Attractive White Woman Walks Into Airplane Prop. News Directors Across America Spontaneously Orgasm.So far, the Today show has devoted a whole frickin' segment to the Texas chick who strolled right into a spinning prop, after devoting only a ten-second blurb before the previous commercial break to dozens of funny-talking brown people getting blown up in Kabul, presumably because none of the latter had ever done catalog work for department stores.
No word on how many elderly folks got their wrinkly asses robbed or raped in the ghetto last night, but stay tuned for air times for the forthcoming Lifetime movie, Propelled To Glory.
Apparently I need to thank the Civil Air Patrol for successfully beating the prop-heebie-jeebies into me.
ReplyDeleteSpot on with your assessment of the Lame stream media.
ReplyDeleteHow about them delving into the strip searches by the TSA of 3 elderly women that have come forth now?
Once again sensationalism trumps hard news... And my question is how was she NOT paying attention???
ReplyDelete*shrug* If it bleeds, it leads.
ReplyDeleteNathan,
ReplyDeleteIf it bleeds, it leads +
Injured or Missing Attractive White Woman +
Scandalous Sex Angle =
Perfect news story.
So far, we're only one short of the trifecta, but I'm sure reporters are digging frantically.
@ Secret Squirrel: Ditto. Also for hammering into me the "head on a swivel" attitude for the flight line that I have expanded to parking lots, walking near the street, or any other situation where heavy machinery (or anything capable of causing accidental injury) may be in motion.
ReplyDeleteThird angle,Mile-High Club?
ReplyDeleteMoe Szyslak says "She ain't pretty no more!"
ReplyDeleteThird angle is right there: she's now an amputee.
ReplyDeleteSecond third angle: judging from the pics, she might also be a tranny. "Attractive white woman"? Where?
Alternate movie title "Propellered to Gory"? Hell, that's a third third angle...there's some sick puppies out there.
I can't believe this! Didn't you read the article??? This woman worked on Gossip Girl!!! That makes her, like, totally important and stuff!!!
ReplyDelete/ sarc
When lamenting the sorry quality of "news" these days, I ponder the idiots who are so hungry for such pointless, useless, often prurient information that news outlets see that there's money to be made in purveying it to them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeCMCJc5-jg
ReplyDeleteDon't you know the only thing important to a narcissist is the plight of a fellow narcissist?
ReplyDeleteOf coarse she's important to them, she's one of them!
Wait, she walked into a propeller and wasn't instantly turned into beanless chili? It seems Indiana Jones may have lied to me...
ReplyDeletePB,
ReplyDeleteIt's one thing to mock a ghoulish news director, and quite another to mock a young person laid up in the hospital in critical condition.
Not an Actress, Not a Director, but a Stylist? Well, I guess it is more important to report THAT than talk about the Shootout that occurred 30 miles away on the Amtrak Train....
ReplyDeleteShe's in a very exclusive club then: People Who Have Walked Into a Prop and Lived.
ReplyDeleteI'm with squirrel and jake.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things CAP pounded into my was the rules for flight line etiquette.
I once watched a cadet lose his hat (No hats on the flight line!) to a twin engine. He probably wouldn't have lost it except that it fell of his head when our Capt. jerked him away from the spinning prop at the last second.
This is what happens when you let clueless reporters into places they shouldn't be because hey! It's fun to be on the Tv!
Somehow, I managed to not only fly, but actually hand-prop airplanes for years, and never injure myself.
ReplyDeleteOne of the commenters on the original article offered "She was probably caught up in a conversation or focused on something else" as if it were some sort of justification; in truth, it's an indictment. When you're around dangerous machinery, your attention needs to be focused on the things that can kill you. Anything else is asking for trouble.
(Also, from the same comment: "People need to focus on Lauren and her injuries and stop focusing on how it happened." Yes, that's a great idea--let's make sure we don't learn from this so it can happen again.)
There's also the possibility that she did not see the spinning thing as it spun and could not hear someone yelling over the noise.
ReplyDeleteNow here's my question - what the blazes was the pilot doing hot-loading a sight-seeing flight? BTDT and if you have to hot-load for any reason and your passengers are not very experienced with working around airplanes (skydivers, flight medics), you have a ramp handler to guide the civilians around the danger zone. Period. Yeah, it takes a little more time, but no one has gotten hurt. Yet.
LittleRed1
To be fair, it is a rare and unusual event, regardless of her 'qualifications.'
ReplyDeleteNot many people walk into a spinning propeller and live. The first page of search returns turns up six leads to this story, two for a woman killed in Canada in August of this year, one for a guy in 2006 (who also lived) and one in 1966 for the heir of the Reynolds aluminum company.
Granted, that's just the first page of returns (hey, I'm lazy), and your point is still valid that it makes the news even more readily because she's A) a (white) fashion model and B) part of the MSM herself.
However, I think the mere fact that it is fairly rare to begin with, and then to survive it makes the story such a big deal to most people.
If she'd been trampled by a runaway rhino at the zoo, it would have garnered as much attention. If she'd been hit by a NYC taxi and laid up in the hospital, it wouldn't have been noticed.
To me, the most shocking recent non-coverage of a news story is last Thursday's Senate passage of a law that explicitly allows the president to imprison American citizens, forever, without any kind of due process or oversight - and the administration lawyers are arguing, "yes, and this also means we can also kill you whenever we want, too."
ReplyDeleteThe gung-ho law-and-order types will come back with, "well yeah, but that only applies if the U.S. citizen is a terrorist on the battlefield." OK, but the new law explicitly says that the battlefield is everywhere, anytime, under any circumstances, and that the administration has the right to arbitrarily and secretly who's a terrorist and who isn't. Can't see how that might open the door to abuse, no way.
Meanwhile, the media, which ceaselessly covered Guantanamo as Bush's Auschwitz, blandly ignores the now Obama law that basically says 'you don't need an offshore Gitmo for a black hole any more, you can do it right here in the US perfectly legally." Not to mention how candidate Obama endlessly railed aginst Gitmo.
Seems to me, the government assuming new unlimited rights to kill or imprison people randomly with no due process or accountability whatsoever would be somewhat newsworthy. But apparently the latest Kardashian outburst is a lot more important.
Alath
Carmel IN
I am completely sympathetic to the fact an attractive young person, has had her entire life changed in the blink of an eye and deplore anyone making light of her tragedy. Further I consider the actions of the media to be completely predictable and self-serving. I wouldn’t even begin to guess who is narcissistic in this entire tragedy and wonder why that topic even came up.
ReplyDeleteFactor in this, it was after dark at an airfield after the plane had landed and come to rest. The propeller doesn’t immediately stop after the engine is shut down and the story say’s this was a two (2) seat plane. This girl probably didn’t see the prop spinning as has been mentioned. Whether negligence is a factor or not this is still a terrible accident.
Sprot Pilot,
ReplyDeleteHaving spent a few years on ramps myself, I cringed when I first heard the news. It sounds like she got caught by the prop as it kicked around those final few revolutions before coming to a stop.
It's the ghoulish and sensationalistic lingering by the press that is drawing my scorn.
Right or wrong, it's human nature to pay more attention to the misfortunes of your friends and professional colleagues---even distant ones---than to the misfortunes of strangers. Firefighters pay vastly more attention to firefighter mishaps than to electric lineman mishaps, and vice versa. So I think a lot of the entertainment media's attention is due to the fact that she is kind of one of their own, even if she play one of the lesser roles in their universe..
ReplyDeleteAnd to the h8ters upthread, if that were *your* 23-year-old daughter/wife/girlfriend who had made a simple mistake and been critically injured and maimed, I think you'd take a rather dim view of such comments. (I almost used the descriptor "Neandertal" to refer to said comments, but that would have been an insult to the memory of Neandertals everywhere.)
Here's wishing her as full a recovery as she can have, and a speedy return to healthy life and livelihood. This won't be an easy recovery.
"but stay tuned for air times for the forthcoming Lifetime movie, Propelled To Glory. "
ReplyDeleteI really need to remember to stop drinking my coffee as I read Tam's blog in the morning. It's detrimental to my keyboard and monitor.
I first wondered why the pilot didn't have her remain in the aircraft until the propeller had stopped. While they do keep moving they stop relatively quickly.
Then I saw she walked into it. She didn't fall into it while getting out she walked into it. Growing up my dad was a CFI and I spent a lot of time flying with him. One thing that was drilled into me, stay your ass away from the front of an airplane. FAR away.
This was for two reasons. First: Spinning props aren't visible. It may look like it's not there but it is.
Second the pilot of an airplane might start the engine and not see me due to my small size since I was a child. (Note normally I was with him, didn't stop him from teaching me anyway so I would know if somehow we were separated.)
Even now when at the airport my ass stays away from the prop(s) of any aircraft unless I'm doing a pre-flight inspection or maintenance. Prop strikes are easily avoidable by maintaining a safe distance.
Horrible accident, yes. Do I feel sorry for her, yes. Do I think the news should be plastering her all over the place, no.
My sister was disfigured through a car wreck of which was caused by her and everyone else in the vehicle making a bunch of stupid mistakes. She had worked as a model but the news wasn't all over her disfigurement because it wasn't sensational.
This woman has a huge price to pay for that split second of lack of attention and stupidity. Stupid should hurt, even leave a scar, but in this instance I just can't help but feel sorry for her because disfigurement is a huge price for the mistake.
ABC Radio report at 10am said the woman was distracted by Christmas decorations.
ReplyDelete"Oh! Look at the the bright red ... *SPLAT*"
Maybe there have been enough reports over the decades of things like bombings in funny furrin' places, or shootings in Darktown, that the audience might be a little desensitized, so that something that's rare like walking into a spinning propeller has, forgive me Lord for saying this, novelty value. This is not meant to excuse ignoring the sum total of human suffering which happens every day across the rest of the planet.
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to think of more to add, but it all goes back to the thought of being julienned by a spinning prop, or sucked into an intake--a nightmare. Maybe one that the newsweasels figure is shared by a large hunk of their audience.
Hell, maybe they do have my number. Is the number of comments you have for this post about the pretty blonde who was mutilated by the airplane propeller more, or less, than the average number you get for the other stuff you post, if you don't mind my asking? Or the hits, or the page views?
Mike James
Mike James
Double posting is one thing, but double typing my name is virgin territory of dumbass, for...
ReplyDeleteMike James
Avoid the front of an airplane, the back of a helicopter and the crew chief before coffee.
ReplyDeleteI helped stopped a friend from walking into a tail rotor once. we had to grab him a forcibly drag him away.We were yelling at at him and pointing to it and he kept walking right towards it. Kevin
ReplyDeleteAs I write this, there are four (4)comments on the "Overheard In The Office" post immediately preceding about the Taliban condemning the "didn't touch first base" suicide bombing, and thirty (30) for this one. Sort of proves your point, somehow.
ReplyDeleteMike James
Kevin,
ReplyDeleteI saw a ramp rat come within about six inches of getting his hair parted to his collarbone by a Rockwell Twin Commander as the blade kicked around that last time. He was white as a ghost for about the next two hours.
I'm not certain about the white part, any attractive female semi-celebrity might have got the same... but the rest I agree.
ReplyDeleteAs for blame, fault and responsibility lie first with the injured woman: we are all responsible for our own safety first and foremost. However, we all occasionally encounter situations we're unfamiliar with enough that we don't even know what is safe and what is not. The largest dose of blame goes to the pilot in command. WTF was he thinking? The aircraft commander is responsible for the operation of the aircraft, everything it does or fails to do, and the safety of the passengers... and it doesn't seem that he had that foremost on his mind.
That's gonna leave a mark. Amazing that she lived.
ReplyDeleteI just made a point of sitting in the pilot's seat until the fucker stopped going around.
Tam,
ReplyDeleteWere my comments tasteless and heartless? Yes, but funny...and distance and anonymity is the basis for most all dark humor, isn't it?
As to "mocking a young person laid up in the hospital", that gentle statement lends both credence and irony to your indignation about disparate media treatment of this as opposed to the hundreds of "lesser" folks, brown, black and otherwise who blow each other up and/or away every day. With apologies to Pogo, you could say that we have met the media, and it is us.
Considering the "body" of work as it were here at VFTP as to strengthening the gene pool, etc., I'll think I'll give your little admonition all the credibility it deserves.
The largest dose of blame goes to the pilot in command. WTF was he thinking? The aircraft commander is responsible for the operation of the aircraft, everything it does or fails to do, and the safety of the passengers... and it doesn't seem that he had that foremost on his mind.
ReplyDeleteAgree.
The safety and well-being of my passengers is MY responsibility. I do not let passengers out of either the Cessna or the RV8 (a tandem seater) until the prop is stopped and I TELL them it is safe to exit the aircraft.
I'm familiar with the airport in question, have landed there many times (we use it for hand-offs on Angel Flights) and am still bamboozled as to how this could happen.
One moment of carelessness was all it took, and I blame the PIC.
Locals tell me the pilot was taking folks up for an aerial view of the the Christmas decorations, so the darkness added yet another risk factor to this whole thing.
But, the bottom line is that this lady did not ask for the media attention any more than she asked to be disfigured and nearly killed by a spinning propeller.
Just as the PIC of the aircraft is responsible for this young lady's medical situation, the vultures at the media are responsible for this even being a topic of discussion in the vein that it is.
Oh, and for the record--there's not a damned thing funny, at all, ever, about someone walking into a spinning propeller.
--AOA
BenEzra, "Right or wrong, it's human nature to pay more attention to the misfortunes of your friends and professional colleagues"
ReplyDeleteSo the "layers of journalistic oversight" go out the window?
No one is saying "ignore it." But in the grand scheme of things, I think the suicide bombing deserves as MUCH time as this story.
There was a lawsuit recently (I forget if it was Chicago or DC). White girl goes missing. TV goes crazy. Massive police search. Overtime. Dogs. The works. Black girl goes missing no one notices. The parents sued the police/city for discrimination. (While you can't sue the .gov for not doing their job, I don't know how this turned out.)
I live in Houston, so I was hearing about this... And assumed I was hearing all the blather because it was local.
ReplyDeleteNot that I don't feel bad for her, it sounds really painful.