Is The McTell News Malaise-ian Frenzy Related to Guilt?

Why does the U.S. mass media go nuts over certain (by comparison) minor stories, but not cover much more serious stories?

Why do they major in the minors?

Why do they have the poor judgment that even dictators can see through ("One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic." -Joseph Stalin)?

The current media furor over the tragedy of the passenger jet evidently shot down over the Ukraine is a case in point.

The vagaries are being presented as the structural members of the story, while the knowns are tending to be presented as the twigs, therefore, it is likely that this is a brain washing exercise being attempted by a profession that operates like a panicky herd inside a laundromat (MH17: World See Tragedy, US Sees “Game Changer”).

Some professionals are quick to notice the hypocritical approach to this media frenzy:

Before you say Washington is too sophisticated to mistake one airliner for another, keep in mind that when Washington shot down an Iranian airliner over Iranian air space, the US Navy claimed that it thought the 290 civilians that it murdered were in an Iranian fighter jet, a F-14 Tomcat fighter, a US-made fighter that was a mainstay of the US Navy. If the US Navy cannot tell its own workhorse fighter aircraft from an Iranian airliner, clearly the US can confuse two airliners that the RT report shows appear very similar.

(Sanctions and Airliners — by Paul Craig Roberts). Professor Roberts was pointing out a related event that took place some 26 years ago:

"Iran Air Flight 655 was an Iran Air civilian passenger flight from Tehran to Dubai that was shot down by the United States Navy guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes on 3 July 1988. The attack took place in Iranian airspace, over Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, and on the flight's usual flight path. The aircraft, an Airbus A300 B2-203, was destroyed by SM-2MR surface-to-air missiles fired from the Vincennes.

All 290 on board, including 66 children and 16 crew, died. This attack ranks seventh among the deadliest disasters in aviation history, tenth if including the 9/11 attacks, which includes ground casualties; the incident retains the highest death toll of any aviation incident in the Persian Gulf and the highest death toll of any incident involving an Airbus aircraft anywhere in the world. The Vincennes had entered Iranian territorial waters after one of its helicopters drew warning fire from Iranian speedboats operating within Iranian territorial limits.

According to the Iranian government, Vincennes negligently shot down the civilian aircraft: the airliner was making IFF squawks in Mode III (not Mode II used by Iranian military planes), a signal that identified it as a civilian craft, and operators of Vincennes mistook for Mode II.

According to the United States Government, the crew incorrectly identified the Iranian Airbus A300 as an attacking F-14 Tomcat fighter (a plane made in the United States and operated at that time by only two forces worldwide, the United States Navy and the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force).

The event generated a great deal of controversy and criticism of the United States. Some analysts have blamed U.S. military commanders and the captain of Vincennes for reckless and aggressive behavior in a tense and dangerous environment.

The United States did not apologize to Iran."

(Wikipedia, "Iran Air Flight 655", emphasis added). The U.S., some ten years later, paid about $200k ("without admitting guilt") for each man. woman. and child that the U.S. military admittedly killed.

But now the media is trumpeting this recent incident in the Ukraine like those people are worth $100 million each because the U.S. military did not do this one (cf. Facts Needed, by Ray McGovern and also Fact Free Zone).

President Obama has admitted that he believes in U.S. Exceptionalism very strongly, but does his definition mean "when we do it it is ok but when others do it that makes it wrong," as the neoCons do?

To the neoCons, "exceptionalism" means that those who are not us ("you are for us or you are against us") are the barbarian hordes:

The enemy aggressor is always pursuing a course of larceny, murder, rapine and barbarism. We are always moving forward with high mission, a destiny imposed by the Deity to regenerate our victims, while incidentally capturing their markets; to civilise savage and senile and paranoid peoples, while blundering accidentally into their oil wells or metal mines.

(As We Go Marching, by John T. Flynn, 1944, page 222). The news media is a very essential member of MOMCOM, so, this exceptionalism dogma driving the Russia bashing appears to be the reality of the case.

The most pressing issues are not pressed upon by the presstitutes (The Damaged Global Climate System - 3, Civilization Is Now On Suicide Watch, The Deceit Business - 3).

Perhaps, then, the current media frenzy is bread and circus dynamics designed to keep our minds occupied with things that are trivial compared to the big picture, things that direct us away from guilt.

Or any number of other illegitimate propaganda goals (What Happened to the Malaysian Airliner?, Dear Fellow American) which Europeans have become aware of even if Americans have not.

For example, a leading member state of the EU (The United States of Europe - 4) is joining with Russia to develop methods in order to properly investigate the Malaysian MH17 crash (Merkel, Putin Agree on International Probe of MH17 crash).

No doubt that is not what Washington wanted.

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One Trick Pony, Paul Simon

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Rogue Storms Sneaking Up On Us? - 2

About two years ago we wondered about the Air France jet that had crashed into the Atlantic during a thunderstorm on June 1, 2009, with the loss of all lives on board.

Searches found only scant floating debris, so the official conclusion then was that we would not know for sure what happened unless the flight data recorders were found.

Since we just finished with April, the month that established the greatest number of violent tornado outbreaks in one month in our history, I thought perhaps we could review some language from that two-year-old post regarding violent weather:

One fact of that crash, that two groups of bodies were found over 50 miles apart, indicates that a mid-air breakup of the airliner occurred.

Some experts also think the events happened very quickly as well:

It is believed that the erratic speed readings may have been caused by malfunctioning speed sensors – or pitot tubes – but it still remains unclear how this problem alone could have destroyed, or brought down, a modern aircraft so rapidly. No Mayday call or emergency radio message was sent by the pilot and co-pilot, suggesting that the aircraft fell apart or crashed while they were still going through their first, emergency response procedures.

(The Independent, emphasis added). Their experience in the storm was over so fast they did not have time to send a mayday call.

The bodies recovered so far were intact, so it is possible that the plane broke up into at least two passenger-containing sections before the pilots could respond.

If storms are becoming so violent that they can rip an aircraft apart, flight strategy needs to change to avoid those types of storms which were not avoided in the past.

Airline company policy has been to save fuel by going in a straight line through many storms, and more so as the price of fuel sky-rocketed in recent times.

(Rogue Storms Sneaking Up On Us?, emphasis added). Something that may give us sorely needed inside clues has now happened, yes, one of the flight data recorders has been recovered:

Investigators have located and recovered the missing memory unit of the flight data recorder of a 2009 Air France flight – a remarkable deep-sea discovery they hope will explain why the aircraft went down in a remote area of the mid-Atlantic, killing all 228 people on board.

(Huffington Post). Many folk can look around and see that things have changed with the climate, that it is getting more dangerous.

Lets hope that officials begin to factor in these changes into rules and regulations that provide more safety to the public.

Propaganda just doesn't cut it.

9/11 Conspiracy Theorists Take A Hit - 2

According to documents in The Department of Transportation, Freedom of Information Act Appeal Reference Number 2009-0024, dated June 12, 2009, the aircraft that were reported to have hit the Twin Towers in New York City, and the one that crashed in Pennsylvania, had not flown any in the months before 9/11 during the year 2001.

The last time they had flown was in December of 2000. What was wrong with them, if anything?

The aircraft which was said to hit the Pentagon has no records of any flights in 2000 or 2001.

All flights must be recorded, and details about every flight every aircraft makes is to be reported each month to the DOT according to aviation law.

Evidently a man named Aidan Monaghan did a Freedom of Information Request to get each month's flight information for each 9/11 aircraft for each flight prior to 9/11.

He was sent a spreadsheet that reflects the information above, showing no flights in 2001 (prior to 9/11 I presume) for any of the aircraft involved.

The Airline Handbook, Chapter 4, on airline economics, points out that an aircraft flies segments like links in a chain:

Whatever arrangements an airline chooses to pursue, its capital needs require consistent profitability. Because airlines own large fleets of expensive aircraft that depreciate in value over time ... Contrary to popular myth, airlines do not cancel flights because they have too few passengers for the flight. The nature of scheduled service is such that aircraft move throughout an airline’s system during the course of each day. A flight cancellation at one airport, therefore, means the airline will be short an aircraft someplace else later in the day, and another flight will have to be canceled, rippling costs and foregone revenue across the network ... Selecting the right aircraft for the markets an airline wants to serve is vitally important to its financial success. As a result, the selection and purchase of new aircraft is usually directed by an airline’s top officials, although it involves personnel from many other divisions such as maintenance and engineering, finance, marketing and flight operations ...

(Airline Handbook). Airlines need to have all their fleet that is in good condition working and producing cash flow. The margins are too close to get loose and inefficient and let a plane sit idle. They do not take aircraft off-line for nine months just to give them a rest.

There are substantial questions in this case where multiple airlines had aircraft off-line for months, then all of a sudden on the same day brought them back on-line, and all of them were suddenly lost with all aboard.

In several Dredd Blog posts, here, we explain that the official conspiracy theorists acknowledge some holes in their story which they attribute to government officials lying to them.

Who lied and what they lied about is what all of the controversy is founded upon.

UPDATE: Evidently this has caused a stir, and there is a frantic effort to find the missing flight information for these aircraft.

It would be nice to know what these aircraft were doing during 2001 wouldn't it?

Maybe the missing records will show up and end up explaining everything.

When that is completed I will update this post again.

UPDATE 2: On a similar note, professional pilots requested and received, via a FOIA request, the purported flight data from 9/11 American Airlines Flight 77 which was said to have crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11.

Professional pilots have concluded that the NTSB has not given them the flight data from a civilian aircraft "Flight 77", but flight data more likely from a military aircraft.

Rogue Storms Sneaking Up On Us?

In a previous post, I brought up the scientific expectation of the increasing severity of storms, as a result of global climate change, even though the main subject matter of that post was the Air France Flight 447 crash in the Atlantic during a storm.

One fact of that crash, that two groups of bodies were found over 50 miles apart, indicates that a mid-air breakup of the airliner occurred.

Some experts also think the events happened very quickly as well:

It is believed that the erratic speed readings may have been caused by malfunctioning speed sensors – or pitot tubes – but it still remains unclear how this problem alone could have destroyed, or brought down, a modern aircraft so rapidly. No Mayday call or emergency radio message was sent by the pilot and co-pilot, suggesting that the aircraft fell apart or crashed while they were still going through their first, emergency response procedures.

(The Independent, emphasis added). Their experience in the storm was over so fast they did not have time to send a mayday call.

The bodies recovered so far were intact, so it is possible that the plane broke up into at least two passenger-containing sections before the pilots could respond.

If storms are becoming so violent that they can rip an aircraft apart, flight strategy needs to change to avoid those types of storms which were not avoided in the past.

Airline company policy has been to save fuel by going in a straight line through many storms, and more so as the price of fuel sky-rocketed in recent times.

Aircraft Lost As Hurricane Season Opens

As the 2009 hurricane season opened yesterday, Air France Flight 447, an Airbus A330, carrying 216 passengers and 12 crew members disappeared in the ocean where great Atlantic storms were churning.

The Atlantic storms that probably destroyed the airliner were following the path hurricanes take from east to west toward the Americas.

Some debris, evidently from that new aircraft, was found today by searchers.

Scientists have been warning us that storms and hurricanes will grow stronger, larger, and more frequent as the planet's climate changes in response to human endeavours.

Perhaps aircraft companies and the FAA should take that into consideration and steer clear of storms that they used to fly over or through.

Some estimations based on increasing evidence, is that weather was the main player in this disaster.

The pilots did not go around the storms of that day as did pilots in other aircraft in the general area.

History of Malfunction Plagues Q400's

The reason for the crash of Flight 3407 is far from being proved.

Severe icing is far from being proved even though some icing is suspected. A little bit of almost everything is suspected.

In a typical investigation the NTSB will look at the history of the aircraft itself and the history of its type or model.

In that regard there are some reports over the past few years that Q400's were having mechanical problems:

Scandinavian Airlines announced Sunday that it would abandon a fleet of 27 planes made by Bombardier of Canada that have been involved in crash landings.

The unusual step by SAS came after one of its Dash 8 Q400 commuter planes crash-landed on Saturday because of landing-gear failure, the third such incident involving the airline in the last two months.

(Airline Stops Flying Q400 Turboprops). The Q400 line is evidently a newer type of aircraft:

The Q400 entered service in 2000 and can seat 68 to 78 passengers. It is the latest in a series of turboprops designed mainly for regional aircraft use that were first developed by de Havilland Canada, owned by Boeing before being acquired by Bombardier.

(About 60 Bombardier Planes Grounded After Crash Landings). The main problem had to do with the landing gear, but there was talk of broader problems:

Both Transport Canada and Bombardier rejected suggestions that the series of crash landings could be a sign of broader problems with the aircraft, which is typically used on short flights and for service to airports with noise restrictions.

(Airline Ends Use of Turboprops After 3rd Crash Landing, italics added). A suspicion of possible "broader problems" was poo pooed by interested parties.

Perhaps the NTSB will pick up on that since the icing issue is not yet a slam dunk?

If one landing gear failed to come down, that would put more resistance on one side of the aircraft. Or if one or more would not come back up when they tried to increase speed that would be an impairment.

Even in non-severe icing and just normal icing the plane is somewhat impaired by the ice, so the combination of gear problems at that time could be more of a factor than it would be at other times.

Add that to the fact of a new pilot to that aircraft type (since he had only flown that type for about a month, since December) it could lead to a situation where only an instant was available for a corrective action.

Reacting to a specific aircraft need in an instant is a function of a lot of experience.

It will be a long slog to unravel all these potentially contributing factors.

The Crash of Flight 1549 (and 43)

Our nation was ditched too. It remains to be seen how many are saved and how many are yet to die.

The big, glaring difference between America Flight 43 and US Airways Flight 1549 is that pilot of Flight 1549, Captain Sullenberger, was a competent person, and Bushie the Decider of the ill fated Flight 43 was not.

Bushie the Decider brought our ship of state down himself by pushing buttons and muttering "Lord, I wonder what this button will do".