Space Needle and Chopper

‘If it bleeds it leads’ is an old newspaper adage that means that the bloodiest most violent news story is usually the first one featured. Following in that grand tradition, today’s post features one such story where the news crew created their own bloody headline. This morning in Seattle, next to the Space Needle the KOMO-TV traffic copter crashed and burned on takeoff. Both the pilot and the announcer in the helicopter were killed and a passing driver was severely injured when the flaming chopper landed on his vehicle.

Last Friday, I was at Seattle Center, home of the Space Needle, when I saw the KOMO copter come in for a landing on its helipad, right across the street from the Space Needle. I caught it in the above photo, as it passed by the Space Needle. I was there with Carl Sagan, when it came in low and slow. It also made one heck of a racket. That was later in the day, than when today’s crash occurred, which was during rush-hour. I saw the regular KOMO traffic copter land on Friday. The one that crashed today was a loaner, while the regular one was in the shop for service, but I bet you that the aircrew were the same people both times. No cause for the crash has yet been identified, but I’m sure that one will eventually be found.

I’m not so sure that we will ever be able to say the same of the missing Malaysian 777 airliner. It has been missing for over ten days and I don’t think that we are any closer to knowing where it is than on the day it was lost. The torrent of speculation as fact combined with politically motivated misinformation makes me uncertain that anything that we’ve ‘learned’ so far is the truth. The investigation seems be continually hobbled by ineptitude, partisanship or both.