Knee Jerks

Matt Whiting wrote in
:

Dudley Henriques wrote:
wrote in message
ups.com...

Why is it everytime someone posts an accident, there are those who
quickly make a decision or pronouncement that it was stupid, or the
pilot was a moron, or, etc, etc, and never have a clue as to the real
happenings?
Why does it take well trained professional crash investigators to do
a full investigation that may last several weeks, months, years, to
determine what happened when they could just take a quick look here
and see what the "experts" have to say?
There have been several crashes in recent days which is disturbing as
hell to me and they have been well publicized. In nearly all of these
crashes, there have been eye witnesses who breathlessly describe what
they saw, or THINK they saw and the media laps it up as if it were
gospel. Often the witness can't tell the difference in a Cessna and a
Piper or a JetRanger. Then, to make matters worse, there are those
amatuers, and a few more pros, who make immediate pronouncements as
to what happened and who is to blame.
I have been guilty of making statements in the past that turned out
to be only partly right because I didn't have all the facts. In 50
years of flying I've learned that if you aren't in the airplane or ar
not doing the flying, or are not looking right at the action with a
professional eye, why make a fool of yourself with knee jerk
statements?
Dudley, if you are still here, what do you think? You've been around
long enough and have been to enough crashes to have some ideas on the
subject.
Rocky


Those of us like you and me and others like us who have been in the
professional end of the community for any length of time usually tend
to shy heavily away from the accident speculation business, as we
know from actual experience how often the cause of an accident turns
out to be something other than the obvious.
Dudley Henriques

And, fortunately, those of you who have been in the professional end
of the community also abstain from posting in this ng every accident
that you hear about. And for that many of us are grateful!

Unfortunately, the amateurs likely will keep posting accidents and the
amateur commentators will keep speculating...

Matt

So we should not discuss this??? I'm a student pilot, but I find the
speculation, discussion of accidents very productive...

No, we should not instantly label every pilot an idiot, but how many
lives can one post and discussion here about an alleged "idiot" save??

How many pilots who read about a few guys with dry tanks who bought it,
might be a bit more likely to divert for fuel rather than "push it"....
just one example....

As far as I'm concerned, speculate away! (with reasonable respect....)
--
-- ET :-)

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