Passengers scream in terror as pilot performs incredibly low stunt when Air Berlin flight lands for the last time

[z06z33 763]

There was nothing unsafe about this. I swear People are so fearful these days and its sad,in the 1920s or 30s people would have been amazed to see a plane do this...not cried about it being unsafe. 

[HighBypass 2,339]

I know what you mean David, but, taking the first year in your post as a reference, I guess litigation has come a long way in 97 years. 

[skelsey 765]

On 20/10/2017 at 7:25 PM, ClearedtoLand said:

Simon, if you are pooping on anyone’s party, it’s not mine. The questions you posed all serve to find an answer to whether this manoeuvre should have been performed or not. It all indicates one thing, at the time of the Mirror and the Sun publishing their stories, there wasn’t enough information publicly available to justify headlines such as passengers screaming in terror and this won’t fly. Headlines which preempt an answer to questions they didn’t ask, so why the headlines? Obviously not to inform anyone reading those articles, how can they inform anyone if they themselves know nothing of the background?

To play devil's advocate somewhat...

The headline writer would probably challenge you to point to anything inaccurate. He/she would probably say that "passengers" referred not to those on the aircraft itself, but to passengers (of other airlines) waiting in the terminal who, on the video, were unquestionably discomforted. I don't think anybody (except perhaps Ray Hanna!) could argue that the aircraft was anything but low or that it was the last flight. Was it a "stunt"? Well, it certainly wasn't a conventional GA.

Headlines are there to make you read the article. I don't see anything overly sensational or indeed speculative in the articles linked which largely just show the video and report how it appeared to witnesses on the ground, mostly in their words, and that an investigation has been opened. In fact, the Mirror even goes so far as to say in the article that "at no point anyone at the airport was in danger".

Nobody on the ground (except perhaps in the ATC tower) had a clue what was going on and in the current climate is it that surprising that members of the public faced with an aeroplane unexpectedly turning towards them at low level might be alarmed?

18 hours ago, z06z33 said:

There was nothing unsafe about this. I swear People are so fearful these days and its sad,in the 1920s or 30s people would have been amazed to see a plane do this...not cried about it being unsafe. 

Well, I don't entirely agree but we'll see what the investigation reveals. Just because nobody got hurt on this occasion does not make it an inherently safe or sensible thing to do. People did many things with aeroplanes in days gone by which would not be considered acceptable by modern standards and the fatal accident rate was commensurately extraordinarily high. Indeed, one of the reasons modern aviation is so safe is because lessons have been learnt from those days and regulations put in place to prevent recurrences.

As I mentioned before, if (and I stress if) this turns out to be effectively an unplanned and unauthorised air display in a commercial airliner by a crew with no training or experience in display flying at the end of a long haul sector and 200 pax down the back who were given no choice in the matter of their participation, that is not to my mind a very sensible thing to do. We shall see.

[Chock 17,769]

Yup, I'd agree with all of that and was thinking the same thing about it Simon. Being pilot, I've no wish to be a killjoy where flying is concerned, and don't like to see any pilots get in trouble if they've done nothing to warrant it, but if that crew did not want to get in trouble, I'd suggest they should have thought about it a bit more than they evidently did. As it stands, the chances are the authorities will have to make an example of them simply to be seen to be intolerant of pilots who, rightly or wrongly, are perceived to have put people at risk. It doesn't matter whether there turned out to be no danger, it's the perception of the public which the airport will care about, and in that case, they may well have words to say to the controllers or whomever it was in the tower, who did not jump on the aircrew for having done that instead of simply applauding.

Realistically, although we know aircraft go around sometimes, there is a very good reason why the route they tend to take for a go-around is to climb straight ahead to a specific minimum altitude before turning, and is why any such go around procedure is published in the aerodrome guide and on the charts for the runways, and is programmed into the FMC with the radios tuned for the navaids necessary for that go around should that be required, rather than the aeroplane simply being allowed to fly an impromptu circuit at the pilot's discretion, which he did not have permission to do, since he asked for a go-around, not an impromptu licence to perform an off the cuff airshow. What if another Air Berlin crew that day had had the same idea an come around the other way? Or a helicopter in the airliners impromptu flight path had decided to lift off at that point? Not likely I know, but when you start diverting from established procedures in an aeroplane, that's when Murphy's Law loves to show up and bite you in the rear, and it's not a smart thing to do when you've got a responsibility to 180 people sat behind you and everyone on the ground you fly over.

There can be all kinds of unforeseen hazards at airports which contribute to why things are done the way they are, for example, at Manchester there is a note on the approach charts for 05L which warns pilots to disregard their radio altimeter reading on short final because the ground drops away a bit for some of the run in to the threshold, and if one did not know that, you would perhaps start closing the throttles early thinking the aircraft was going into a climb when it was actually fully established on the glideslope for the correct touchdown zone. Who knows if there is anything similar to that where that Air Berlin airliner was flying, such as a sudden downdraft risk from a vortex off an airport building or whatever? I don't know if there is, and it's likely there is not, but I don't know that for sure and I bet the pilots of that 737 don't know that for sure either. And that is what made it an unnecessary risk, and if they get asked that in an enquiry and can't say for sure that they don't know if there is any hazard to an aeroplane where they flew, then the only thing which will be flying after that point is their pilot's licences, straight out of the window.

I must admit that if I'd been on that concourse roof and seen the thing turning toward the airport buildings like it did, I'd be lying if I said I would not have been a little concerned, not necessarily for myself, since it wasn't coming right overhead, but certainly for the people on board and anyone under its flight path, because although we know airliners can fly pretty slowly, that thing really was getting very low and slow, and if I did not know any better at the time, because it was not flying straight out on a typical go around profile, I would have assumed something was problematic with the thing. Moreover, if at that point one of the engines did suddenly decide to act up, then that is asking for trouble, and certainly not any trouble the passengers had paid to be part of, or anyone underneath the thing as it flew overhead.

We all know what happened at Habsheim when the pilots of that Air France A320 found themselves with an unexpected crowd alignment at an airshow and then decided to 'make it up as they went along' instead of sticking to the planned display routine they had briefed for. Next minute they were ploughing a perfectly serviceable airliner into some trees and killing twelve of their passengers, and they actually had permission to do a display.

Now I'm not saying that airliners can't do displays, I've seen Concorde do what amounted to almost a touch and go on the grass runway at an airshow at Barton a few years ago, and apparently the pilot of that particular Concorde radioed his HQ and asked if he could let the wheels touch the grass before powering away and he was firmly told 'no way', especially since it apparently had passengers on board, so he only came down to about maybe 150 feet AGL before powering back up. I've also seen a Boeing 757 get thrown about over Woodford like a fighter jet once, which was pretty much the most amazing flying display I've ever seen in my life from any aeroplane of any size at all. But both of those were planned displays, with permission, and nobody in the area would have been unaware that aeroplanes were going to be doing stuff out of the ordinary on those days.

If I was on a board of enquiry and tasked with questioning those pilots and deciding their future, I think I'd have to be pretty hard on them, because ultimately, I think it was a fairly irresponsible action on their part, at least in terms of the public perception of safety for the airline industry as a whole. Airshows are great, and I love em, but when you are in command of Flight XYZ123 from Glasgow to Malaga, it is not the time to be indulging in one without the permission of the authorities and the willing approval of all on board.

[ClearedtoLand 149]

4 hours ago, skelsey said:

To play devil's advocate somewhat...

 

Well, if I absolutely have to play this game, then I will have to go and get a coffee first, and try to think of an appropriate way to phrase the apology for the upcoming boring stuff.

Flight AB7001 from Miami performed the stunt while horrified onlookers feared it was attempting a botched landing.

We'll start with horrified onlookers and be left to wonder whether there were any onlookers who weren't horrified. Not even one? I guess we will never know. Or maybe nonchalant onlookers don't sell newspapers, I don't know.

Renate Brunder-Korbmacher, who lives near the airport, said: "People near the airport were really terrified.

I assume the reporter verified this statement by interviewing the people, and not just taking Renate at her word. I also assume that the reporter forgot to ask how many people Renate was referring to, a few, many, most, all. No mention of anyone who wasn't terrified, not even one or two? So, I'm guessing it's safe to assume that it was everyone. Seems a safe assumption, otherwise, for what reason is there no mention made of people who weren't terrified of this? After all, wouldn't be much of a story if the headline was, a few people scared out of their wits by low flying plane while most people just went about whatever they were doing. Not saying most people didn't notice, just saying that there is something a little one sided to this reporting.

The resident said: "The man scared the hell out of hundreds of children in the Dusseldorf-Unterrath neighbourhood."

And the reporter believed the man because the reporter confirmed with the hundreds of school children spoken for, because it really is just that easy for anyone to quickly find out what hundreds of school children in the Dusseldorf-Unterrath neighbourhood thought about the fly over, or about anything else for that matter. Twitter, would be my guess. Unless the man in question is a teacher at the school(s?) he spoke for.

An airport employee who watched the dramatic scenes unfold thought at first the aeroplane would crash right into the terminal.

An airport employee? Spokesemployee for all employees who saw the stunt? Any airport employees see the stunt and thought something else? And what is meant by that phrase, thought at first, what did she think afterwards?

Markus Wahl, spokesman of a German pilot's organisation, said that at no time were people in danger in the well planned move and he is sure that the pilot did not do anything illegal.

Well planned move? That's not what we were told the children thought. The poor little dears, they must have been scared stuffless. And who planned the move?

The airline said it was aware of the agreement to perform the low fly-by and "fully supports the LBA in its work".

Well, this is an airline that went bust, so can we really believe anything they say about what they knew and when?

OK, so let's assume, for the sake of the game, that every single statement made in the articles is true, just how confident are we that the views expressed by Renate, the resident spokesman for Dusseldorf-Unterrath school children, and an airport employee are representative of everyone's reactions? Well, we can't say because we are not offered a different view from anyone, other than ol' Markus Wahl, but he would say that because, well, he's covering for the pilots, and since he's not a resident or passenger, we can discount what he said. Unless we assume that every single last person who saw this was scared out of their wits by it, and that's a risky assumption at best, we can assume, quite safely, that there were some people who were not terrified. Why do we not hear anything from them? Were they impossible to locate? Or would the headline, Some people scared stuffless by plane behaving strangely while others didn't care/notice would probably not have been so profitable (Ok, I'm being cynical).

So, what is my problem with the reporting. I am being asked to form an opinion based solely on the presentation of one point of view, without being offered any clues as to whether that point of view is the exclusive view, the majority view, or even the plurality view. I am left with no way to assess the impact of this stunt on the population around the airport, because somebody didn't think it significant to put the thing into context.

And that's before we even compare the Sun's version to that of thelocal.de. Thelocal makes no mention of anyone screaming in terror. No reference to hundreds of scared school children. Renate, or anyone else speaking for die Leute is not mentioned. There is no reference to passengers on the terrace screaming out in fear taken from the video. Thelocal.de uses the word gasp, though to be fair to the Sun, that wasn't a becalmed gasp in the video. No airport employees interviewed either, though there is a reference to no passengers making a complaint. It's not specified whether these were passengers on the plane or on the terrace . In the Sun's article there are 6 adjectives or phrases suggesting fear, in Thelocal.de, there is one, and a rather mild one at that. There is an interesting description of the plan for the stunt in thelocal.de, which says that permission was given for a left turn in the case of an aborted landing. Now, that could be of interest to an investigator, because that doesn't suggest that the stunt was approved, merely that on condition of an aborted landing, a left turn was approved. Also, the Sun describes the stunt as a terrifying low fly by, whereas thelocal.de describes it as a spectacular landing manoeuvre.

So, was it terrifying, or spectacular? I guess that depends on which reporter you ask, and who they did and did not ask, but I can tell you which one is the fear monger. But why bring that up? Well, since we are expressing concern for people's safety, I'll briefly share an interesting consequence of acting on fear. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, people took to the roads, in particular, rural interstate highways, in greater numbers than what would have been expected based on the year on year average for the preceding 5 years (who said transport statistics can't be sexy?). To put that into perspective, from January to August 2001, road travel was up 1% compared with the same period in 2000. In the 3 months after 9/11, road travel was up by as much as 5% month on month over previous years. In the 12 months following 9/11, road travel was up significantly above average. An unintended result of this belief that it was safer to drive than fly was an estimated additional 1600 road deaths. Those deaths were avoidable.

Yes, the stunt was dangerous. So's driving. Much, much more so. And I would be really interested to know how people who read only the Sun's article would judge the event compared to people who read only thelocal.de's article. I will bet money that those who read only the Sun's article will be much harsher on the pilot than those who read only thelocal's article. But that is the terrifying point, isn't it?

Apologies for the preceding boredom ... as well as the unimaginative apology.

[Chock 17,769]

As far as headlines and indeed the stories in newspapers goes, there is a bit more to it than most people will be aware. It's not quite as controlled in an 'illuminati type way' as some people might like to imagine, but it is intended to control. For the most part it is more a case of the sub editors having a laugh than anything more sinister. Headline writing is the domain of the sub-editors, whose job it is, in case you didn't know, to gather all the articles the journos have submitted and some suitable pictures together, then lay that out around the ad stacks in a suitable arrangement in order to create the finished pages which are visually pleasing, and which subversively place adverts in your peripheral vision. Most people think the main purpose of articles in newspapers is to get over some kind of political agenda, and whilst that is partly true, the more pertinent objective of the articles is to make you stay on the page so that you see the adverts on that page, since that is the main revenue source. Thus the more attention-grabbing the headline is, the more chance there is someone will read the associated article, thereby staying on the page longer and seeing the advert for longer. Take a look at a double page spread in a newspaper and you will see that the adverts form a horseshoe shape; this is so as you look at the centre of the page whilst reading, the adverts are floating in your peripheral vision and being taken in subliminally.

Note that most stories are written more or less to size in order to fit a page; you can fit about 1,500 words on a tabloid newspaper page at a typical point size of 7.65pt on 8.5pt leading with room left for a couple of decent sized pictures, so to get it all to fit on the pages, sub editors will cut the stories down a little if necessary, or maybe add a few lines to stretch them. The rest of the fitting of stories on the pages is achieved by two things in the main, the amount, placement and size of the pictures which accompany the articles, and how big a point size you go with for the headlines and how many words are in that headline. Thus the headline is often the last thing you write and tweak to size on a newspaper page when fiddling with all the content to get it to fit. You will notice that early editions of papers in the morning have a lot of big headlines, later editions, where more details of the day's stories are known, see the articles being fleshed out, then they take up more room and so the headlines get shrunk down in word count and point size.

Usually, that's where you can have a bit of of a laugh. I used to be a sub editor for a few UK dailies before I worked as a writer for them, and one of the other subs I worked with years ago ended up working for The Sun, so although I never actually worked for The Sun, I do know the process there as it isn't a million miles away from all the other papers I worked for, which included both broadsheets and tabloids too.  

Subbing at tabloid papers is, as noted, actually a fairly fun job. This is because you get to write headlines which they'd never let you get away with writing in a million years at more 'serious' newspapers. Newspapers all have their editorial styles and there are some rules you have to follow when writing and subbing for them, but there is a lot of leeway to be had with the headlines. I was always seeing what I could get away with putting in there on headlines (song titles, puns, backhanded mickey takes of people I didn't like etc), and I would quite often indulge in steganography too when writing or subbing articles. In case you don't know, steganography is the art of hiding messages in text. For example, if you check the first letter, of the first four paragraphs of this post, you will see it spells out a rude word. That's steganography, and it is all over newspapers; I know loads of subs who do that for a laugh regularly.

You can get away with that sort of thing so long as it isn't too blatant, because you can always claim it is a coincidence should anyone spot it and the editor pull you up about it, unless it is really very obvious indeed in which case you would get fired (this is not unknown). We used to sometimes shout out random words when things were a bit boring too, and whatever that word was, you had to fit it somewhere into the article or headline you were writing for the newspaper at that moment. So someone might yell 'trombone!' and you'd have to fit that word into an article about a plane crash or whatever, which is quite hard to do, but it helps to alleviate any boredom.

Then there is journalese too. Journalese, for those of you who don't know, is the hackneyed, cliche-ridden writing style common in tabloids, in which they revel, whilst papers which hope to be taken more seriously studiously try to avoid. This is because the target reading age of tabloid newspapers is 13, they are literally written for stupid people, but that does not mean the people who are writing them are thick, often lazy sure, and almost always taking the p*ss, but not stupid by any stretch.

Good examples of journalese will be barely comprehensible, such as: Job axe mayhem and: PM slams opposition, but journalese is also found in the use of stupid, inappropriate or overly dramatic words too. For example, a bus would never fall or drive off a cliff, it would plunge off a cliff, and probably be written as: bus in death plunge horror mystery if it were a headline. Ambulances you will note, always travel in fleets, as in: fleets of ambulances rushed to the scene. When have you ever seen ambulances going along in fleets?

This is why in relation to the reports about that airliner doing a bit of an impromptu airshow, the passengers were not reported as being mildly ticked off, or somewhat perturbed, no, they had to be screaming in terror. So yeah, don't ever take any newspaper stuff seriously, because I can pretty much guarantee the people who write them are (albeit it very professionally) not doing that at all.

 

[HighBypass 2,339]

ClearedtoLand - a beautifully played devil's advocate, sir! 

[ClearedtoLand 149]

13 hours ago, Chock said:As far as headlines and indeed the stories in newspapers goes, there is a bit more to it than most people will be aware.

 

Alan, I’ll reply when I am not quite as drunk as I am right now.  All that I will say for now is that I often check the forums not so much to see what is being discussed as who is discussing it. 

[Chock 17,769]

Just now, ClearedtoLand said:

Alan, I’ll reply when I am not quite as drunk as I am right now.  All that I will say for now is that I often check the forums not so much to see what is being discussed as who is discussing it. 

Probably about 99 percent of the things on the internet will make considerably more sense when fairly inebriated.

[ClearedtoLand 149]

1 hour ago, HighBypass said:

ClearedtoLand - a beautifully played devil's advocate, sir! 

Thank you, Mark, that’s very kind. In reality, it’s just a simplified application of Bayesian logic, which also explains why I have more fingers on my right hand than friends. I think it’s time for bed.

[ClearedtoLand 149]

2 minutes ago, Chock said:

Probably about 99 percent of the things on the internet will make considerably more sense when fairly inebriated.

What’s the old saying, I feel sorry for people who don’t drink, because when they wake up in the morning, that’s as good as they will feel all day.

[Chock 17,769]

Variously attributed to everyone from WC Fields, to Winston Churchill and Augustus John Cuthbert Hare, whomever it was, it is my favourite quote on being drunk:

Sir, you are drunk, and what’s more you are disgustingly drunkI

My dear, you are ugly, and what’s more, you are disgustingly ugly. But tomorrow I shall be sober.

[ErichB 3,643]

12 hours ago, Chock said:

Variously attributed to everyone from WC Fields, to Winston Churchill and Augustus John Cuthbert Hare, whomever it was, it is my favourite quote on being drunk:

Sir, you are drunk, and what’s more you are disgustingly drunkI

My dear, you are ugly, and what’s more, you are disgustingly ugly. But tomorrow I shall be sober.

One of my favourites too!

[n4gix 4,947]

19 hours ago, Chock said:

Probably about 99 percent of the things on the internet will make considerably more sense when fairly inebriated.

Oh my! That explains my constant state of bemusement then...

...and here I've been thinking that it was the encroaching elder years!

I haven't had a drop of alcohol in nigh onto fifty years now.

[scottb613 1,188]

3 minutes ago, n4gix said:

I haven't had a drop of alcohol in nigh onto fifty years now.

Oh my... A case of beer would last me a year but to completely abstain - ouch...

And once in a while I need that frozen concoction that helps me hold on...

Regards,

Scott