Tasteless

[Guest Divergent Phugoid]

Just happened across a video site linked from another popular sim site.To my dismay I found I could download videos of airplane crashes. One or two are obviously test flights but others obviously involved the loss of life. The title of one (I didn't watch, stopped at this point), is a crash at an airshow that I visited. Fortunately for my children we had started to leave so they didn't see it and we were out of the airshow grounds before any of the commotion kicked off.I can understand them being available on the internet in general, but these things being available on an 'enthusiasts' site frankly makes it apparent what many people find interesting about aviation.

[flyerboy 114]

Why?www.airdisaster has about 10 of them. Does anyone remember if they ever had the AF concorde crash? I am sure they did, but must of pulled it off.

[AlaskanFlyboy 7]

I'd have to say it depends on why you watch them. I watch them occationally for a reality check while reading the NTSB report that usually accompanies them on the page. As a real world pilot, I know I get complacent and feelings of invincibility start to set in with each safe flight I make. We recently had an hour and a half long saftey meeting at our flight school over a crash of one of our planes from last summer that nearly cost the life of the pilot. Piper Warrior N248ND.I feel that it would be safe to say that it's not out of a sick sense of entertainment that most watch those videos.----------------------------------------------------------------John MorganReal World: KGEG, UND Aerospace Spokane Satillite, Private ASEL 141.2 hrs, 314 landings, 46 inst. apprs.Virtual: MSFS 2004"There is a feeling about an airport that no other piece of ground can have. No matter what the name of the country on whose land it lies, an airport is a place you can see and touch that leads to a reality that can only be thought and felt." - The Bridge Across Forever: A Love Story by Richard Bach

[Guest airman]

>I'd have to say it depends on why you watch them. I watch>them occationally for a reality check while reading the NTSB>report that usually accompanies them on the page. As a real>world pilot, I know I get complacent and feelings of>invincibility start to set in with each safe flight I make. We>recently had an hour and a half long saftey meeting at our>flight school over a crash of one of our planes from last>summer that nearly cost the life of the pilot. Piper Warrior>N248ND.Agreed 100%. When I was at tech school learning instruments and avionics we watched a video where a plane crashed in South America. Their ADI failed and due to vertigo the pilot flipped the plane upside down, the plane breaking up. The bodies of all the people aboard were stripped of their clothing and landed in the jungle over a large area. We watched the report, and footage of the recovery efforts. Brutal? Yes. Horrifying? Yes. But it made us realize that our performance had far reaching implications other than getting planes off the ground.

[Guest Divergent Phugoid]

Well I'm suprised! Nobody is going to learn anything from those kinds of videos. Seriously, what are you going to learn from a fireball and somebody screaming "oh my god, oh my god" or from a wing spar collapse at an airshow??? They are posted under the implied banner of "kewl vids". They have no place on an aviation site.

[Guest airman]

Also, people are fascinated by death. If you don't like it, don't download the videos

[Guest Divergent Phugoid]

Stuck for a real excuse then?

[Guest j-mo]

>Stuck for a real excuse then?This seems to be an unwarranted insult.Clearly, not everyone responding to this post shares your point of view. There's nothing wrong with your position, but the others have merit as well.Nobody is being harsh with you. You may wish to reconsider the tone of your replies.

[boshar 6]

Watch the news. People like drama and sensational video's. How many times did we see the space shuttle blow up? Its just how most people are.

[Guest Zevious Zoquis]

It's just a fact of life that we humans are "accident watchers". We are fascinated by dramatic events of this nature. I was absolutely horrified by the events that occured on 9/11 but I literally couldn't take my eyes off of the video footage being broadcast that morning. I was transfixed. And I've watched much of it many times since. I'm not taking any pleasure from the fact that hundreds of people are dying. I'm actually imaging the #### those poor people went through. When I watch the incredible scenes of carnage in Saving Private Ryan I am reminded of the really heroic acts those young men (all of them including the ones who cowered and who couldn't make themselves move - they were all heros afaic) performed. It's not about enjoying death, it's about exploring the extremes of human experience. None of us wants to ever find ourselves in a situation like that but we all wonder what it must be like. These aren't snuff films where somebody sets out to kill and films the act. These are simply documents of an event (horrible as it may be) that happened and was caught on tape. Theres a significant difference...

[Wolfko 0]

You are completely right - this is absolutely tasteless! it is tasteles in general and it is even more tasteless for the victims' families and friends.And what makes me allways wonder is, that many parents have nothing against it, that these sites can be accessed by everybody even by children. The same parents, who are indignant, that their children could get onto sex/porn sites.So my provocative question is, is making love in many humans' opinion worse than killing or getting killed?Please don't get me wrong, I would neither let let my children access such disaster sites nor porn sites. Fortunately my children are currently only 3 and 1, so I do not have those problems yet.Wolfgang

[Guest Rockcliffe]

Once, out of curiosity, I downloaded a CVR from a crash in Mexico from airdisaster.com.I found it so disturbing to listen to that I've steered clear of that site and others like it since then. Too macabre for me, but to each his own.BlairCYOW

[Guest Peter Sidoli]

I have to say I view this from the victims family point of view.Having lost three friends to aviation crashes I can see no merit in watching these crashes.One of the three who happened to be a best friend crashed a mooney into a hill covered with cloud and the impact into the cliff face with the tailwind was around 170 kts.The plane and my friend were spattered over a large area and I witnessed the immense distress that his friends and relatives experienced at the funeral.Had this been captured on film and placed on someones sleasy site for entertainment I am sure the 100 or so people at the funeral would have been distressed to know that such a film was available.I can also remember the death of Ayrton Senna in a formula one crash. The accident was shown but blacked out at the point of impact.If you need to know about accidents and their causes I am sure you will be much more enlightened reading official accident reports. Watching these grubby films and justifying doing so by pretending there is some practical benefit from doing so doesnt cut it with me.Peter

[Guest]

>Had this been captured on film and placed on someones sleasy>site for entertainment I am sure the 100 or so people at the>funeral would have been distressed to know that such a film>was available.>But many are not. In fact many people would make money out of the death of a family member if they could, and that includes selling pictures of mangled bodies.>I can also remember the death of Ayrton Senna in a formula one>crash. The accident was shown but blacked out at the point of>impact.>Maybe in the reruns, and maybe on some stations. I watched it life.I wasn't disturbed by it, it was a risk the man took knowingly like all Formula 1 drivers.Same with aircraft pilots. They knowingly take a risk to do something they love.Showing student pilots videos of what can be the ultimate consequence of their actions and decisions is an excellent reality check.>If you need to know about accidents and their causes I am sure>you will be much more enlightened reading official accident>reports. Watching these grubby films and justifying doing so>by pretending there is some practical benefit from doing so>doesnt cut it with me.>Without the pictures the words loose meaning.Given the large number of general aviation crashes because of pilot error, I'd say every pilot should be made to watch several hours of crash videos (and stories about the aftermaths) at least once a year. Might make them be more careful in the air.And don't forget many people are fascinated by death and destruction.Why do you think Doom3 and games like it sell so well? Why do you think people demand flying debris and flames when they crash in FS?War and horror movies are the most popular (next to porn, and there too there's some rather morbid sub genres dealing with sex with corpses and people getting sexual arousment from seeing people die or tortured).

[Guest IanP]

I haven't seen the footage or site in question here, so cannot comment directly on that. I can however comment on statements that these films are "only entertainment" and whether there is any requirement to publish real footage.I have literally just returned from a Railway Track Safety course, which contained scenes, recreated with actors and stuntmen, of real accidents. The simple fact is that reading the words "Despite the loss of communication, Driver XXX continued to reverse his vehicle and struck Mister YYY" doesn't have the same effect on us as a radio going silent, a train continuing to move, and a few seconds later a thump of something hitting metal. You didn't see the accident, but your brain fills in the missing bits and it hits home, forgive the horrible pun, a lot harder. Therefore, there is practical benefit from videos in the right environment and aimed at the right audience.Had the footage been real, like in the anti-trespass video someone made a while back, a lot of suitably qualified people believe it would have been more effective still. The video was deemed too shocking for teenage kids to see, but it is those teenage kids who continue to try and fry themselves on 25kV overhead powerlines, not thinking about the consequences.From what I have read here, the site being discussed is not aimed at an appropriate audience and, in that case, I would not support it in any way. Unfortunately one of the responses above is entirely accurate in that many people really are incredibly voyeuristic about death. Does everyone who downloads beheading videos off the net do so for the purpose of learning something? I doubt it somehow. The same goes for this, road accidents, beheadings and many other things. I've heard many explanations as to why and personally it goes clean over my head why anyone would want to watch people die, but the fact is that a lot of people want to watch this stuff.What I don't have is an answer how to stop people doing it, nor, I believe, does anyone else at the moment.Ian P.