PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - AirLander take off then 2nd Flight Mishap
Old 26th Aug 2016, 09:50
  #253 (permalink)  
Wageslave
 
Join Date: May 2011
Location: uk
Posts: 579
Likes: 0
Received 1 Like on 1 Post
The company apparently IMMEDIATELY denied a witness report that it had struck power lines.

Why?

Corporations today really ought to be extremely conscious of how bad their image is becoming due, perhaps in part, to their seemingly limitless willingness to lie instantly about anything.

What could it cost them to say, instead, that they were investigating reports of the beast having struck a power line, rather than having to admit later on that their initial response was incorrect?
How people love to jump to conclusions and accuse others (especially evil "companies") of lying at the drop of a hat.

Perhaps the clue is in the word "immediately". If this refers to "immediately" after the accident it is highly likely that the company knew nothing of the wirestrike and as the entire ground team had witnessed it come in trailing a slack landing line (as shown in the DM's photo) and only develop a pitch down after crossing the perimeter where there are no wires it would have been utterly clear to everyone that this was impossible and would have sounded to them exactly like the sort of "witless witness" speculation we all so love to ridicule here...They also know that there are no wires in the immediate vicinity if the airfield perimeter for obvious reasons. Thus all concerned, except the pilots, would have been quite certain that no wirestrike had occurred.

It would take some time, several hours probably, before the results of the pilots' debriefing was disseminated within the company as this is always treated in confidence so some considerable delay might well be expected before mere PR wallahs knew anything about an unwitnessed and highly unlikely wirestrike some time prior to final approach especially as it doesn't/didn't seem to have been immediately connected with the incident.

For heaven's sake, lets not go around flinging about nasty accusations of "lying" before even we have all the facts? Just for once?

What possible motivation could they have to "lie"? What would be the point?
Pound to a pinch off the proverbial that statement was made before thePR officer had access to full details of the pilots' debrief and was thus made in good faith based on the info available at the time. Cut them a little slack, will you?

Why, why do so many people imagine that companies lie all the time? It just isn't rational.



It seems surprising that no video has surfaced of the wirestrike as surely dozens must have been filming it throughout it's flight? Did it make a big excursion in pitch before crossing the perimeter? If so that could have either damaged engine controls (fwd engines did not seem to be countering the pitch down) or broken equipment loose sufficient to affect the c of g.

Last edited by Wageslave; 26th Aug 2016 at 10:04.
Wageslave is offline