British Airways BA146 hard landing in London City Airport: is media over reacting to any aviation safety issue?

February 14, 2009 Aviation, Aviation Safety / Air Crashes, non-military aviation
David Cenciotti

Today I had lunch with a friend of mine who commented on yesterday accident of Colgan Air DHC-8 saying: “….David, am I wrong if I claim that most of times aviation accidents happen one after another?”. At that time, I didn’t believe my friend’s word were somehow prophetic. I simply answered “In some cases, the fact that a mishap has just occurred, makes media more sensitive to any kind of emergency involving planes”. A few minutes ago, a British Airways BAe 146 “G-BXAR” from Amsterdam to London as BA8456, experienced an emergency in London City Airport. According to the first news reports, the aircraft’s nose landing gear collapsed as a consequence of a hard landing and the plane skidded along the runway before coming to a halt. Fortunately, all the 67 passengers and 5 crew members were able to escape using the plane’s emergency exits and there have been no report of any major injuries. The airport was closed.
First, forget that today is Friday 13th.
Second, the emergency was serious, but it was not a catastrophic crash and there weren’t any casualties. However, media (at least in Italy) used more or less the following statements: “aviation accident in London” or “aircraft crashed” or “panic in the air”.
What’s your opinion? Are they overreacting or not? In my opinion, they are. Media tends to sensationalize aviation emergencies after another accident has just occurred. That’s why people think the aviation safety issues come with waves and concentrate in particular periods.

About David Cenciotti
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David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.

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2 Comments

  1. Aircraft accidents are easily newsworthy because of the tremendous amount of lives that are affected. Its difficult to explain to the public that more lives are lost in auto accidents than any aircraft accident.

  2. The issue is that London City Airport is built in the most densely populated area in the UK. Experts say that this problem is not surprising as City Airport has a short runway and Pilots need to get the planes down fast. Hard Landings happen more than is reported. This issue happening in such a short time twice and being reported just shows the problem of Airports and Airlines have wanting to expand in high residential areas.
    More people do die on the roads, this does not give the excuse to expand with more/ bigger planes in South East London.

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