MSNBC, Alison Stewart and the JetBlue plane

Ron Hardin wrote:
I don't get the emergency. It's a pretty low grade emergency.
Not that that stops the cable networks.
[snip]
You move lightplanes around by pushing down on the tail to lift
the nose wheel off the ground by hand.

It was pretty obvious to everyone watching, including intelligent
people on the ground (but not to those on the plane, of course , that
this was a petty crisis, and would not involve any fatalities.

Of course something could go wrong; yes, an old lady might get
frightened and have a heart attack; yes, the plane could go off the
runway and break some legs and arms. But no, there weren't going to be
any major problems or fatalities. Notice when the plane landed that
the fire department guys kind of trotted over and stood around. Yeah,
big emergency.

The real "problem" is that secretly all these people who knew there
wouldn't be a huge emergency were actually *hoping* for something
spectacular and bad to happen. As much as they say, "We hope
everything goes extremely well" they are turning off the mic and saying
to the camera man "Get in real close and tight, we can't afford to miss
this..."

I myself must admit to watching (for about 20 minutes) the plane fly
and land in High Definition on ABC. That was wonderful.

wrote in message
oups.com...

Ron Hardin wrote:
I don't get the emergency. It's a pretty low grade emergency.
Not that that stops the cable networks.
[snip]
You move lightplanes around by pushing down on the tail to lift
the nose wheel off the ground by hand.

It was pretty obvious to everyone watching, including intelligent
people on the ground (but not to those on the plane, of course , that
this was a petty crisis, and would not involve any fatalities.

Of course something could go wrong; yes, an old lady might get
frightened and have a heart attack; yes, the plane could go off the
runway and break some legs and arms. But no, there weren't going to be
any major problems or fatalities. Notice when the plane landed that
the fire department guys kind of trotted over and stood around. Yeah,
big emergency.

The real "problem" is that secretly all these people who knew there
wouldn't be a huge emergency were actually *hoping* for something
spectacular and bad to happen. As much as they say, "We hope
everything goes extremely well" they are turning off the mic and saying
to the camera man "Get in real close and tight, we can't afford to miss
this..."

I myself must admit to watching (for about 20 minutes) the plane fly
and land in High Definition on ABC. That was wonderful.

Perhaps there was also a genuine concern for the safety of the people on
that flight. Would your attitude have been so casual had you been on board?
I would have been thankful for the coverage and the on-board television so
that I could see the nature of the problem with the aircraft.

I was pleasantly surprised to see the front landing gear was able to
tolerate the stress as well as it did.

Leonard