Don’t you just love journalists who include phrases like:
This 100-tonne difference was the equivalent to the aircraft having an extra 20 African elephants on board, or a fully grown adult blue whale.
I think Mr Stewart missed a number of opportunities to provide suitable analogies. For clarification, I offer the following addenda to the article:
“An Emirates Airlines Airbus A340-500 bound for Dubai was roaring down the floodlit runway for take-off when it became clear that something was wrong.”
The roaring sound was equivalent to 902 African lions on heat, or 48,316 Collingwood supporters……… possibly also on heat.
“For these few terrifying moments, Emirates Airlines flight 407, carrying 257 passengers and 18 crew, simply vanished from official record, leaving those in the tower to pray that they would not hear an explosion in the suburbs to the south.”
The number people on board was equivalent to over 12 Rugby League teams (excluding reserves. If this number of rugby league players were to have been eliminated in a single accident, the NRL competition would need to be cancelled
"It was an incredibly serious incident," says Dick Smith, a former head of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority. "They were very lucky that they did not end up in a major accident with a lot of people losing their lives."
One ‘former head of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority’ commenting on A340 operations is equivalent to 8.7 Paris Hiltons commenting on the Global Financial Crisis.
“One of these was Roman Korobitson, who was travelling with his wife Irena and their two-year-old son to a family reunion in Russia.”
The ‘human interest’ value of a Russian family is equivalent to 0.07 orphans, or 0.24 vacuous celebrities.
“At 49 seconds past 10.30pm the Emirates plane began its roll to the south down the illuminated 3657m runway. In the tower, air traffic controllers became alarmed by the plane's slow speed as it neared the take-off point, but cockpit recordings suggest the pilots did not notice anything wrong. “
3657m is equivalent to 111 adult blue whales laid end to end behind a ‘research’ vessel. (The adult blue whale is commonly used as the standard unit of measurement in aviation weight and balance calculations, except in certaind third world countries, where the older African Lion is still used. ICAO has mandated that by 2013, all signatories must convert to the ABW scale. Until then, conversion tables must be used by pilots who cross international boundaries.)
“The city's newsrooms were largely empty, with hundreds of journalists and editors partying at the annual media awards night, the Quills, at Crown Casino, oblivious to the huge news story about to unfold on their doorstep.”
The noise from hundreds of journalists partying is equivalent to an A340 roaring down a runway - or 48,316 Collingwood supporters……… possibly on heat.
At Melbourne airport, a 42-year-old Danish pilot was sitting in the cockpit of his Emirates Airbus with his Canadian co-pilot running through their preflight checklist in preparation for their 14 1/2-hour flight to Dubai.
A 42-year-old Danish is equivalent to a very stale pastry. 14 ˝ hours is equivalent to an NFL Superbowl game.