Journalism: This really happened “Boeing 777 will struggle to maintain altitude once the fuel tanks are empty”

Journalism: This really happened “Boeing 777 will struggle to maintain altitude once the fuel tanks are empty”

In the weeks after the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines MH 370, the news media entered into endless speculation and – basically – conspiracy theories.

This bizarre items appears to have actually happened at CNN in March of 2014.

Here is a contemporary account of this from April of 2014.

The gist of this CNN transcript is that the auto pilot will attempt to maintain altitude – even as the aircraft is out of fuel. Gradually the air speed will bleed off until the wings stall.  That’s the sort of explanation that a headline writer will twist into “struggle to maintain altitude”. Well, yeah. But as stated in the headline, it comes across as idiotic.

The reference to Michelle Byrom – she was convicted of murdering her husband and was sentenced to die by lethal injection on March 27, 2014 but the execution was stayed and she was later released. Her son confessed, four times, to having pulled the trigger. The story itself is pretty complex – but was occurring concurrent with the MH 370 stories at the time.

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