Ryanair Loss of Pressurisation 25th Aug
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When I use the term ordinary, I refer to the fact that loss of cabin pressure is not as uncommon as you might imagine. BMI had a cracked windscreen last week which resulted in a rapid decent but that didn't make the press.
A study of the statistics would show that this is not such a rare event.
I accept that the Helios accident was a tragic mistake on the part of the crew but that is not the normal outcome in spite of many efforts by the press to suggest that it is a narrow escape from death whenever it occurs. It is not.
The idiot who spoke knowingly of the lack of Oxygen, when he should have been aware that had there been no Oxygen supplied he would not be standing in front of a camera recounting his 'near-death experience', served only to reinforce the lack of interest shown by him and his fellow pasengers to the briefing given for their benefit by the cabin crew.
'No preliminary indications from the cockpit.'
'No O2 was delivered to the masks.'
'Maybe the pilot deemed it inappropriate to supply O2.'
'We dropped almost instantly from 40.000' to 8.000.'
'80% of the pax knew they were going to die.'
'There were no cabin crew walking up and down the aisle giving advice and reassurance.'
'There was no communication between the crew and the flight attendants.'
Had he taken the time to ask, he would not come accros as such an idiot.
As to Mickey Mouse back up systems, what do you suggest? Individual 1-hour O2 bottles stowed under every seat? The system evidently works or there would not have been 177 people walking off the aircraft after it landed in Limoges. As for the 16 who went to hospital, I hazard a guess that before they arrived in the busy ER or Casualty room, the discomfort had gone.
There was a passenger on board who flies for RYR but they never quoted her experience, probably because she saw it as handled well by the crew and without too much distress or drama. But that would not make good copy so was discarded.
Intrepid flight attendants don't have the same cachet as intrepid explorers.
A study of the statistics would show that this is not such a rare event.
I accept that the Helios accident was a tragic mistake on the part of the crew but that is not the normal outcome in spite of many efforts by the press to suggest that it is a narrow escape from death whenever it occurs. It is not.
The idiot who spoke knowingly of the lack of Oxygen, when he should have been aware that had there been no Oxygen supplied he would not be standing in front of a camera recounting his 'near-death experience', served only to reinforce the lack of interest shown by him and his fellow pasengers to the briefing given for their benefit by the cabin crew.
'No preliminary indications from the cockpit.'
'No O2 was delivered to the masks.'
'Maybe the pilot deemed it inappropriate to supply O2.'
'We dropped almost instantly from 40.000' to 8.000.'
'80% of the pax knew they were going to die.'
'There were no cabin crew walking up and down the aisle giving advice and reassurance.'
'There was no communication between the crew and the flight attendants.'
Had he taken the time to ask, he would not come accros as such an idiot.
As to Mickey Mouse back up systems, what do you suggest? Individual 1-hour O2 bottles stowed under every seat? The system evidently works or there would not have been 177 people walking off the aircraft after it landed in Limoges. As for the 16 who went to hospital, I hazard a guess that before they arrived in the busy ER or Casualty room, the discomfort had gone.
There was a passenger on board who flies for RYR but they never quoted her experience, probably because she saw it as handled well by the crew and without too much distress or drama. But that would not make good copy so was discarded.
Intrepid flight attendants don't have the same cachet as intrepid explorers.
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I think I am seeing two major points to be learned here that so many contributors seem to want to ignore or even obliterate from the public domain:
1) Passengers' lives were thought to be endangered. Then during the recovery, Per Hadow thought he observed a degree of chaos - when he spoke to the press he no doubt described it using all the stuff which had made it into his brain up to that point coupled with some fair reasoning. I happen to know that there is nothing in a Ryanair safety briefing which adds to or subtracts from the stuff he spouted. In order to have moderated all his observations made to the press into statements of pure fact, he would need to have been debriefed and to know what I now know from elsewhere, wouldn't he? He quite clearly is not an idiot and I fail to understand why he should be expected to bother asking the company that ruffled his hair quite so thoroughly why they did it before he spoke to people interested in his overall experience. As we now know, they'd probably not have told him half of it anyway and he probably would have needed a fax machne to send his question and a computer to receive a response in days not minutes.
2) Something went wrong. 737NG's are to be built, operated and maintained by people that understand them well enough and practice their skill well enough to avoid ever finding themselves responsible for flying up at 11 or 12 km high and only then finding that they've missed something rather crucial to chances of people in their care remaining alive up there.
I don't think it is acceptable to claim stuff like 'It's not crucial because we train for it and we have a back up system. So all in all it is ordinary.'
I agree there may be interesting things to learn from comparing the experience and perception of the Ryanair pilot who happened to be a passenger that day with that of the non-pilot passengers. I don't doubt they were more relaxed about things than most. As I expect that person was sat in the front it would be naturally be interesting to know what they observed if they turned to look and/or sought to help others. One man's food is another's poison and all that.
Similarly, I don't suppose there were 16 people all fighting for priority boarding in an ambulance - I imagine they will have been advised to go/were simply led/carried away based on how they presented.
Passengers generally having been through something like that are expected to react like shaken passengers. Shove a microphone up their nose and who knows what might come out. But passengers are no more idiots than pilots in the grand scheme of things are they? Stick a microphone in a High Net Worth Ryanair pilot's face and ask about it and they poo-poo it, and even invite idiotic passengers to sue, right?
Let's please agree that people don't generally travel around the globe, publish websites, or accumulate and retain average net worth until they die these days by being idiots. Many who fly more, achieve less, and also don't know much about what goes on under the hood are no idiots either, are they?
Now then, why can't the serious subject matter i.e. how and why the fault occurred be discussed rather more soberly here?
BTW, unless I've missed it, we havent been told yet how high the cabin altitude rose so we really can make no judgement whatsoever in this thread on the effectiveness of the masks, can we?
1) Passengers' lives were thought to be endangered. Then during the recovery, Per Hadow thought he observed a degree of chaos - when he spoke to the press he no doubt described it using all the stuff which had made it into his brain up to that point coupled with some fair reasoning. I happen to know that there is nothing in a Ryanair safety briefing which adds to or subtracts from the stuff he spouted. In order to have moderated all his observations made to the press into statements of pure fact, he would need to have been debriefed and to know what I now know from elsewhere, wouldn't he? He quite clearly is not an idiot and I fail to understand why he should be expected to bother asking the company that ruffled his hair quite so thoroughly why they did it before he spoke to people interested in his overall experience. As we now know, they'd probably not have told him half of it anyway and he probably would have needed a fax machne to send his question and a computer to receive a response in days not minutes.
2) Something went wrong. 737NG's are to be built, operated and maintained by people that understand them well enough and practice their skill well enough to avoid ever finding themselves responsible for flying up at 11 or 12 km high and only then finding that they've missed something rather crucial to chances of people in their care remaining alive up there.
I don't think it is acceptable to claim stuff like 'It's not crucial because we train for it and we have a back up system. So all in all it is ordinary.'
I agree there may be interesting things to learn from comparing the experience and perception of the Ryanair pilot who happened to be a passenger that day with that of the non-pilot passengers. I don't doubt they were more relaxed about things than most. As I expect that person was sat in the front it would be naturally be interesting to know what they observed if they turned to look and/or sought to help others. One man's food is another's poison and all that.
Similarly, I don't suppose there were 16 people all fighting for priority boarding in an ambulance - I imagine they will have been advised to go/were simply led/carried away based on how they presented.
Passengers generally having been through something like that are expected to react like shaken passengers. Shove a microphone up their nose and who knows what might come out. But passengers are no more idiots than pilots in the grand scheme of things are they? Stick a microphone in a High Net Worth Ryanair pilot's face and ask about it and they poo-poo it, and even invite idiotic passengers to sue, right?
Let's please agree that people don't generally travel around the globe, publish websites, or accumulate and retain average net worth until they die these days by being idiots. Many who fly more, achieve less, and also don't know much about what goes on under the hood are no idiots either, are they?
Now then, why can't the serious subject matter i.e. how and why the fault occurred be discussed rather more soberly here?
BTW, unless I've missed it, we havent been told yet how high the cabin altitude rose so we really can make no judgement whatsoever in this thread on the effectiveness of the masks, can we?
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Mods: please feel free to delete this if you feel it is too off-thread.
As someone who left the BBC after 20 years I feel there is a poor understanding in the airline industry of how the 'media' work. If you understand it better you may save your GP's time in dealing with your elevated blood pressure.
'News' largely comes from information given to 'wire' services.
It is then regurgitated by Radio, TV and the newspapers.
It comes from many people and places, too many to explain, many of them making money from delivering it.
The BBC operates a hierarchy of 'wire' services. The big boys like Reuters are usually considered 'safe' to report. i.e. the information can be trusted. Other services are happy to post rubbish, hence the phrase 'we are getting an unconfirmed report'. If that report makes it onto AP or Reuters it will be assumed it is true, until countered.
These 'wire' stories are often then broadcast and printed pretty much verbatim.
This is often where some of the silliness comes from - "the 737's four engines" etc.
Here you have to balance speed with accuracy. It is true that errors get broadcast, but how often do threads here start with a link to a BBC story?
The errors are usually in the detail and language, and while everyone would agree that no errors should ever be broadcast, the view is taken that errors in detail can be corrected as new information comes in, as long as the story itself is correct.
This is not an apology for broadcasting rubbish, but to a non-professional, saying there are 300 passengers on a 737, and then correcting it an hour later is, essentially, an acceptable error if the core of the story is right.
If you read all the newspapers, as journalists do, but most people don't, you will read the same stuff in many of them, including quotes.
This is not because all journalists are too lazy to follow things up, but because of the volume of material flowing through newsrooms.
In this case the Today would have got the story off the wires, and then sought someone to talk to who had been on the flight. How it got on the wires I don't know. A stringer in France?
The Today people would have been thrilled to get Pen Hadow because they had someone people might have heard of rather than an 'unknown'.
Now, before you condemn this, you must consider that YOU are ALL more interested in celebrities than unknown people. Any journalist would implicitly go for a 'known' person. Many reading this will be thinking that they aren't interested in celebs, but look at your broadsheets. Full of interviews and 'reactions' from people you have heard of before.
They are the way they are because it works.
Has anyone phoned YOU up lately for a profile? No?
Because no one will want to read it in the general media.
Your views and mine are not interesting.
Now, what jeremy Clarkson thinks will always SELL PAPERS.
You buy 'em. You chose what to watch.
Today record an interview with Pen. He makes 'claims'. Many of them wrong, but his honest perception. He witnessed events - he speaks.
Today contact Ryanair and they 'put up' MOL. Good for them.
He counters Hadow's 'claims,' rather well I thought.
I'm guessing that many here would feel that the BBC should have checked Pen Hadow's claims, found them to be false and then consigned his interview to the bin.
This is where I think you misunderstand what the Press think they are for.
Hadow made 'claims'. By the next day these 'claims' may have been shown to have no substance, but at 4.00 am when the Today team were putting the programme together they were part of an emerging picture. In the world of rolling news these 'claims' are there to be countered.
Had the BBC broadcast them without giving the chance for Ryanair to respond they would have been breaking their own rules.
As it was they did, and they were countered.
The BBC has this story BBC NEWS | UK | Forced landing for Ryanair flight on it's website which is a tidying up of the story as it unfolded. It doesn't lead with Hadow's 'claims', but it does continue to report his views that Ryanair communicated badly.
They also got Tom Symonds (who I think is seen here on Pprune trying to get facts, something I think you should encourage) to do this piece BBC NEWS | UK | What to do when planes lose pressure which is quite a decent job of trying to educate us SLF. The BBC ran this on the front page of it's news site for quite a long time. Which means a staggering number of people will have seen it.
Other did quite a similar piece, Metro I believe for instance.
So, in summary, I would guess that pretty much all journalists, wherever they were from, would argue that Today did exactly the right thing in broadcasting the Hadow interview, and getting a rebuttal from MOL.
As I said elsewhere, the slightly bizarre upshot is many, many people are probably better informed about cabin depressurisation and O2 masks....
On a last, slightly self-serving note, it is unlikely that The Daily Mail, The Sun, The Daily Express, The Mirror, and the others would have not felt they should seek the Ryanair rebuttal. They have no rules that I am aware of they tell them to include the counter-argument.
As a colleague said who worked for one of the above - "They tell you what the story is, you call a couple of people and it turns out it's not right. You tell them and they say "you've been told what story to write, now write it."
And while we're at it, in many cases, where you read an unattributed quote in the newspapers it was made up.
"A close friend said she is heartbroken over the split" is MADE UP.
A they are constantly having a go at broadcast media. It beggars belief.
As someone who left the BBC after 20 years I feel there is a poor understanding in the airline industry of how the 'media' work. If you understand it better you may save your GP's time in dealing with your elevated blood pressure.
'News' largely comes from information given to 'wire' services.
It is then regurgitated by Radio, TV and the newspapers.
It comes from many people and places, too many to explain, many of them making money from delivering it.
The BBC operates a hierarchy of 'wire' services. The big boys like Reuters are usually considered 'safe' to report. i.e. the information can be trusted. Other services are happy to post rubbish, hence the phrase 'we are getting an unconfirmed report'. If that report makes it onto AP or Reuters it will be assumed it is true, until countered.
These 'wire' stories are often then broadcast and printed pretty much verbatim.
This is often where some of the silliness comes from - "the 737's four engines" etc.
Here you have to balance speed with accuracy. It is true that errors get broadcast, but how often do threads here start with a link to a BBC story?
The errors are usually in the detail and language, and while everyone would agree that no errors should ever be broadcast, the view is taken that errors in detail can be corrected as new information comes in, as long as the story itself is correct.
This is not an apology for broadcasting rubbish, but to a non-professional, saying there are 300 passengers on a 737, and then correcting it an hour later is, essentially, an acceptable error if the core of the story is right.
If you read all the newspapers, as journalists do, but most people don't, you will read the same stuff in many of them, including quotes.
This is not because all journalists are too lazy to follow things up, but because of the volume of material flowing through newsrooms.
In this case the Today would have got the story off the wires, and then sought someone to talk to who had been on the flight. How it got on the wires I don't know. A stringer in France?
The Today people would have been thrilled to get Pen Hadow because they had someone people might have heard of rather than an 'unknown'.
Now, before you condemn this, you must consider that YOU are ALL more interested in celebrities than unknown people. Any journalist would implicitly go for a 'known' person. Many reading this will be thinking that they aren't interested in celebs, but look at your broadsheets. Full of interviews and 'reactions' from people you have heard of before.
They are the way they are because it works.
Has anyone phoned YOU up lately for a profile? No?
Because no one will want to read it in the general media.
Your views and mine are not interesting.
Now, what jeremy Clarkson thinks will always SELL PAPERS.
You buy 'em. You chose what to watch.
Today record an interview with Pen. He makes 'claims'. Many of them wrong, but his honest perception. He witnessed events - he speaks.
Today contact Ryanair and they 'put up' MOL. Good for them.
He counters Hadow's 'claims,' rather well I thought.
I'm guessing that many here would feel that the BBC should have checked Pen Hadow's claims, found them to be false and then consigned his interview to the bin.
This is where I think you misunderstand what the Press think they are for.
Hadow made 'claims'. By the next day these 'claims' may have been shown to have no substance, but at 4.00 am when the Today team were putting the programme together they were part of an emerging picture. In the world of rolling news these 'claims' are there to be countered.
Had the BBC broadcast them without giving the chance for Ryanair to respond they would have been breaking their own rules.
As it was they did, and they were countered.
The BBC has this story BBC NEWS | UK | Forced landing for Ryanair flight on it's website which is a tidying up of the story as it unfolded. It doesn't lead with Hadow's 'claims', but it does continue to report his views that Ryanair communicated badly.
They also got Tom Symonds (who I think is seen here on Pprune trying to get facts, something I think you should encourage) to do this piece BBC NEWS | UK | What to do when planes lose pressure which is quite a decent job of trying to educate us SLF. The BBC ran this on the front page of it's news site for quite a long time. Which means a staggering number of people will have seen it.
Other did quite a similar piece, Metro I believe for instance.
So, in summary, I would guess that pretty much all journalists, wherever they were from, would argue that Today did exactly the right thing in broadcasting the Hadow interview, and getting a rebuttal from MOL.
As I said elsewhere, the slightly bizarre upshot is many, many people are probably better informed about cabin depressurisation and O2 masks....
On a last, slightly self-serving note, it is unlikely that The Daily Mail, The Sun, The Daily Express, The Mirror, and the others would have not felt they should seek the Ryanair rebuttal. They have no rules that I am aware of they tell them to include the counter-argument.
As a colleague said who worked for one of the above - "They tell you what the story is, you call a couple of people and it turns out it's not right. You tell them and they say "you've been told what story to write, now write it."
And while we're at it, in many cases, where you read an unattributed quote in the newspapers it was made up.
"A close friend said she is heartbroken over the split" is MADE UP.
A they are constantly having a go at broadcast media. It beggars belief.
Keeping Danny in Sandwiches
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I retired 5 years ago but if my memory serves me correctly the scenario is actually a combination of 2 drills.
1 The depressurization; what caused it and can it be controlled? Closing the outflow valve manually and checking that the packs and bleeds are on. If it can be controlled there is no reason to carry out an emergency descent with all the attendant risks involved.
2 The emergency descent is only carried out if the rate of increase in cabin altitude cannot be brought under control and of course a high speed descent would imply that there was no structural damage.
I am intrigued as to the reason for the deployment of the oxygen masks at 14,000ft; was it a rapid depressurisation due to structural damage or a malfunctioning outflow valve and how much time was there between the cabin alt warning and the mask deployment, or is there some other reason? After all MOL appeared on the Today programme some 8 hrs after the incident confident that the proceedures had been followed to the letter.
1 The depressurization; what caused it and can it be controlled? Closing the outflow valve manually and checking that the packs and bleeds are on. If it can be controlled there is no reason to carry out an emergency descent with all the attendant risks involved.
2 The emergency descent is only carried out if the rate of increase in cabin altitude cannot be brought under control and of course a high speed descent would imply that there was no structural damage.
I am intrigued as to the reason for the deployment of the oxygen masks at 14,000ft; was it a rapid depressurisation due to structural damage or a malfunctioning outflow valve and how much time was there between the cabin alt warning and the mask deployment, or is there some other reason? After all MOL appeared on the Today programme some 8 hrs after the incident confident that the proceedures had been followed to the letter.
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Only retired for 3 years....
Sky9,
If I heard correctly there was much talk from the passengers of a rapid drop in temperature before the emergency descent.
This would indicate a sudden 'out of control' pressurisation drop which would lead straight to what you so rightly say was the second stage - the drop.
If the a/c was cruising at mid FL30's then the pressure sensor would immediately detect 30 something thousand feet - which is far less than the trigger of 14,000' and bingo. Rubber jungle.
The masks didn't actually deploy at 14,000' but hopefully soon after the pressure drop?
I guess we'll just have to wait a few years for the AAIB to publish their report to see what actually happened.
DB
If I heard correctly there was much talk from the passengers of a rapid drop in temperature before the emergency descent.
This would indicate a sudden 'out of control' pressurisation drop which would lead straight to what you so rightly say was the second stage - the drop.
If the a/c was cruising at mid FL30's then the pressure sensor would immediately detect 30 something thousand feet - which is far less than the trigger of 14,000' and bingo. Rubber jungle.
The masks didn't actually deploy at 14,000' but hopefully soon after the pressure drop?
I guess we'll just have to wait a few years for the AAIB to publish their report to see what actually happened.
DB
The passenger oxygen masks (aka rubber jungle) will deploy automatically at circa 14,000 ft cabin altitude. They can also be selected manually from the flight deck - if the decision is made to conduct an emergency descent then this is part of the drill so in this case the masks may be deployed before the cabin altitude reaches 14,000 ft.
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Thanks baftabill that was very interesting 
Although I do take exception to the remark that we are all more interested in celebrities, to be honest, on the whole I can't stand them 
Although I do take exception to the remark that we are all more interested in celebrities, to be honest, on the whole I can't stand them
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good god is this still going on!
loss of pressure, masks drop, aircraft decends,, pax moan, news goes end of the world event on us,,, company check masks, find out stupid pax dont listen to emergency brief, those that do panic for there life (fair enough, scary as poo) all go home with a story to tell over dinner for years to come.
job done,,,,,, new news please.
loss of pressure, masks drop, aircraft decends,, pax moan, news goes end of the world event on us,,, company check masks, find out stupid pax dont listen to emergency brief, those that do panic for there life (fair enough, scary as poo) all go home with a story to tell over dinner for years to come.
job done,,,,,, new news please.
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Breaking News on Ryanair Loss of Cabin Pressure
Unconfirmed reports that Colleen Rooney and Britney Spears couldn't give a toss about Pen Hadow's concerns over the apparent lack of oxygen flow from the masks were never published on any news wire or the BBC.
A close friend of Mrs Rooney said last night that the only the pen she had was a Parker biro she got free from LV insurance.
A close friend of Mrs Rooney said last night that the only the pen she had was a Parker biro she got free from LV insurance.
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Out of pure interest, what is a opinion of the cause amongst those who work for Ryanair?
Is it simply Ryanair cutting corners on maintenance and safety? Or simply a random decompression, of which might be caused to a door not being shut correctly, or the hold door not be closed correctly?
I don't think there will ever be a report, mainly due to the aircraft being back in service.
Nick.
Is it simply Ryanair cutting corners on maintenance and safety? Or simply a random decompression, of which might be caused to a door not being shut correctly, or the hold door not be closed correctly?
I don't think there will ever be a report, mainly due to the aircraft being back in service.
Nick.
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Of all the things you could accuse RYR of, skimping on maintenance is one of the stupidest.
They are very very aware that the press , and ****** (moderated) like you , are just ready to jump in there with both feet as soon as something goes wrong.
If you had a vague idea of how a 737 works you would know that all doors have warnings and are plug type, so are actually pushed into place by the pressure differential. So ,not the most likely cause, in any case most door problems make themselves known when press-diff is lower, i.e. earlier in the flight typically during climb ,unlike the Holywood version.
I should think the last thing anyone in RYR will do is come on here and pre-empt an official report. The choice to publish that is made by the aviation authority concerned not RYR, and the aircraft being back in service is b@gger all to do with that either. It just means if there was a fault in the hardware it has been fixed. Simple really ? or do you see it some other way ?
They are very very aware that the press , and ****** (moderated) like you , are just ready to jump in there with both feet as soon as something goes wrong.
If you had a vague idea of how a 737 works you would know that all doors have warnings and are plug type, so are actually pushed into place by the pressure differential. So ,not the most likely cause, in any case most door problems make themselves known when press-diff is lower, i.e. earlier in the flight typically during climb ,unlike the Holywood version.
I should think the last thing anyone in RYR will do is come on here and pre-empt an official report. The choice to publish that is made by the aviation authority concerned not RYR, and the aircraft being back in service is b@gger all to do with that either. It just means if there was a fault in the hardware it has been fixed. Simple really ? or do you see it some other way ?
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Off-topic: On the BBC's coverage
Baftabill, thank you for your post where you try to give us an insight into how the media works. While agreeing with the sentiment that it's unrealistic to expect technically accurate reporting from a generalist medium I will argue however, that the coverage presented by the BBC is of a character unbefitting a public service broadcaster.
For the record, I have no journalism qualifications and very little media experience. On the aviation side, I am licenced at commercial pilot level (CPL) but I work in an unrelated field, hence I remain basically an enthusiast.
Seconded.
Editor's choice, and there is ample room there for getting a good balance of both, something in which the BBC has failed miserably on the two occasions where I was a direct witness of the events being reported. Even though I am not a fan of CNN, in those two occasions their coverage was impeccable--very accurate and more timely than the BBC's. Furthermore, I can think of a few other instances where the work of some of the truly knowledgeable professionals amongst you was hacked to bits and made a mockery of by some of your own editors and interviewers. Point is, aside of how mass journalism works, the BBC does in general an awful job for its money.
...and tone. Often, pieces are written as to imply certain things or push certain points of view, purely for sensationalist purposes. That is also ultimately an editor's deliberate choice, not an inexorable fact of life.
Correct, however that confuses information with entertainment. True, it's the BBC's mission to provide both, but not at the same time! Again, any editor would realise that claims such as allegedly made by the person in question are sensationalist in nature--one can only assume that if he then decides to use them, let alone give them prominence, he is prioritising the entertainment aspect to the detriment of the piece's informative value.
In this respect, the BBC is acting like any other commercial venture--the problem is, unlike their "competitors", the BBC is a public service corporation primarily funded (domestically at least) by public money, meaning it has no need to go chasing ratings, and indeed it is questionable that it should even consider doing so.
In this instance, the BBC went after this person to get his 'views'--they were not just passive reporters, rather they took an active role in creating the news.
Breaking news is a game the BBC voluntarily chose to enter--they had no need to do so and it is debatable what value if any this provides to their listeners.
...along with a number of other assertions, which they have by now ample evidence of them being false. I also note that O'Leary's response, while much better informed, is just as unauthoritative as the original claims, insofar as they concern a highly technical aspect of the operation of an aeroplane.
May I enquire, where did he obtain his information? Not on a public, anonymous website with a big red warning at the bottom of every page, I should hope! And what checking was done on the veracity and accuracy of his unsourced statements?
For the record, I have no journalism qualifications and very little media experience. On the aviation side, I am licenced at commercial pilot level (CPL) but I work in an unrelated field, hence I remain basically an enthusiast.
Mods: please feel free to delete this if you feel it is too off-thread.
Here you have to balance speed with accuracy
The errors are usually in the detail and language
The Today people would have been thrilled to get Pen Hadow because they had someone people might have heard of rather than an 'unknown'.
Now, before you condemn this, you must consider that YOU are ALL more interested in celebrities than unknown people.
Now, before you condemn this, you must consider that YOU are ALL more interested in celebrities than unknown people.
In this respect, the BBC is acting like any other commercial venture--the problem is, unlike their "competitors", the BBC is a public service corporation primarily funded (domestically at least) by public money, meaning it has no need to go chasing ratings, and indeed it is questionable that it should even consider doing so.
I'm guessing that many here would feel that the BBC should have checked Pen Hadow's claims, found them to be false and then consigned his interview to the bin.
This is where I think you misunderstand what the Press think they are for.
This is where I think you misunderstand what the Press think they are for.
Hadow made 'claims'. By the next day these 'claims' may have been shown to have no substance, but at 4.00 am when the Today team were putting the programme together they were part of an emerging picture. In the world of rolling news these 'claims' are there to be countered.
The BBC has this story BBC NEWS | UK | Forced landing for Ryanair flight on it's website which is a tidying up of the story as it unfolded. It doesn't lead with Hadow's 'claims', but it does continue to report his views that Ryanair communicated badly.
They also got Tom Symonds (who I think is seen here on Pprune trying to get facts, something I think you should encourage) to do this piece BBC NEWS | UK | What to do when planes lose pressure
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BBC Coverage
Morning all.
I see everyone's still criticising the BBC's coverage of this incident, here are a thoughts from my side.
1. Regarding where I get my information from. As you'd expect, I have never knowingly run anything from PPRUNE unchecked. In fact its rare I'd run anything from PPRUNE. I have a number of your colleagues who've helped me with technical information anonymously. Several UK airlines, variety of type ratings, all of them captains. For the Ryanair incident I also spoke at length to an experienced cabin crew trainer on the way in which passengers react to mask deployment.
2. Regarding Mr Hadow. This story broke during the night and therefore Today led the chasing of it, so I can't comment on why we interviewed him. But I'd bet the main reason was that we actually had his number at 4am rather than because he is some sort of a 'celebrity'. Today's contacts book is astonishingly big but it doesn't have the mobile number of every Ryanair passenger. The idea that editors here demand 'well known' eyewitnesses to events is hilarious.
It is possible that he called us. We are vulnerable to skewing our reporting based on availability of witnesses. You might call this the UGC Problem -- UGC being the BBC's acronym for User Generated Content. Put simply, you are more likely to have your views reported if you offer them up. So we work hard to try find other views -- we spent much of the day searching for other people on the plane, and got hold of a further interview before the Six O'Clock News. Pen Hadow's radio interview wasn't in the Ten piece at all.
3. Does he have right to be quoted? Now here I think there's a debate to be had. I'd say yes. He was there, and he has a right to say what happened to him -- he has a right to point out that an emergency descent is terrifying for passengers and to suggest they could be kept informed. What right have I got to censor his views? Just as MoL has a right to point out, quite rightly why it is difficult for pilots to do so. We report the range of views...
4. ...unless we have provable facts. So what of the oxy masks -- and Hadow's claims they weren't working: If they all were, can someone provide me with proof. Happy to report it. Unfortunately on the day all we had was Ryanair's claim they all worked. I hate to fall back on the old Profumo line - "they would say that wouldn't that", but without proof, an independent (AAIB?) inspection, that's just a view. What I can do is report why some passengers think the masks aren't working in these situations. Which I did, several times on TV and in the online piece some of you have linked to. Interestingly one lo-co captain whose help I value told me he'd had a similar incident and the subsequent investigation discovered half the masks hadn't been working. Having covered a dozen rail disasters and dozens of aviation incidents I know damn well you don't jump on some 'truth' because it seems correct.
Thanks for your time. Don't suppose my perspective will change many minds here about the standard of our reporting, but at least now you've got both sides of the story.
BTW my email addresses is easily guessed if you have views or facts relating to this or any other aviation story!
Cheers Tom Symonds
I see everyone's still criticising the BBC's coverage of this incident, here are a thoughts from my side.
1. Regarding where I get my information from. As you'd expect, I have never knowingly run anything from PPRUNE unchecked. In fact its rare I'd run anything from PPRUNE. I have a number of your colleagues who've helped me with technical information anonymously. Several UK airlines, variety of type ratings, all of them captains. For the Ryanair incident I also spoke at length to an experienced cabin crew trainer on the way in which passengers react to mask deployment.
2. Regarding Mr Hadow. This story broke during the night and therefore Today led the chasing of it, so I can't comment on why we interviewed him. But I'd bet the main reason was that we actually had his number at 4am rather than because he is some sort of a 'celebrity'. Today's contacts book is astonishingly big but it doesn't have the mobile number of every Ryanair passenger. The idea that editors here demand 'well known' eyewitnesses to events is hilarious.
It is possible that he called us. We are vulnerable to skewing our reporting based on availability of witnesses. You might call this the UGC Problem -- UGC being the BBC's acronym for User Generated Content. Put simply, you are more likely to have your views reported if you offer them up. So we work hard to try find other views -- we spent much of the day searching for other people on the plane, and got hold of a further interview before the Six O'Clock News. Pen Hadow's radio interview wasn't in the Ten piece at all.
3. Does he have right to be quoted? Now here I think there's a debate to be had. I'd say yes. He was there, and he has a right to say what happened to him -- he has a right to point out that an emergency descent is terrifying for passengers and to suggest they could be kept informed. What right have I got to censor his views? Just as MoL has a right to point out, quite rightly why it is difficult for pilots to do so. We report the range of views...
4. ...unless we have provable facts. So what of the oxy masks -- and Hadow's claims they weren't working: If they all were, can someone provide me with proof. Happy to report it. Unfortunately on the day all we had was Ryanair's claim they all worked. I hate to fall back on the old Profumo line - "they would say that wouldn't that", but without proof, an independent (AAIB?) inspection, that's just a view. What I can do is report why some passengers think the masks aren't working in these situations. Which I did, several times on TV and in the online piece some of you have linked to. Interestingly one lo-co captain whose help I value told me he'd had a similar incident and the subsequent investigation discovered half the masks hadn't been working. Having covered a dozen rail disasters and dozens of aviation incidents I know damn well you don't jump on some 'truth' because it seems correct.
Thanks for your time. Don't suppose my perspective will change many minds here about the standard of our reporting, but at least now you've got both sides of the story.
BTW my email addresses is easily guessed if you have views or facts relating to this or any other aviation story!
Cheers Tom Symonds
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hey baftabill---
if people can make money from sending in bullocks---please tell me where to sign up!!!!!
not many people know this, but the one thing no one is talking about in public----is the UFO seen right beside the aircraft just before the loss of pressurization!!!!
not many people know this, but the one thing no one is talking about in public----is the UFO seen right beside the aircraft just before the loss of pressurization!!!!
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Originally Posted by TheAmbler
and Hadow's claims they weren't working: If they all were, can someone provide me with proof. Happy to report it.
Last edited by ChrisLKKB; 1st Sep 2008 at 13:25.
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Edward Stourton, BBC Holiday Jet Plunge Correspondent?
My fury at BBC coverage came from the tone of the interviews, Stourton seems to approach any aviation story, (or non story!) from an initial question of You MUST have been terrified, i.e. terror is compulsory! I felt he was looking for some horrror story, and seemed disappointed to get fair, if mistaken, criticisms from the passenger, followed by prompt and accurate rebuttal by the MD.
Stourton seemed to use exactly the same script as in the Quantas incident, about a month ago, although that was, admittedly, a much more serious and unusual event.
In the 1960s the Roger Bacon column in Flight International used the fake by-line of "our holiday jet plunge correspondent" to lampoon the ignorant and sensationalist reporting of aviation matters common in those days. Mr Stourton could be in line to bring home the Bacon for the BBC.
Aviation professionals usually get one chance to get things right, and many have paid with their own lives when they didn't, that's the sort of Deadline journalists will never understand.
Stourton seemed to use exactly the same script as in the Quantas incident, about a month ago, although that was, admittedly, a much more serious and unusual event.
In the 1960s the Roger Bacon column in Flight International used the fake by-line of "our holiday jet plunge correspondent" to lampoon the ignorant and sensationalist reporting of aviation matters common in those days. Mr Stourton could be in line to bring home the Bacon for the BBC.
Aviation professionals usually get one chance to get things right, and many have paid with their own lives when they didn't, that's the sort of Deadline journalists will never understand.
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THE AMBLER - Here is the proof you need. Helios crashed a few years back due to lack of pressurisation. The oxygen masks deployed and the pax used them. they last for 12 minutes on the boeing 737. As the aircraft did not make a descent, the oxygen ran out after 12 mins , therefore pax then died due to lack of oxygen at high altitude.. Ryanair pax did not die due to lack of oxygen. therefore in my opinion the masks were fully operational and achieved their purpose which was to keep the pax alive!!
The cabin would have had a strong burning smell due to the oxygen generators heating up creating the chemical oxygen supply. The burning smell is all the dust layers on the surface of the generator, as they are stored in the ceiling compartments and as with anything sat in the one place for a period of time collect dust and skin particles. If there was no smell in the cabin, then i would be inclined to say that they did not function, but as the pax complained of a metalic burning smell, I can safely say that they were activated along with the fact that they are still alive today.
The cabin would have had a strong burning smell due to the oxygen generators heating up creating the chemical oxygen supply. The burning smell is all the dust layers on the surface of the generator, as they are stored in the ceiling compartments and as with anything sat in the one place for a period of time collect dust and skin particles. If there was no smell in the cabin, then i would be inclined to say that they did not function, but as the pax complained of a metalic burning smell, I can safely say that they were activated along with the fact that they are still alive today.
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Shouldn't you be the one who needs to prove they weren't working, after all, you were happy to report that
TV news report script:
"And some passengers said their oxygen masks didn't seem to be working -- strongly rejected by Ryanair...
So did these masks fail. Well they do have to be pulled down to work -- and they don't provide all the air passengers breathe -- just the oxygen -- so the flow can be disconcertingly gentle -- experienced crews say often people think they're not working."
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Actually I was thinking more along the lines of the acusations hadow made which you broadcast,
the general experience of 140 or so passengers was that no oxygen was delivered through the oxygen masks for whatever reason.
what, they just didn't work ?
Yeah.
it's all semantics, i'm sure you're all legal and above board because it was Hadows accusations and by letting MoL respond to them but the interviewer reinforced Hadows credentials suggesting he should know about theses things because he's an artic explorer where as he was quite aggressive to MoL. I'm all for aggressive interviewing but in this case it wasn't very balanced.
IMO the interview would left the listeners doubting whether the oxygen systems were actually working where as it would seem to me and other contributers to this thread that the evidence suggets they were.
the general experience of 140 or so passengers was that no oxygen was delivered through the oxygen masks for whatever reason.
what, they just didn't work ?
Yeah.
it's all semantics, i'm sure you're all legal and above board because it was Hadows accusations and by letting MoL respond to them but the interviewer reinforced Hadows credentials suggesting he should know about theses things because he's an artic explorer where as he was quite aggressive to MoL. I'm all for aggressive interviewing but in this case it wasn't very balanced.
IMO the interview would left the listeners doubting whether the oxygen systems were actually working where as it would seem to me and other contributers to this thread that the evidence suggets they were.