by Rick Constant

USA Today of July 12, 1999 states in part: "Of the 11 people who died in Little Rock, four perished not from the impact or the fire but from breathing toxic smoke." This is a prime example of how the media attempts to distort facts. If they wanted to merely say that four people had died from smoke they could have said: "Of the 11 people who died in Little Rock, four perished from smoke." But then we would have wondered what happened to the 7 others! By writing the sentence as they did, the reader is left with the impression that there was no fire or at least that it played no role in the deaths of the passengers. This begs the question: where does smoke come from? Have we really become so stupid that they think they can get away with this sort of nonsense?

Furthermore, the USA TODAY article mentioned above states: "But it is clear that the rush to escape the burning jet was fraught with delays, malfunctioning equipment and erratic human behavior, a USA TODAY examination found." Let's examine this sentence:

• 'fraught with delays'? Did the seats pull lose from their flimsy attachment to the floor (not the main structure) and make it difficult or impossible to move about? Did overhead luggage bins pull lose, hampering exit? Did the structural damage to the plane make it difficult to find a way out?

• 'malfunctioning equipment'? What equipment is necessary to remove oneself from a burning plane whose undercarriage has collapsed (and the engines or the under-carriage rupturing the fuel tanks)?

• 'erratic human behavior'? Isn't this the logical conclusion of the first two problems? By finishing the sentence by 'erratic human behavior' it leaves the reader with the impression that these poor people couldn't save themselves even though their lives depended on it. This was in fact true, they couldn't save themselves and their lives depended on it, but it wasn't due to any fault on their part.

Flight 1420 is simply another example of the lack of crashworthiness of conventional airliners; fragile fuselage and the irresponsible conventional practice of hanging landing gear and/or engines on fuel tank supporting structure in combination with excessively high take-off and landing speeds on over-stressed tires - a perfect recipe for fiery disaster.

The Little Rock crash, it must be remembered, was nothing more than overrunning the runway and hitting a post. If running into a field with a car or bus, hitting a post and coming to a halt meant the complete destruction of a car or bus and resulted in a fire breaking out, the manufacturer of that vehicle would be sued instantly for gross negligence or other charge of fraud and malfeasance. Why don't air-crash victims' lawyers ever sue the manufacturer on the basis that a safer design has existed for over 60 years [see www.aircrash.org]? Has this been simple ignorance or concerted acquired ignorance?

Please don't let ignorance kill more people, pass this along to as many people as you can, write to your congressman and your lawyer and tell them that to learn the facts about the monumental criminal negligence perpetrated by the aircraft cartel for the last sixty years, to view www.aircrash.org -- and ask them what they're going to do about it.

[For more information on how the media uses language to mislead readers see the "Media 101" file at: http://www.aircrash.org/burnelli/med1_toc.htm - Size: 158K]