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View Full Version : Crackerjack Investigative Reporting



mdklatt
6/19/2008, 09:21 PM
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,368721,00.html


Rescue workers called off the ground search for the single-engine Cessna 172.

...

In April, a pilot aboard one of the company's planes was forced to make an emergency landing on a Big Island highway after his plane experienced mechanical problems. None of the six people on board was injured.

Company officials would not confirm if the plane in April's incident was the one that was missing.


A Cessna 172 holds four people, and that's being charitable. There is no way that the missing plane is the one involved in the April incident.

This reporter went through the trouble of finding out that a "flying certificate"--whatever that is--was issued for the missing plane back in October, but somewhere along the way didn't realize that it couldn't be the same one that was carrying six people in April? It's easy for me to criticize since I obviously know more about this stuff than the reporter, so am I being unreasonable?

Frozen Sooner
6/19/2008, 09:27 PM
Meh. It has a certain truthiness to it.

mdklatt
6/19/2008, 09:39 PM
Meh. It has a certain truthiness to it.

Don't get me wrong, for a news story about aviation that one is fairly free of laughers other than the "flying certificate" and the failure to connect the dots about the seating capacity of a Cessna 172.

I love eyewitness accounts about airplane crashes. Even if they're at the airport surrounded by pilots, the reporters always find the most unaware person there.

"Well, I knew there was a problem because I could see that the propellers [talking about a jet] weren't spinning."

"One of them other fellers said the plane stalled, but I heard the engine running just fine."

"That pilot is just lucky he ran out of gas or else there might have been a big fire when he crashed."

Taxman71
6/20/2008, 08:58 AM
Any chance the 6 passengers has just got out of a VW Beetle outside the circus?