Angry Relative;
You may be utterly shocked and appalled at this thread, but sadly what Jim wrote and said in the media was often innaccurate and misleading. You may feel that his reputation has been trashed, but that is how the relatives of dead aircrew he wrote about feel about what he did to them. He was alive when this thread began, he was informed of it and chose not to use his right to reply, what about the people whose professional reputations were traduced by Jim but had no right of reply? What about the widows and children of dead pilots who heard and read his ill-informed reports and whose friends/neighbours believed that their man was guilty of gross pilot error.
I was once in a serious incident, Jim wrote about it at the time and again when the AAIB reported. Now, post Leveson I would have the right to reply, then I had none, Jim's report bore little resemblance to either the original incident and none to the AAIB report, mud sticks, and I spent alot of time with smart arses telling me how it was all my fault (as Jim reported) when the AAIB had praised both me and the P2 for our actions.
Others on here such as DoubleBogey claim the moral high ground and accuse posters of bullying, I personally know a lot of the posters on this thread and know that there was no bullying, just huge anger when Jim purported to be an expert on a subject which we all spent years learning and decades honing. I have permission from one poster to admit that he had a nervous breakdown after one incident and that a lot of his problems were caused by innaccurate reporting which he couldn't respond to.
After an incident/accident no-one from a company or the AAIB is allowed to talk to the media, except to report basic facts. The media go into a feeding frenzy and sadly Jim's reporting fed the frenzy, and innocent people got trampled in the rush. His reports on the death of Pete Barnes on the 16th January were classic examples and Pete's familly had to cope with an "expert" who had never flown a helicopter giving an impression that he really knew what it was like to fly into EGLW and how to fly an A109 when his knowledge was really zero.
Angry Relative, if you pm me I am more than happy to give up my annonimity and discuss Jim and the media with you. Passionate and commited he may have been, I don't know, but I do know how much he hurt me, my familly and the famillies of many others, none of whom were ever allowed to be heard in reply. As I said earlier, he had the right to reply here, which is far more than anyone he ever wrote about had.
MODs this post will probably p*** a few people off. If I get banned I don't mind. I am also passionate and commited and I have written as I believed, apparently as did JF, although I did at least speak to other posters, and the famillies of several dead North Sea pilots before posting.