Negative GA on Diane Rehms Show

Here is a copy of my email to Diane Rehms in response to comments she
made about GA last week on her news show. I have not received a reply
as of yet.

I am a long time listener to your show and greatly value your unbiased
opinions and interviews. I would like to make a comment about your News
Roundup on Oct 13 (Friday).

I was greatly disappointed about your commentaries regarding the small
airplane that crashed into an apartment in NY. Considering the
thousands of airplanes that transition through NY, having just one
accident like this in many many years indicates an excellent safety
record. In addition, only the occupants of the vehicle were killed, and
no bystanders were injured. The media unfortunately likes to
sensationalize this incident and draw parallels with the 9/11 attacks.
I am hopeful that you will provide a more educated and objective view.
Small airplanes are no more a threat to this nation than small cars. I
would challenge anyone who says otherwise to prove the existence of
such threats. In order to do that, you would have to become educated
about our national airspace system and the aviation industry.

I am a pilot and flight instructor, and I can tell you with certainty
that the difference between the small airplane that crashed last week
and the 9/11 airplanes is like the difference between a motorcycle and
a 18-wheel fuel tanker. Yet, we allow vehicles loaded with dangerous
material to go through NY and DC. When it comes to airplanes, we seem
to have a phobia, no matter how small that threat may be. Commercial
news outlets are in the business of sensationalizing trivial events,
but I hold NPR to a higher standard. I hope you will retract your
statements about general aviation, and do a future show on the real
status of aviation in this country, and how general aviation has been
victimized by the political climate. I will be happy to put you in
touch with experts on this topic.

To inject some irony into this incident, a car accidentally crashed
into a second story apartment sometime last month, but that did not
make any national news, or call for draconian measures to clamp down on
car driving. Here is the link:

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/lo...news-headlines

Andrew Sarangan wrote:

snip

Of course you are right. But don't hold your breath.

I accidentally hear Geraldo Rivera on the TV a few days ago. I used to
think he was a moron; now he's proved it.

He was blathering about the turn, and how the wing would block the
pilot's view as he banked. IIRC, the plane was a Cirrus, with a low
wing. It would get out of the way of his view.

Heraldo also mentioned the pilot's low time, and how he shouldn't have
been there with so little experience. Well, duh, perhaps that's why he
had an instructor along???????

I wish these idiots would shut up until we have some facts, instead of
filling airwaves with their arrogant blather.

Andrew Sarangan wrote:
Here is a copy of my email to Diane Rehms in response to comments she
made about GA last week on her news show. I have not received a reply
as of yet.

Good for you. I wrote Sen. Schumer (NY) about his misconceptions, and
his attempts at scaring the voters.

On the good side of news reporting, I've often written 1010-WINS news
and corrected them on aviation information... and they fix their
reports! For example, when that pilot crashed with his family in a
city street a few years back, 1010 was reporting that the "large
gyroscope that keeps the plane upright" might've failed. I gently
trained them on the fact that the "gyro" that the NTSB was talking
about, was a small instrument. To my surprise, they quickly corrected
their story and replied to me with an apology that their "local
aviation expert was out of town".

So there's hope sometimes.

Kev

Kev wrote:
On the good side of news reporting, I've often written 1010-WINS news
and corrected them on aviation information... and they fix their
reports! For example, when that pilot crashed with his family in a
city street a few years back, 1010 was reporting that the "large
gyroscope that keeps the plane upright" might've failed. I gently
trained them on the fact that the "gyro" that the NTSB was talking
about, was a small instrument. To my surprise, they quickly corrected
their story and replied to me with an apology that their "local
aviation expert was out of town".

So there's hope sometimes.


Sometimes... maybe. I've corrected our local stations on several occasions and
have never gotten any kind of response out of them. Not a thank you; not a
correction. And I always point out that they already have an in-house aviation
expert on staff: their traffic copter pilot. Apparently they'd rather leave
him out of the loop on the off chance that they can embarass themselves yet
again with lame reporting.

They'd rather be sensational than right.



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN
mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com

Mortimer Schnerd, RN wrote:
Kev wrote:
On the good side of news reporting, I've often written 1010-WINS news
and corrected them on aviation information... and they fix their
reports!

Btw, I should've mentioned that 1010 is the largest news radio station
in New York City.

So there's hope sometimes.

Sometimes... maybe. I've corrected our local stations on several occasions and
have never gotten any kind of response out of them. Not a thank you; not a
correction. And I always point out that they already have an in-house aviation
expert on staff: their traffic copter pilot. Apparently they'd rather leave
him out of the loop on the off chance that they can embarass themselves yet
again with lame reporting.

A few years back we had a run of news copter accidents. One ditched
in the East River. Another spun into a rooftop in Brooklyn (that one
was caught on tape by a rival news copter... and replayed a thousand
times). This was right after they reamed out a GA pilot for crashing
in the streets. But because it was THEIR pilots, and they were
terrified of getting banned from flying low over city streets, all the
TV stations emphasized how brave their pilots were to have saved the
passengers, etc. Quite a different tune, and they were gentler to GA
crashes for a long time afterward.

Kev

On 18 Oct 2006 20:37:18 -0700, wrote in .com:

I wish these idiots would shut up until we have some facts, instead of
filling airwaves with their arrogant blather.

Jim Fallows, a former Cirrus owner and GA pilot with hundreds
of hours of experience, has written a series of excellent
articles on the crash. This article was highlighted in
today's AVWEB newsletter:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200610u/lidle-crash-3

Jim is a good friend of a good friend of mine and used
to post occasionally in r.a.p.

Marty
--
The Big-8 hierarchies (comp, humanities, misc, news, rec, sci, soc, talk)
are under new management. See http://www.big-8.org for details.

"Kev" wrote in message
ups.com...

A few years back we had a run of news copter accidents. One ditched
in the East River. Another spun into a rooftop in Brooklyn (that one
was caught on tape by a rival news copter... and replayed a thousand
times). This was right after they reamed out a GA pilot for crashing
in the streets. But because it was THEIR pilots, and they were
terrified of getting banned from flying low over city streets, all the
TV stations emphasized how brave their pilots were to have saved the
passengers, etc. Quite a different tune, and they were gentler to GA
crashes for a long time afterward.

IIRC, that was just last year.

"Andrew Sarangan" wrote in message
ups.com...

....snip...

Nice letter, eloquent and reasonable. I think no amount of reason, though,
will stop grandstanding politicians and news media.

Its more like a motorcycle to a freight train.

"Martin X. Moleski, SJ" wrote:

Jim Fallows, a former Cirrus owner and GA pilot with hundreds
of hours of experience, has written a series of excellent
articles on the crash. This article was highlighted in
today's AVWEB newsletter:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200610u/lidle-crash-3

That's a nice article and the New York Times graphic that he links to is a
very nice and succinct summary of the flight.