The BBC gaff about ‘three killed in crash of two-seat aircraft’ was a silly mistake that a first-week trainee reporter with GCSE English Language should have caught. But it was the inaccuracy of ‘two-seat’ bit that really bothered me. Imagine if you’d had a loved one who was known to have been flying a two-seat aeroplane in the Oxford area on Saturday, and been unable to contact that person for a few hours after the news was posted.
I recall an accident a couple of years ago in which a light aircraft suffered an inflight structural failure. Initial reports named it as a ‘Robin 400’. An enterprising journalist from a Sunday national downloaded the names and addresses of registered owners of DR 400s from the CAA G-INFO website, and began phoning their homes, enquiring of their families if their husbands/wives/parents/children were home safe. Insensitive at best, but as it transpired the aircraft involved was a Rockwell Commander, and a few families of Robin owners were caused quite unnecessary anguish through someone’s failure to check facts before launching into print or broadcast.
As for the generally lamentable standards of national press reporting on aviation matters, I believe at least some of the fault lies in the disappearance of specialist air correspondents from the staffs of newspapers and TV stations — people of the calibre of Raymond Baxter and Reg Turnhill at the BBC, for example. That, and the ever-growing desire to seek cause and apportion blame before the wreckage has even cooled, and that applies equally to road, rail and shipping accidents.
What to do about it? Many years ago the now defunct U.S. Aviation/Space Writers Association, of which I was UK Chapter secretary, used to send out to newsdesks a useful little booklet entitled ‘The Reporter and Air Accidents’. Not only did it contain much background about aeroplanes and flying (for example, explaining that stalling an aircraft and stalling the engine in your car are not the same thing), but it contained extensive lists of contacts who could be called for informed comment. I’m not aware that there has ever been a UK equivalent, but at national press level I do see an opportunity here for the GA representative organisations to become more pro-active.
Locally, it’s not a bad idea for flying clubs to hold a Press day and offer local journalists a trial flight, so they can learn a little about private flying. Yes, you may get a ‘Biggles derring-do’ type of story, but it’ll probably be positive, and next time an incident occurs the reporter may think twice — or better still check with someone — before writing about pilots being seen ‘fighting the controls’ or ‘crashing after the engine stalled’.