Fair comment! A dog can bite even when you feed it choc drops!!
As a matter of interest, any one see the piece in the Daily Mail today??
Where shall I start? Well, they reported a piper (since when did piper make high wing aircraft that look a lot like a 172?). "The undercarriage was torn off" That's why you can still see it attached to the airframe then!! The pilot said "we're going to crash". As for this particular flight, the pilot would have been an instructor I find this hard to believe.
But the best bit has to be a quote from the passenger, "The plane didn't feel right or sound right immediately after take off" Given that this guys only exposure to aviation before this was as SLF what the hell does he know about a plane sounding right?????
Classic case of poor reporting, and I intend e-mailing the offending journo in the next day or 2.