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#111
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Thank you for a most decent and intelligent post.
I believe you have fairly described the general gist of this whole issue. There are many sides to it, and each separately is an entire issue unto itself. The video itself isn't really the main issue, which can I guess, be quite confusing to some people. The video simply exists. It's simply a record showing an event; an instant in time where someone has suffered a tragedy, and anyone really, can review that event in time. The real issue involves the reasons or motivation for why people desire to both show and view these videos. This is a whole new ballgame, and opens wide the doors of human curiosity, and even a legitimate desire by some to learn from a mistake made by another. This is especially true of pilots, who by their very nature, want to be as safe as they possibly can be, and honestly believe that looking at what happened to another pilot might aid them and make them safer. This is a natural trait in a good pilot, and in the right context when dealing with a crash video scenario, is actually a positive motivation that shouldn't be discouraged. The problem comes in not realizing that in actuality, just watching a crash video without expert commentary....and by that I don't mean just having an expert in flight safety on hand to comment on the video like Jay was suggesting that I do on his site, will yield nothing but conjecture, which can actually be self defeating as a safety tool! What is actually needed is comment from an expert familiar with a SPECIFIC CRASH. Not having this comment available, simply produces conjecture, which as I said can be self defeating in the safety context, and indeed can even be misleading and in some cases even dangerous!! Many pilots don't realize this, and attempt to glean something from just the video, or from listening to some "expert" in the flight office...and even to someone recruited in good faith from Usenet as was the attempted case with me. These "experts" are almost always available for their "educated" comment. None of this makes a difference in the listener's acuity on flight safety, although it might make it SEEM that way at the time, so I discourage the practice whenever I can. I'm recalling a little joke we used to have when I was doing demonstration flying. It came up from time to time with some of us giving it a little different "twist" to suit our individual personalities, but the gist of it was always the same. We would have our morning preflight safety meeting before going out to fly, and invariably somebody would bring this up in one form or another if we happened to be discussing the different types who came out to watch us fly. One of our favorite "mythical" targets were the general aviation types who would be watching us. Mind you we didn't view all of them in this light....but it only takes one, and that ONE was always there watching!!!! The general feeling regardless of which one of us said it was always the same thought; "If I go up there and something breaks causing me to dig a hole ten feet deep in the ground, there will always be at least one of those GA types out there who has absolutely no idea of what he's talking about telling anyone he can get to listen to him just what the hell it was that I did wrong to cause me to kill myself" You just gotta love human nature!! :-))) Dudley Henriques International Fighter Pilots Fellowship "Jack" wrote in message . com... Dudley Henriques wrote: [....] I'm fairly convinced that the original poster (Bogels) pushing all the videos has motives that are not totally up front. [....] It is my hope that the hotel owner (Honek) will eventually change two remaining things on his site, if not for me personally, for those who have died in the videos he has... "cool stuff"...[and "ENJOY"].... Dudley, Reading this thread, I have thought back over the losses of friends and associates and wondered, since I was not present at their destruction, if I now had videos of their final seconds would I -- could I -- watch them? Maybe I could, but I probably wouldn't -- not without some very important goal in mind, perhaps to work directly with others in order to prevent a similar future occurrence. And it would always be hard -- always. Have I watched videos of other fatal crashes? Sure, and I will again -- and I can when I don't know the people involved. I want to know how airplanes come apart, what others at those moments would have witnessed, and a host of other curiosities -- some professional and some just human. But when the victims are introduced to me posthumously, in descriptions by those who knew them, and especially when they are described as decent competent people, the feeling changes and I become uncomfortable with the viewing. In fact, the older I get the less pleasant is the viewing even of old combat footage. Though I applaud our aerial victories, I am sobered by the implications, as I now have a better developed sense of the ultimate reality of the images on the film. Maybe some of it is from an understanding of how easily my own end could have been similar. Or maybe it's just knowing how small are the differences between us, no matter what uniform we wear. I remember when our squadron lost an F-100F with one fatality and one very badly burned. At the crash site, where a crowd of locals had gathered, it seemed so wrong to me that these gawkers could just stand nearby and watch the removal of our victims in their awful state. I wanted to herd them all away from the site so that viewing of those damaged bodies could be prevented. It seemed so disrespectful of my squadron-mates and friends that outsiders, who knew nothing of their character and their accomplishments and probably little understood the value of such men to our nation, should be present at such an awful moment. But now, who knows? Some of the onlookers may have understood as well as I, but back then it seemed they couldn't possibly comprehend or accept the obligation such knowledge placed upon them. And it sure hurt at the time. These feelings are not unique I know, and I suspect that they are like yours WRT to the subject of the crash videos. If pictures of the last moments of my friends were displayed on a web-site, I would _at the very least_ want there to be some solemnizing of the display and a strong indication of a sincere desire to avoid the slightest suspicion of exploitation. Though I think you may have gone overboard a bit in Honeck's case, I respect your need to seek Justice, or what passes for it on USENET. Jack |
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