What would posters prefer happens after an historic aircraft tragedy?

Thank you to all those who have made constructive contributions to this thread. It has served its purpose in giving the Mods some measure of feedback on the topic.

Moggy
Moderator

LesB, have you bothered to read all the posts?

Yes I have.

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One comment on the subject of “useless” “saccharin” “platitudes” “from total strangers”.

For those who feel that only those condolences from those who knew the deceased have any meaning, I sorrow at the shallowness of your humanity… that it can only relate to associates and cannot produce genuine feelings for strangers.

Nail on the head there mate, what harm does a bit of goodwill do in hard times? I’m sure these nice words are appreciated and seen in time by ppl closer to those who have been taken.
I don’t know the Beck family but I wouldn’t be surprised if the family is steered towards forums like this in time (unleess they already know it) like Sir Alex Henshaws son or granson was recently.

Life and Death.

I think instead of analyzing how someone died we should be celebrating on how he lived and what he achieved.Leave the conjecture for the investigators.Thats their job.How many car accidents receive the same amount of coverage.Not racing cars just ordinary people who,s lives are shattered for ever.Should the Warbird industry be any different?Sure they are Million dollar machinery but the people who fly them know the risks the same as a person knows the risk of driving a car.Accidents happen.Thats why they are called accidents.They are not planned but we can try to minimize the risks.

One post. No other answer makes any sense. This is an aviation forum, not any other kind. I agree with Aurthur about condolences. Other forums are able to deal with this without the morale high ground being high jacked all the time, and great dollops of immature personal attacks on one and other. And they post eye witness accounts and observations, photos and videos etc. Often we have no clue to the significance of the person involved, so those that do know and are able to should post information. That way we all learn and gain something.

I think you’ll find that he posts in red when he is posting as a Mod and not as “himself” (Moggy – apologies if I have that wrong).

Totally correct. I also try and remember to suppress my signature when moderating.

You make many good points, but the one thing I’d really hate would be a separate ‘condolences’ forum – what a truly depressing place that would be to visit 🙁

Moggy

Find a thick red pen in the Mods desk Moggy?

I think you’ll find that he posts in red when he is posting as a Mod and not as “himself” (Moggy – apologies if I have that wrong).

There are some interesting points made. Personally, if someone wants to express condolences, they should be able to; I don’t personally as I am not comfortable with that (unless I knew said individual), but I wouldn’t impose my thoughts on anyone else and neither would I expect the reverse to happen. Where I get singularly annoyed is when the speculation starts on what did/did not cause an incident/accident to occur and the “barrack room experts” trot out their theories without any thought to who might be reading them. The Firefly incident was a case in point, where comments were made on this Forum about the incident, even though a member of this Forum was closely related to one of the deceased and had to read them. I will not speak on his behalf as I don’t know him and it is not appropriate for me to do so; if he wants to comment, I am sure he will. Knowing that he would probably at some point read them made me feel very uncomfortable at the time. My view, as I have said before is that it should be left to the AAIB and the like to investigate and draw their conclusions. I don’t believe that idle speculation has any place on this or any other forum.

Having said all that I think there ought to be two threads, or even perhaps a separate forum for condolences etc where people who choose to can pay their respects. I choose not to as a general rule for the reasons stated above. That doesn’t mean that others shouldn’t.

LesB, have you bothered to read all the posts?

I like the idea of having two threads.
-One for condolence messages and rememberances.
Yes, they may not mean much to the family coming from someone who never met the pilot, but we all know each other through airshows and films.
We’re all shocked when someone we admire is killed…whether it be in an airshow or on a racetrack. Letting people express their sadness is harmless.
-One for comments/questions on the crash and aircraft.

Growing up in an aviation family, discussing the possible causes of crashes was perfectly acceptable dinner conversation.
And it’s something that still occurs at a weekly aircraft rebuild work session/dinner I attend. Several of us read the FAA daily accident summary, and we’ll often discuss mishaps that befall aircraft types we’re interested in.
Regarding the recent fatal Mustang mishap in California, I learned some interesting information from a Mustang rated pilot about the crash.

This is done with the utmost respect to those involved, and is done to learn more about the crash and discuss (and learn from) the causes… it’s not any more morbid than reading the “why he crashed” features in various magazines.

It works among pilots and those with a certain level of maturity (so I agree it may not work on an open forum like this).

If you think that the discussion of crashes is in bad taste, I’d suggest you haven’t been around pilots much.

As far as “not speculating” I doubt if t he CAA/FAA is doing to be prejudiced by what is written here. And concern about family and friends…in todays world of everybody having cameras, video recorders, and internet access….the days of them having much privacy are about a decade in the past.

On another forum I read, someone posted tasteful wreckage shots after an extremely rare and historically significant aircraft was lost in a fatal crash, after I asked about the state of the wreckage and AFTER the owners announced it was going to be rebuilt. The photos were immediately taken down by the moderators citing “taste”.
IMHO, that’s nonsense…there was no body shots and it was a legitimate question since the rebuild had already been announced. I learned from the shots, that when the plane flies again, there’s going to be little left of the original airframe. I’m I suggesting similar shots of all crashed aircraft? Of course not, this was a 1 (or 2) of a kind aircraft so I see my question and the posting of the photos as legitimate.

Still, that’s why there should be two threads…so those very close to the event don’t have to read discussion/comments if they don’t want to.

quite thread!

Lots of tooing and froing and some slightly controversial comments but I think this from bager says it best,

“I didn’t know him, but I sorrow for your loss” had a healing effect… especially coming from a stranger, as it showed that the good side of humanity was still functioning… and was ready to help in any way it could.

Oh and LesB I dont think this was very fair….

The rest are just various magnitudes of point scoring.

One comment on the subject of “useless” “saccharin” “platitudes” “from total strangers”.

I view every human life as valuable, and the loss of any of them is a very real tragedy… one which does indeed effect me regardless of whether I knew the person or not.

If I choose to offer condolences to a total stranger on the death of their friend/family member, it is exactly because I felt moved to do so… NOT because I am in the habit of spouting empty words (if I say something I mean it).

For those who feel that only those condolences from those who knew the deceased have any meaning, I sorrow at the shallowness of your humanity… that it can only relate to associates and cannot produce genuine feelings for strangers.

I have had close relatives die, and even the words “I didn’t know him, but I sorrow for your loss” had a healing effect… especially coming from a stranger, as it showed that the good side of humanity was still functioning… and was ready to help in any way it could.

Even if that help was not needed, knowing it was available was a great comfort.

So I will offer my sorrow to those who remain… and ignore those who fail to understand that it is indeed real and meaningful.

Sadly the only thing this thread proves is that once again Moggy has no place as a moderator on this or any other forum, as he is incapable of seperating his personal opinions from his moderator duties.

Rather like your moderating days on UKAR DB:dev2: 😉

Completely agree with Skybolt by the way.

Personally I think you’ll find it very hard to keep the two threads apart when such things happen. A harder task for the moderators and more people offended when their postings are removed, especially in the circumstances.

I think that those who try to conclude the results of the accident investigation well before the professionals have done their job often get it wrong because they are not fully aware of the circumstances and aren’t seeing things from the professionals’ standpoint. In many cases those who post such conjecture often condemn themselves with their own words long before others wade in to point out the errors. Personally I think such conjecture is best left for the bin. Report what you see if you witnessed the event (even only on video) but leave the guesswork for elsewhere.

As for the condolence messages, well here I think there’s a real value. I think it’s right and proper to grieve with those who grieve and, having witnessed a fatal air crash myself, while my own thoughts might well have been immaterial to most people, having the chance to express them helped me to deal with the aftermath of the horrific event that I had witnessed. Perhaps such thoughts aren’t for an open forum but having an outlet for them is clearly useful for some people and it is not the right of others to deny this.

I would add that I think sometimes people forget how shocking it is for many to watch such crashes aired on TV or the Internet. While it is not as bad as being there, it undoubtedly affects people and again part of the process of dealing with this for some is to talk about it and share thoughts.

In the end my view is that as long as those thoughts aren’t offensive then why should they not be aired here? If they are seen by those more directly affected such as close relatives it only serves to show that people care and are human, so what’s the problem? At times like this such comments can be very supportive and when faced with loss in this way I think people need to realise that they are not alone in their grief.

Where my blood does boil, however, is with those who use such situations simply for their own purposes, namely to try to make themselves look important. How many times have we seen people suddenly make out as if they were best mates with those who have passed away when in fact the deceased probably didn’t know them from Adam? Such stuff is only posted to make the poster look more important and I think it needs to be seen for what it is.

My original exhortation to ask people not to speculate on the causes was not terribly well written (early morning; late night!), but I sought to avoid another example of the Firefly thread we had before.

In all this, we should seek to avoid too much speculation – different people will see different things, despite being within feet of one another. Looking at the various news reports, people had already described the damaged aircraft in 2 or 3 different ways. When looking at the photographs in a sequence, one can draw a particular conclusion; when looking at the footage, one draws a completely different one.

We should wait for the accident report before commenting on what may or may not have happened to cause this terrible accident.

I agree with others however regarding platitudes. I am as guilty as the next man, although as a member of the community, I am perhaps slightly better placed!

I kind of agree with the two threads suggestion, BUT as we end up with the same basic discussion every time – suggest we start it sooner rather than later. The Fly or not fly argument is almost as entrenched as the Vulcan debate, or the Hendon Halifax one, but it is worthwhile!

Bruce

Now to the point –

The idea of two threads in cases like this is excellent and has my full support for the following reasons.

Condolence threads are often appreciated by those who mourn the loss of a family member or good personal friend. They enable folk who have known the individual from the other side of the crowd line to express their sadness and thanks for past performances. I see nothing to justify deleting such a thread.

Discussion threads just might prevent a repeat tragedy. It is a long time before the official investigation process publishes any report. In that period the airshow season continues. It might be that reading a discussion thread just might cause an individual pilot, engineer, operator or airshow organiser to review their own circumstances and make any appropriate modifications. Surely this is to be encouraged in the interests of aviation safety.

Well thats my six pennyworth.

Cheers,

Trapper 69
:confused:

I totally agree with this post.

T J

I’d just prefer there not to be any historic aviation tragedies at all. 🙁

Common Sense should surely prevail?

Mention has been mad of Ray Hanna, well he didn’t die in an air incident and was, as several others are or will be, a legend. To add memories or experiences or influences to a thread for the future makes sense.

To add condolence to a thread about a person one has not met or even heard of until the incident is pure saccharin. It might be more relevant to explain why you didn’t want to add your condolence.

The differential between basic facts of what has happened in an accident and supposition is always a difficult call. In this time we are all hungry for the absolute and it isn’t always available “now” – let us learn to live with that.

Final thought, write your post, read it, have a cup of tea, read it again and then post – might just make the difference between respect and ridicule.

There is a fascinating wealth of information, pictures and experience to be shared here, don’t let us lose it by wasting effort where it isn’t needed 😉

Ground hog day…

Janey,

Away for ages, damn all internet coverage,back home for a long weekend and what do i find??

The same argument again…my last posting was to start a debate tread on those horrendous School shootings in the US and leave PII’s tread for those who wanted to pass on their sympathies.

Have to agree with Moggy et all…two treads one for the debate on the event another to allow those who want to to pass on their sympathies.

The most sensible posts on this subject are from Propstrike and Arthur. The rest are just various magnitudes of point scoring.

Needless to say, I agree with the two posters mentioned above.

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I’m 100% with Arthur on this.

Me too.