deer Valley Airport. I was interviewed later that afternoon in my office by Stella Inger of Channel 3 Phoenix. When I do a TV interview they tape for 30 minutes to an hour and play a different 2 minute snippet on each news broadcast that evening. I was concerned because Stella was not versed in Aviation. She asked me a lot of questions before we went on camera and after the interview was over, taking copious notes. When I watched the broadcast I was pleasantly surprised at how well she absorbed everything. It was the best report I ever was associated with.

In closing I have found that most talking heads will go on the air any chance they get. Really a shame.