Misinformation Effect

Lowflynjack said:
I was supposed to fly with a guy soon for an upcoming story. I got an email saying that when he was taxiing out, he passed out, ran into a fence and totaled his plane. Turns out he had an undiagnosed brain tumor this may have been the best case scenario! If he'd taken off and passed out, stalled and died on impact, the internet sleuths would have picked it apart. Luckily he's still around, will get the surgery he needs, and be back in the air again someday
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Wow, kudos to this guy. Someone's guardian angel is working overtime

I was quite paranoid after my gear up (mechanical, not user error!) that folks who didn't know me and could go straight to the source would just assume it was another idiot who forgot to put it down. #OccamsRazor and all that.

It's not easy, we're curious people, and as pilots we're all aware of the risks so there's a hunger to understand what happened. I've been guilty of crossing that line from facts to speculation, I've curtailed posting as much about accidents following my gear up. Unless you're in the cockpit you don't really know. And the facts with GA accidents are often scant!
 
Lowflynjack said:
What really got me thinking about this? I was supposed to fly with a guy soon for an upcoming story. I got an email saying that when he was taxiing out, he passed out, ran into a fence and totaled his plane. Turns out he had an undiagnosed brain tumor this may have been the best case scenario! If he'd taken off and passed out, stalled and died on impact, the internet sleuths would have picked it apart. Luckily he's still around, will get the surgery he needs, and be back in the air again someday.
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I recall a somewhat similar story in the last couple of years of a pilot that went NORDO at the hold short line. After repeated attempts to contact him by radio and getting no response or action, and other aircraft bottlenecking behind him, the Airport sent an Ops truck out to check on him to find the pilot unconscious from a medical problem.
 
Tantalum said:
Wow, kudos to this guy. Someone's guardian angel is working overtime

I was quite paranoid after my gear up (mechanical, not user error!) that folks who didn't know me and could go straight to the source would just assume it was another idiot who forgot to put it down. #OccamsRazor and all that.

It's not easy, we're curious people, and as pilots we're all aware of the risks so there's a hunger to understand what happened. I've been guilty of crossing that line from facts to speculation, I've curtailed posting as much about accidents following my gear up. Unless you're in the cockpit you don't really know. And the facts with GA accidents are often scant!
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I try to avoid speculating as much as I can. I don't know how much of that is personal inclination and how much is tolerance due to my experience helping people who have managed to get in trouble in a myriad of ways.
 
Daleandee said:
Years ago I was training ultralight pilots and a student asked if I would ride with him to a club meeting about 65 miles away. He had a long wing Challenger and the wing roots were open inside the cockpit. As he was getting it out of the hangar a very large, cornbread fed, wharf rat came running out of the wing and landed in the middle of the rear seat (where I was soon to be sitting) and then bounded out on the ground and disappeared behind the building. Had he waited a few more moments before exiting the takeoff would have been very interesting!
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Used to be that hangar bs sessions never went any further than that. And the flyers that weren’t around, and their family, didn’t have to suffer the criticisms of Monday morning quarterbacks.

Nowadays anyone with a computer can put their opinions in front of any number of folks who’re perhaps less informed than themselves (and therefore more inclined to confuse opinion and fact).

I have plenty of opinions. Come and have a beer with me. I’d be more than happy to share them. But, this amateur aviation analyst will leave the official reports to the bureaucrats that get paid to write them.
 
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