CNNFOXNBCABCCBS: Purveyors of Panic

I know this is going to come as a huge shock, but the media blew yesterday's airline "disaster" out of all semblance of proportion. Lets start with the nature of the emergency. A landing gear malfunction. This malfunction effects only one phase of flight. It in no way prevents the plane from flying or even makes it unsafe to land. Does it result in damage to the aircraft? Of course, but the only way yesterday's network soap opera masquerading as news could've ended was exactly the way it did. As a non-event with a scraped up plane. Real pilots who fly big jets train for such eventualities to the point that when such eventualities occur they are routine. The only way it could've possibly placed the passengers in any danger was if, oh, I don't know, the dimwitted cabin crew left the in-flight TVs on so the passengers could watch the media speculate wildly about their impending doom and cause some of them to panic and/or have a heart attack.

As a pilot I nash my teeth everytime the media discusses anything aviation related. I can only imagine the same nails-on-a-chalkboard reaction is experienced by any other professional when the media attempts to "inform" the public on their area of expertise. Another brilliant case would be the recent expose by a prominent network, prime-time news show on the "risk" posed by general aviation. I can't recall what network or when because I'm too lazy to Google it right now. Sufficeth to say it found the bogeyman at just about every little airport it visited.

Never mind that none of the airplanes used in 9/11 was a GA plane from an "unsecured" airport. Never mind that most GA airplanes do not have the payload or capacity to carry enough explosives to blow your nose. And never mind that there are thousands of easier less costly methods to reek death and destruction than little airplanes. By the end of this show, you were convinced (if you were entirely devoid of the most basic logic skills and scared of shadows in your closet) that we were vulnerable to attack from thousands of jihadists in tiny single engine airplanes.

Of course the media is not entirely to blame. There have been some very high-profile screw ups from my winged brethren that have only added fuel to the fire. The most recent and famous case being the instructor and student that violated the DC no-fly zone on their way to an airshow. What the media failed to report was, that while one GA pilot screwed up, the other half a million that flew that day did not. Yes they caused a lot of havoc on the ground, but that was due more to government over reaction than any actual danger that a two seat, 100hp VW with wings posed to the nation's capitol. But since less than 1% of us fly, it's easy to spice up the 6 o'clock news with that hyperbole that seems so essential to any kind of public discourse these days.

I think I may take the occasional blog to explain facets of the ATC system or aircraft operation so the handful of you that read this can perhaps help dispel some of the fanciful notions that have been planted in your friends' heads. This subject also dovetails nicely with, what I believe is the greatest threat to our nation and civil society as a whole--lack of perspective. I believe many of the so-called controversies, political arguments and bad--no, make that terrible--policy making decisions are solely because no one has any point of view but their own anymore. Our children are not taught history (except at Illiana Christian School where they not only excel due to the professionalism of the instruction, but the tuffness of the instructor as well) and we, in the west anyway, have no objective morality.

But that's for later. Right now I have to go watch crap. I can think of no better way to ruminate on the decline of Western civilization.