BBC Coverage
Morning all.
I see everyone's still criticising the BBC's coverage of this incident, here are a thoughts from my side.
1. Regarding where I get my information from. As you'd expect, I have never knowingly run anything from PPRUNE unchecked. In fact its rare I'd run anything from PPRUNE. I have a number of your colleagues who've helped me with technical information anonymously. Several UK airlines, variety of type ratings, all of them captains. For the Ryanair incident I also spoke at length to an experienced cabin crew trainer on the way in which passengers react to mask deployment.
2. Regarding Mr Hadow. This story broke during the night and therefore Today led the chasing of it, so I can't comment on why we interviewed him. But I'd bet the main reason was that we actually had his number at 4am rather than because he is some sort of a 'celebrity'. Today's contacts book is astonishingly big but it doesn't have the mobile number of every Ryanair passenger. The idea that editors here demand 'well known' eyewitnesses to events is hilarious.
It is possible that he called us. We are vulnerable to skewing our reporting based on availability of witnesses. You might call this the UGC Problem -- UGC being the BBC's acronym for User Generated Content. Put simply, you are more likely to have your views reported if you offer them up. So we work hard to try find other views -- we spent much of the day searching for other people on the plane, and got hold of a further interview before the Six O'Clock News. Pen Hadow's radio interview wasn't in the Ten piece at all.
3. Does he have right to be quoted? Now here I think there's a debate to be had. I'd say yes. He was there, and he has a right to say what happened to him -- he has a right to point out that an emergency descent is terrifying for passengers and to suggest they could be kept informed. What right have I got to censor his views? Just as MoL has a right to point out, quite rightly why it is difficult for pilots to do so. We report the range of views...
4. ...unless we have provable facts. So what of the oxy masks -- and Hadow's claims they weren't working: If they all were, can someone provide me with proof. Happy to report it. Unfortunately on the day all we had was Ryanair's claim they all worked. I hate to fall back on the old Profumo line - "they would say that wouldn't that", but without proof, an independent (AAIB?) inspection, that's just a view. What I can do is report why some passengers think the masks aren't working in these situations. Which I did, several times on TV and in the online piece some of you have linked to. Interestingly one lo-co captain whose help I value told me he'd had a similar incident and the subsequent investigation discovered half the masks hadn't been working. Having covered a dozen rail disasters and dozens of aviation incidents I know damn well you don't jump on some 'truth' because it seems correct.
Thanks for your time. Don't suppose my perspective will change many minds here about the standard of our reporting, but at least now you've got both sides of the story.
BTW my email addresses is easily guessed if you have views or facts relating to this or any other aviation story!
Cheers Tom Symonds