Why is there so much focus on the plane crash in the USA?

[Azzywhatty]

I’m saying it’s wrong necessarily, but it’s been rolling news all day and I can’t understand why.

It’s awful and tragic and the families need answers, but why is it rolling news?

Well 67 people died, many of them young athletes in very unusual accident where two aircrafts collided. So it would be big news in the US anyway.

I think it's probably bigger news here than it would normally be as Trump seems to blaming diversity policies for the accident. He's basically said there are air traffic controllers with intellectual and psychiatric disabilities. Now everyone is wondering what actually happened.

The type of plane has been reported widely since it happened, its in all the news stories

Not a boeing

ETA , I've been seen that several other posters have stoodin for Google for you alreaudy

The release of the Palestinians was covered extensively by the BBC yesterday, they were pictured and named as well as were the Israelis and Thai citizens.

To be fair I think it would be a pretty big deal over here too if a military helicopter hit a passenger plane!

It's Trump's response that's keeping it high on the news cycle.

I think that’s a small part of it, TBH. Unusual transport disasters do tend to top the news cycle for a few days. See my above examples and also Zeebrugge, Costa Concordia etc

Why shouldn't it be?

We have heard nothing but Gaza-Israel-Palestine on a loop for the past 15 months! And for a year before that, it was Ukraine-Russia constantly. And before that it was Syria Syria Syria... Why should this not be reported on?! Makes a change to get some different news TBH. Tragic as it is. 😢

Are you the same poster who whinged about 'too much coverage on the news' about the L.A. fires?

Because it's a tragedy and also there's very little else happening at the moment. In an era of 24hr rolling news they need to report on something to keep them all in jobs even when there is nothing to say.

The fact that a military helicopter and a large civilian passenger plane collided in mid-air in the USA and there were many dead is a huge story. How on earth did it happen with all the technology available to all parties? Someone, somewhere ignored some kind of warning, or some tech failed. Of course it's going to be on the news a lot, people want to know how and why.

The newsworthness of it is greatly increased because of Trumps comments afterwards, and seperately his/his administrations actions beforehand re the aviation administration (is that the correct name?) staff, firing staff and a hiring freeze that makes it difficult to staff air towers which is an area already known to be suffering staff shortages. Its been spun now as being a sector exempt from the freeze but who knows

The nature of rolling news means they run out of news. Plus it's unusual.

Ok

Lives lost in an accident in the west are much more newsworthy than lives lost in war than in other far flung places. Honestly the way news works you’d think we shared a border with U.S.

You say that. But I do a volunteer thing which involves rescue agencies and we often work with the coastguard and because of that we do helicopter training

yes its a human flying by my god they’ve got so much in there that alarms at the first sign of anything close or going wrong…

it’s not as easy as you think it is

This is partly because it's Israeli hostages being released vs Palestinian prisoners, many of them serving life sentences for serious crimes.

ETA , I've been seen that several other posters have stoodin for Google for you alreaudy

Just curious, but does ETA mean something other than estimated time of arrival? I have googled, but that’s all it gives!

Edited To Add

Because of Trumps idiotic statement about it being due to minority groups. 🙄

My brother, who’s a pilot, says near misses are far far more common than people realise so “ there but for the grace of God” makes folk scarily interested.

And the fact that it's a helicopter that is apparently able to be flown remotely and therefore hackable adds to it. I don't know how true that is, does it apply to lots of types of helicopters etc but its part of the story of this accident now.
As far as I can see the huge fear is that Tump (or Musk behind Trump, and he has had issues with aviation officials because of his test flights etc) are attempting to destabilise the country through a series of such events, bringing people onto the streets in protest this allowing for military rule type situation to be evoked.
If it were anyone but Trump and Musk I'd be laughing at it but with those two I think it may be a credible fear. There doesn't seem to be an logical reasoning for the firings across the aviation authorities, the man has allowed attempted to just simply remove a section of the American constitution, it's quite scary

I agree. The terrorist attached with the Tesla and the other guy running people down, just got memory holed.

I do find it strange though that two other plan incidents have occurred since then also.

Small plane incidents aren’t that rare - but them being reported internationally will be.

Its in the news as its important to find out why it happened

Sorry that was full of typos! Should be 'thus alliwing' and 'has also attempted to'

This got me pondering a bit. The Guardian (which has a mutual love-in going on with BBC News) is now run by the US Guardian and an increasing number of stories are provided by US journalists. Often their opinions masquerade as 'news'.

The MailOnline has a massive US supply chain and readership of news, columns and opinion pieces.

The Independent has been heading that way for a while, and there have been a couple of recent appointments to its news-desk of political editors who specialise not only in US politics but also in dressing up the narratives for UK consumption and reaction.

I know that one could argue that US politics does have grave repercussions for the rest of the world and our press should be reflecting that. My concern is that the 'UK press' shouldn't be trying quite so hard to affect our reactions to US politics under Trump in a way it refused to do under Biden or Obama. I'd like the facts, not more and more pieces about 'why Trump is wrong and mad' or 'why Trump is a towering genius', thanks.