Grey areas.......... don't you love them...........
Radeng – north of Lyneham,
Any text, without context, is a pretext.
Your post is well written and your point well made. The problem with the original news article is that there is no context; we really know virtually nothing about the “event”.
For example, if you are a uniformed aircrew on the aircraft being repositioned and you took out a report including pictures of a prop hub less blades or some other accident report I would not be concerned for the safety of the flight. I might question the wisdom of doing such work in the presence of paying passengers some of whom probably suffer some anxiety about flying. But in context such behavior would not cause me to be suspicious.
But many people would agree that there is a definite line (completely subjective) between the behavior you described and that of publically watching the 9-11 suicide attacks in the presence of airplane passengers who are travelling on an airplane. To “roll those tapes” in front of a plane load of passengers is going to cause somebody to object. In my opinion such behavior is to intentionally wave the red flag in front of the bull or to pull the tiger’s tail-you are asking for trouble. Such an antagonist is either looking for trouble or just acting foolishly.
Further, as an airline Captain, this is exactly the kind of stuff that I have to deal with at work trying to sort out the various requests and concerns that are brought my way.