Getting it right

Facts and fictions of aviation in the media

Here we go again. If it wasn’t so frequent, it may only justify an eye-roll or the shake of the head. The ‘Lion Air’ jet had hardly come to a stop in the waters off Bali when the misinformation began. The truth lay somewhere between an Airbus and a Boeing, crashing on approach or over-running the runway at the end of a domestic sector or a flight from London with major loss of life!

In past weeks a tragic Spitfire scale replica crash was credited to a warbird from a major collection, the loss of life in an R44 crash varied in numbers and nature, while a straightforward missed approach by an airliner grabbed media attention front and centre. And let’s not forget the full-blown article on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter that featured a photo of an F-22 Raptor. The list goes on.