PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Minimum safe altitude??
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Old 29th Jul 2010, 08:42
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PBL
 
Join Date: Sep 2000
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Well, comments about the Islamabad accident should probably go there, but there are a couple of pertinent observations.

First, he *obviously* busted MSA. But that is simply a tautological consequence of having hit terrain which MSA keeps you above. It is rather like looking at a car which has left the road on a corner, saying "the driver failed to drive in a manner which assured he safely rounded the corner", observing which laws that contravened, and saying one has explained the accident. All one has done, at most, is classify it.

Second, expect everyone, newspapers and televisual media, even the best ones, to publish mixtures of accurate mixed with inaccurate factual information, pure rubbish masquerading as fact (usually quoted from a third party, to protect the journalist), and, above all, extremely inaccurate speculation as to causes, for at least a week after a major accident. The best quick stuff I have seen in a decade and a half is actually the location-fixing work using photos and Google Earth that people such as Machaca and PJ2 put on the threads after accidents. It is more accurate, quicker, than most news organisations seem to manage. I have myself tried, after accidents, to accumulate accurate information rapidly and not succeeded in getting much information on which I knew I could rely inside about a week and a half. A decade or so later, with all the new technology, that brick wall still seems to be there, but with small holes in it poked by the Google Earth/picture sharing mentioned above.

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