The Awl http://www.theawl.com/ Be Less Stupid Mon, 23 May 2011 10:10:05 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.2 Air France 447 Crash Mystery May Be Completely Unmysterious http://www.theawl.com/2011/05/air-france-447-crash-mystery-may-be-completely-unmysterious http://www.theawl.com/2011/05/air-france-447-crash-mystery-may-be-completely-unmysterious#comments Mon, 23 May 2011 10:10:05 +0000 Choire Sicha http://www.theawl.com/2011/05/air-france-447-crash-mystery-may-be-completely-unmysterious Preliminary Air France 447 black box info! (Preliminary, in air crash investigations, means "take with a grain of salt.") So, according to reporters, the airspeed sensors got all icy, and the autopilot turned off, and the plane stalled, and then... well. It's definitely premature to assign any blame to the co-pilots who were in the cockpit, so we won't! These reports still seem incomplete: even small-craft pilots-in-training know what to do in a stall: you pick up speed, using something really complex called "gravity," and you un-stall. (According to another reporter, the plane was in a steep climb instead.)

This also means the Times magazine got lucky for their fascinating if also premature story on the flight, as they focused quite a bit on pitot probe failures.

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]]> Preliminary Air France 447 black box info! (Preliminary, in air crash investigations, means "take with a grain of salt.") So, according to reporters, the airspeed sensors got all icy, and the autopilot turned off, and the plane stalled, and then... well. It's definitely premature to assign any blame to the co-pilots who were in the cockpit, so we won't! These reports still seem incomplete: even small-craft pilots-in-training know what to do in a stall: you pick up speed, using something really complex called "gravity," and you un-stall. (According to another reporter, the plane was in a steep climb instead.)

This also means the Times magazine got lucky for their fascinating if also premature story on the flight, as they focused quite a bit on pitot probe failures.

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/05/air-france-447-crash-mystery-may-be-completely-unmysterious/feed 1 Air France Idiocy: What To Ignore In The Press http://www.theawl.com/2009/06/air-france-idiocy-what-to-ignore-in-the-press http://www.theawl.com/2009/06/air-france-idiocy-what-to-ignore-in-the-press#comments Thu, 04 Jun 2009 08:55:11 +0000 Choire Sicha http://www.theawl.com/2009/06/air-france-idiocy-what-to-ignore-in-the-press The newspapers are doing a terrible, horrible job with Air France Flight 447. The most hilarious passage yet comes from today's New York Post: "Perhaps no one will ever know how passengers reacted in those fatal 14 minutes-whether they screamed, grabbed for the oxygen masks or sat in silent prayer." Or maybe they had a sing-a-long to Beatles songs! Or maybe they all joined in covens to worship Satan! Ludicrous. But the lunacy is everywhere. From Reuters: "extreme turbulence or decompression during stormy weather might have caused the disaster." Yes, or not!

Decompression, by the way, isn't like it is in the movies, with the snakes getting sucked out of the planes. And turbulence doesn't destroy airplanes.

Sometimes reporters write things that don't even make any sense! Here is Time, recounting an incident on Qantas Flight 72 last year:

The plane abruptly entered a smooth 650-ft. dive (which the crew sensed was not being caused by turbulence) [ED NOTE: HUH? THEY SENSED THAT?] that sent dozens of people smashing into the airplane's luggage bins and ceiling.... After seemingly an eternity – in reality, the nosedive lasted 20 very long seconds – the flight crew wrested control of the plane from its wayward computer....
Ha, WRESTED! I think that means they hit the OFF BUTTON, but nice job making the autopilot sound like the HAL-9000.

Anyway, if you read that, it actually ceases to make sense! What actually happened on that flight were two separate instances, one of which briefly achieved not-quite zero g, the other which involved positive g. Unusual? Yes! Good? Not really! Deathly? Not if everyone was wearing a seatbelt. Poorly-written? GOD YES.

Speaking of zero-g, here is a video of someone barfing in a small plane during a brief negative-g roll! WARNING: GROSS BUT HILARIOUS.

Anyway! Then there is lots of hilarious stuff like in the media like "Equatorial region known for massive storms"!!! You know what else is known for massive storms? Everywhere else on the planet where there is a troposphere.

Here is from Captain Tom Bunn, now-retired United Airlines pilot:

The press wrote about the dreaded ITCZ — the Intertropical Convergence Zone. Look, gang. I used to fly trips from JFK to Rio once a week. I did that for years. I crossed the ITCZ hundreds and hundreds of times, and yet, I noticed nothing unusual — ever!
I looked at the weather maps for this flight. Nothing unusual. Other planes were on the route. Nothing to report. At least, nothing from professional pilots. But the professional press has lots to report. Good luck when reading their stuff.

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]]> The newspapers are doing a terrible, horrible job with Air France Flight 447. The most hilarious passage yet comes from today's New York Post: "Perhaps no one will ever know how passengers reacted in those fatal 14 minutes-whether they screamed, grabbed for the oxygen masks or sat in silent prayer." Or maybe they had a sing-a-long to Beatles songs! Or maybe they all joined in covens to worship Satan! Ludicrous. But the lunacy is everywhere. From Reuters: "extreme turbulence or decompression during stormy weather might have caused the disaster." Yes, or not!

Decompression, by the way, isn't like it is in the movies, with the snakes getting sucked out of the planes. And turbulence doesn't destroy airplanes.

Sometimes reporters write things that don't even make any sense! Here is Time, recounting an incident on Qantas Flight 72 last year:

The plane abruptly entered a smooth 650-ft. dive (which the crew sensed was not being caused by turbulence) [ED NOTE: HUH? THEY SENSED THAT?] that sent dozens of people smashing into the airplane's luggage bins and ceiling.... After seemingly an eternity – in reality, the nosedive lasted 20 very long seconds – the flight crew wrested control of the plane from its wayward computer....
Ha, WRESTED! I think that means they hit the OFF BUTTON, but nice job making the autopilot sound like the HAL-9000.

Anyway, if you read that, it actually ceases to make sense! What actually happened on that flight were two separate instances, one of which briefly achieved not-quite zero g, the other which involved positive g. Unusual? Yes! Good? Not really! Deathly? Not if everyone was wearing a seatbelt. Poorly-written? GOD YES.

Speaking of zero-g, here is a video of someone barfing in a small plane during a brief negative-g roll! WARNING: GROSS BUT HILARIOUS.

Anyway! Then there is lots of hilarious stuff like in the media like "Equatorial region known for massive storms"!!! You know what else is known for massive storms? Everywhere else on the planet where there is a troposphere.

Here is from Captain Tom Bunn, now-retired United Airlines pilot:

The press wrote about the dreaded ITCZ — the Intertropical Convergence Zone. Look, gang. I used to fly trips from JFK to Rio once a week. I did that for years. I crossed the ITCZ hundreds and hundreds of times, and yet, I noticed nothing unusual — ever!
I looked at the weather maps for this flight. Nothing unusual. Other planes were on the route. Nothing to report. At least, nothing from professional pilots. But the professional press has lots to report. Good luck when reading their stuff.

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