Watching James Fallows and Patrick Smith (of Ask the Pilot) work over Noah Gallagher Shannon’s “I almost died, on a plane” NY Times piece has been ugly but informative. Shannon’s story is his account of what happened when his flight got diverted. Here’s a taste:
The captain came out of the cockpit and stood in the aisle. His cap dangled in one hand. “All electricity will remain off,” he said. Something about an open current and preventing a cabin fire. Confused noises spread through the cabin, but no one said a word. “I’ll yell the rest of my commands from the cockpit.” I could see sweat stains under his arms. “Not going to sugarcoat it,” he said. “We’re just going to try to land it.”
Smith, especially, has shown that almost every detail of this story reeks with the stench of horseshit, and now he’s obtained the maintenance records for that flight (from a source hiding out in a hotel in Hong Kong, who is a traitor, mentally ill, or just wants to break up with his girlfriend). It’s pretty clear that Shannon’s tale is almost complete fabrication. The plane in question had a minor hydraulic problem, one that could not have affected the landing gear, and the worst thing that could have happened would be a longer landing rollout.
If you want to read some high-end media ass covering, Fallows was able to pry a response out of the Times.
Did the author’s personal recollection represent an accurate picture of what he experienced on that flight? Well, only he can attest to his own experience.
So as long as a reporter can “attest to their own experience”, and show that they were actually on a flight that was diverted, any fairy tale they cook up is fair game? The whole thing is minor, but also very telling.
Ash Can
Shorter Times: “Don’t blame us for printing bullshit.”
c u n d gulag
The NY Times new motto: “All the credulous news, that’s fit to print.”
Well, maybe that’s an improvement over the Judy Miller/Dick Cheney years, when the motto was. “All the news, that’s print to fit.”
OY!
Baud
I’m assuming the in-flight movie was Life of Pi.
dr. bloor
At least Shannon didn’t turn all the brown people on the plane into Mooslim Terrists. Thank FSM for small favors.
Suffern ACE
@Baud: nah. Things had gotten so bad in that flight that the in-seat entertainment had been shut down for all options except bejeweled.
Betty Cracker
Holy fuck, the fabrication is the least of it: This Noah Gallagher Shannon person is a terrible, horrible, awful, dreadful, no-good writer:
Were your eyes actually in your palm, Mr. Potato Head?
“Sputtered into a smile”? Kee-rist.
In what sense, Charlie?
That I believe.
the Conster
“artisanal Brooklyn fiction”. I think Smith would have liked to have used a different word than “fiction”.
mai naem
Why do so many idiots have nationally syndicated columns and James Fallows doesn’t? He’s got a lot of personal experience on different issues and he’s got a good witing style.
debbie
@Baud:
Aw, rats, I liked that movie.
Ultraviolet Thunder
I’m going to ignore this whole thing. I spend a lot of time on planes and need to feel safe.
LALALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!
Napoleon
@mai naem:
Because The Atlantic pays him a ton of money to be on its staff.
c u n d gulag
@mai naem:
Because he actually knows what the feck he’s talking about.
And that will confuse the living shite out of people already on the payroll – with the exception of Krugman at the NY Times, Robinson at WaPo, and a handful of others.
Suffern ACE
So reading the original article, it appears that the author isn’t a reporter.
“E-mail submissions for Lives to [email protected]. Because of the volume of e-mail, the magazine cannot respond to every submission.”
This is the Times’ version of Drama in Real Life.
So yeah, they probably aren’t going to question the veracity of the story.
Suffern ACE
@Suffern ACE: we should get John to write up his experience being miserable in Charlestown. It just might make the Times Magazine.
Bill E Pilgrim
Patrick Smith is the best. In email correspondence after he vanished from Salon, he said that they had told him that he was “no longer relevant to the vibe of Salon”. If anyone has seen the even worse first-person confessional-filled tabloid that Salon has become since then, you understand that he should take that as having been a compliment.
kc
@Betty Cracker:
It sounds like an entry in the Bulwer-Lytton contest.
different-church-lady
@Suffern ACE: The whole “no pants” adventure at the DNC might make for interesting expansion into 800 lightly-fictionalized words.
Gin & Tonic
@Suffern ACE: Probably too truthy for the NYT.
Bill E Pilgrim
@c u n d gulag: Did you see Bill Keller today blaming it all on Cheney? Edit: er, two days ago apparently, but I just noticed it.
Just One More Canuck
@Betty Cracker: The humidity would account for the mold that’s infested his brain
different-church-lady
Obama promised transparency. I’ll never trust him again.
JPL
@Suffern ACE: haha.. How I long for Lily
NotMax
Dickens, he ain’t.
Heck, Jaqueline Susann, he ain’t.
Betty Cracker
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Ain’t that the truth! They ran an essay from a woman who ate her placenta after giving birth. Whatever floats your boat and all of that, but Jesus, I don’t need to hear about it.
different-church-lady
@JPL:
And if the NYTs doesn’t publish it, he could enter it into the Bulwer-Lytton.
c u n d gulag
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Nah.
First, I don’t pay for the NY Times, since I’m unemployed, and can’t afford it.
And second, if I could afford it, I wouldn’t read Keller, because he’s an @$$hole. He’s a worse writer than he was an editor.
Suffern ACE
@different-church-lady: the intense boredom was racing through my veins, slowing my heartbeat to a standstill.
different-church-lady
@Suffern ACE:
I wish I could remember where I read/heard this, but a few years ago I remember some reporter/writer/whatever complaining that his story ran into a “buzzsaw of indifference.”
I thought, “What does that sound like? ‘Meh….. brzzzzzz.'”
rikyrah
look, most of these ‘journalists’ are pitiful these days
kc
Read some of the commentary. Horrible prose aside, if Shannon’s such a big fat liar, why DID the plane have to make an emergency landing?
daveNYC
@Suffern ACE: “E-mail submissions for Lives to [email protected]. Because of the volume of e-mail, the magazine cannot respond to every submission.”
Dear New York Times magazine, I never thought it would happen to me…
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@NotMax: Ah. The classics.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Which tells you how long it’s been since I saw that movie. Better go watch it a few more times in penance.
namekarB
Holy Carp, I have a submission also.
“I almost died, in a car.” It was cold, bitterly so. The ocher moon was low and peaked through the fog beyond the trees. I fled down the road which stretched before me like an inky serpent, its hoary surface unreflected in the twin beams of my headlights. And I was late for work . . .
piratedan
least they could have done was place it in the Book Review section under New in Fiction.
Soonergrunt
@Betty Cracker: “They ran an essay from a woman who ate her placenta after giving birth.”
Why in hell would anybody do that, and why in hell would that person then write about it, and lastly, why in hell would anybody read that?
Punchy
The Patrick Smith linky no worky
FMguru
This is exactly what went down with their big, splashy article about Tesla’s electric car. A huge, dramatic article about all the failings of the car, which was contradicted by the company’s release of detailed logs of GPS locations and speeds and temperatures. The NYT eventually had to issue a similar non-retraction retraction, saying that their reporter probably should have kept more accurate records of his travels (but some of Tesla’s criticisms were a little off the mark, too, so really there’s a lot of blame to go around, I’m sure we can all agree, blah blah blah).
Pathetic.
Eric U.
I was in a plane where one of the generators went out on the way to Chicago. Turns out that the protocol is to fly very low for some reason which I never really cared to think about. We were over Iowa when they decided it would be better to land in Denver, so it took an inordinately long time to fly back. I always thought it was like the guy that swam halfway across the ocean, decided he couldn’t make it, and swam back.
Anyway, I’m pretty sure we actually were in an emergency situation and nobody acted like anything out of the ordinary was happening. This isn’t Airplane
Shakezula
That story stinks on ice, but it is attar of roses compared to Lindgren’s follow up.
Oh do fuck off Eunice. The NYT has blown obituaries for major figures, but this piece of fluff got the full review? [Snort.]
I do look forward to merry honk of clown noses when other passengers come forward with their accounts. Oh wait, that will be their perception of the event. Equally valid, but not any more or less accurate.
ThresherK
Reporter’s notebook. Now.
I wouldn’t leave this guy to answer my phone and take a message.
the Conster
@Shakezula:
Yeah, the FAIL that was the Walter Cronkite obit cock-up really needs revisiting. If there was any doubt about how Iraq happened, that should have completely erased it.
Violet
What’s everyone’s problem? Noah Gallagher Shannon is feeling the news at you, not reporting the news to you. It’s a perfect example of truthiness.
satby
@Betty Cracker: I hope she at least cooked it with onions….
Shakezula
@the Conster: Yup. They didn’t do so well with Vidal, either.
Mandalay
@mai naem:
Not a criticism – Fallows is a great writer – but he is a pilot and obsessed with flying, and all aspects of air travel.
I assume that he is in the happy position that the Atlantic allows him to write about whatever he wants, but I doubt that he would have the same freedom in a nationally syndicated column. A lot of his stuff on flying just doesn’t have very broad appeal.
NotMax
@soonergrunt
Less common than it once was, but hardly unheard of.
In olden times, was a ready source of protein and iron to build up the constitution of a woman after childbirth.
Betty Cracker
@Soonergrunt: Right? At least it gave all her acquaintances a heads-up about accepting future dinner invitations…
RSA
@Bill E Pilgrim:
I wondered about that. I’ve exchanged email with Smith as well, and he does seem like a nice guy, as well as being very knowledgeable.
I used to like Salon a lot, and for some years I was active in their online community, TableTalk, and then Open Salon. They closed down TT (no idea why [ETA: okay, I do know–inability to monetize it]) and most of the good writers are gone from OS, leaving… mostly confessionals and political spats. It’s been a sad evolution.
Paul in KY
@Bill E Pilgrim: I’m sorta glad their site is so fucked up (for us IE-8 losers) that I don’t go back there at all anymore. I always enjoyed reading Mr. Smith’s columns.
Paul in KY
@RSA: Remember you commenting from time to time there.
aretino
Tell me again why Jason Blair was fired, because I sure ain’t seeing the difference. Dissimulating while black?
pokeyblow
I wish newspapers would strictly refer to hearsay as hearsay.
For example,
Card whispered “sir, we’re under attack” to the president
becomes according to Card, he told the president we were being attacked.
BGinCHI
His bio on that piece says “he’s working on a book on Cormac McCarthy.”
Let’s hope the Sage of Santa Fe kicks him in his junk.
Who are these fucking people?
Brandon
@FMguru: when I read the post, the Tesla debacle was the first thing that popped into my mind as well. It seems that data contradicting stupid, with the stupid refusing to back down is no longer contained to politics. Call in the WHO and CDC because we have the early warning signs of a pandemic on our hands.
lockout
In my perception of the Truth, Dominos provides a very good service, in exchange for a reasonable charge.
negative 1
Don’t know if I’m too late to the party, but I had a very similar thing happen on a plane I was on. They landed us immediately, hydraulics issue, and I’m already nervous in the air (not afraid of flying per se, but deathly afraid of heights).
That said, I was scared as hell.
As I was drinking myself into a coma on the ground in preparation for having to board another flight to finish getting home, I happened to be drinking next to a pilot. He told me passenger planes have like 3 backup systems for hydraulics, it’s not like I was in any real danger.
That said, until you’ve had a pilot say ‘we have to land there’s a problem’ I wouldn’t doubt the person that tells you their life flashed before their eyes. It’s not like you’ve got wings to compensate, and when people tell you about all the various safety features the easy counter from your mischievous mind is ‘if we’re so technologically secure then why in the hell are we crash landing’? I don’t doubt Noah Shannon was scared witless. I’ll give him some lattitude because my recollection was probably addled before I tried to drink it away.
El Caganer
@satby: …along with fava beans and a nice Chianti….
MattR
BTW – Not sure if anyone has realized that this Shannon wrote the piece n May 2013 about a flight that took place in June 2011. Given the research done on human memory, there is no reason to believe that any of the details are accurate, even if Shannon is completely positive that they are correct.
RSA
@Paul in KY: Hey, cool. It’s interesting to bump into people from earlier days. Nowadays for me it’s mostly on Facebook. Oh, well.
Comrade Dread
We live in a post-Enlightenment world, ladies and gentlemen.
Which, given the political reporting in this country, I thought we had all realized that truth and facts no longer matter at all.
What counts is what someone believes the facts to be.
Poopyman
@satby: Am I the only one who remembers “Placenta Helper” from the early days of SNL? It seems to have disappeared with nary a trace, which is right weird in these internet days.
Violet
@Comrade Dread: Same as it ever was. History is written by the victor. Doesn’t mean it’s true.
Paul in KY
@RSA: This is a pretty good site. A few other old Salon commenters are here.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@negative 1: If it helps, if you’re really in danger the pilot’s not going to be saying anything, he’s going to be too busy trying to save your asses.
My dad’s a retired airline pilot – not really retired, he still trains, teaches, and does check rides – but here’s the deal. I grew up around pilots. I got to spend a lot of simulator time with them. I wish more of the public, particularly that part of the public that’s terrified of flying, could get to do the same. While it is somewhat disconcerting to realize the number of things that can go wrong with a plane – most of them very minor – that is more than outweighed by the fact that pilots are trained to deal with every single one of them, repeatedly and thoroughly, to an extent that the public simply wouldn’t believe. Nobody else gets trained for their jobs like airline pilots, and it’s a process most people couldn’t and wouldn’t tolerate.
Controls wired backwards? They went through that in the sim. Hydraulic leak? That one’s a big deal but so long as you get the gear down you’ll be fine. Generator goes out? Hell, the only reason that’s an emergency is because the FAA says it is, the plane has a few of them. Wing gets completely torn off? Well, we have at least one known case of a fighter pilot landing his plane under exactly those conditions, so it can be done. And the pilots have been through them all in the sim. Multiple times.
scav
@Violet: Not exactly — there is something going on here about indifference to truth. BS v. lying. The NYT is increasingly BS-friendly — anything for the clicks and don’t argue with personal “experiences”. The victors rewriting stuff still placed a value on the concept of truth, they just wanted to control it.
MomSense
#notintendedtobeanonfictionarticle
Mnemosyne
@MattR:
I’m pretty sure my memories of learning about 9/11 are correct, because they’re so mundane: I slept in late because my class didn’t start until 1:00 pm, turned on the radio, and heard them talking about it. I was like, “WTF is going on?” so I turned on the TV.
? Martin
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Yeah, but was he trained to have a NYT Magazine reporter on board? Because it sounds like as soon as that happens, everything on the plane really goes to shit.
taylormattd
What does this story have to do with Snowden?
piratedan
@scav: devolving into “all the print that’s fit to be news”
Cassidy
OT: what’s the term used these days for when people are unsure if they’ll have food? It’s use d alot when taking about kids going to school hungry and the only food they’l get is the school food.
Waldo
Update: Paul Ryan now informs us that he, too, was aboard that troubled flight, but he takes issue with Shannon’s account, noting that there’s no mention of the congressman grabbing the controls, pulling the jet out of a screaming nosedive and nailing a perfect emergency landing (upside down and at the correct gate!) before heading out to run a sub-3-hour marathon — with a full set of luggage in tow.
Seems no less plausible to me.
? Martin
@Cassidy: Food security/insecurity?
Cassidy
@? Martin: That’s it. Debating with an anarchist friend.
schrodinger's cat
A million flying pieces? You know what else sounds like fiction in the Times, the wedding announcements, most descriptions of the groom and bride sound too good to be true.
Fort Geek
Starring
–Nathan “The Hammer” Fillian as “Ruggedly Handsome Captain”
–Meghan McArdle as “The Clueless Passenger”
Mart
I was on a discount airliner (around 1995?) that had hydraulic landing gear failure. They opened a floor panel and manually wound the gear down. Got off the plane at John Wayne the old fashioned ramp to tarmac way, and the plane was pissing a ton of hydraulic fluid. Don’t recall anybody getting too worked up about it, figured got what we paid for. But in retrospect, it was probably most likely al queda and I should have written a book.
? Martin
@Cassidy:
While I have you, what’s the word for a futile exercise?
Forum Transmitted Disease
@? Martin: I don’t think any training can prepare you adequately for that. Terror soaks the air, rendering the brain humid.
In seriousness, aviation tends to be something about which the media lies a lot, and as a result there’s not a commercial pilot out there that doesn’t hate the media. They do have to train the pilots to say “no comment”, because a pilot’s normal reflex and urge is to simply strangle the shit out of a reporter. The airlines, for some reason, think that this would be “bad press”.
piratedan
@Fort Geek:
guest starring:
Shelly Long as The Insufferable First Class Cabin Passenger
Shannon Doherty as Passive/Aggressive Flight Attendant
Tommy Lee Jones as the Laconic Air Marshall
Michael Cera as the earnestly awkward young college student
schrodinger's cat
The worse experience I had while flying was in 2000, I was coming back to Boston’s Logan airport, there was a snow storm and we experienced a lot of turbulence. The plane was diverted to Montreal, where we just sat on the tarmac, till the storm subsided. They gave us some really good ice-cream though while we were waiting.
different-church-lady
@Cassidy:
Why not just hit yourself on the head repeatedly with a ball-peen hammer? It would save a lot of time.
RSA
@Paul in KY:
No wonder I keep coming back. In the “old” days, BJ was an oddity–an intelligent conservative blog with a substantial liberal commentariat–that was enough.
RSR
Not Intended To Be A Factual Statement
different-church-lady
@schrodinger’s cat:
Funny you should mention that:
Yeah, I happened to stumble across that by following the Coster’s link to Gawker’s article about the Cronkite obit screw ups. Plate o’ Shrimp, all that all that.
Ab_Normal
… OT DEVO fan: thanks for the earworm mistermix :D
scav
Almodavar’s I’m So Excited! might prove to be the documentary of the flight.
Cassidy
@? Martin: @different-church-lady: He’s actually a really good guy and the closest thing to a Libertarian I’ve met with consistency. His outlook has the basic premise that gov’t is innately immoral and that there is no function of gov’t that can’t be performed by society and collective action. He’s very socially liberal.
Where he and I disagree is the role of gov’t in society. He doesn’t understand why I feel the need to be in public service and be a part of a gov’t that he feels is immoral. Again, it’s not just our gov’t, but any form of gov’t.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Cassidy: I think the therm you’re looking for is “food insecurity,” and it’s frighteningly widespread. It’s a national disgrace, but of course we mustn’t fund programs to help out, because those kids should just get jobs as school janitors, and besides, private charity will take plenty good care of them.
Headed over to my NAMI work to protect my own mental health. Have a good day everyone.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cassidy:
Um…but that’s what government IS.
AHH onna Droid
S@piratedan: Shannom Doherty perfectly cast! I would line up to see that.
I miss her from that dumb witch show. Esp all the tabloid drama. Hehe.
Cassidy
@Villago Delenda Est: True, but he’s against the notion that a minority of people are empowered over the majority to forcefully make them comply with their laws.
Cassidy
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): It is a disgrace and it makes me cry. Our society sucks so bad sometimes.
AHH onna Droid
@schrodinger’s cat: Imagining me: Can we just get off here, eh? Don’t have to work til tomorrow. Its okay, I’ll take the redeye coach to South Station. Departer ici, c’est bon, nestce pas? Au’voir.
scav
@Cassidy: Parents of families over children, often even when grown? Priests over congregations? CEO and boards over employees? Society and culture is fraught with authorities and rules.
Cassidy
@scav: I agree. That’s one of the things I talked about: the inevitibility of government. He was confused as to why I felt gov’t was encessary and I told him, it’s not necesarry, but inevitible. We’re social animals and we gravitate to scenarios that involve leaders in some capacity and that eventually leads to codified gov’t.
Just One More Canuck
@Cassidy: Do all libertarians have the mentality of an eleven-year-old? He just wants to do whatever the hell he wants to do whenever he wants to do it without there being any consequences
Cassidy
@Just One More Canuck: He’s not really a libertarian; definitely not a glibertarian. At heart, he’s an idealist. He thinks that communities of people would take care of one another and provide the good portions of what ogv’t does and that the negative aspects of gov’t (wars on black and brown people, aggression, codified murder, etc.) don’t outweigh the good that they can do.
I see his points, but my outlook is that people suck and that gov’t is a reflection of us. So, if we force gov’t to do the good stuff and not the bad stuff, it forces our soceity to do the same.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cassidy:
Your friend needs a clue-by-four upside the head. Repeatedly. Apparently words are not getting through. A hole for clues is needed.
Cassidy
@Villago Delenda Est: Nah. He’s a good guy. He just doesn’t like formal gov’t.
Shakezula
@different-church-lady: He’d(?) be aiming the hammer the wrong way.
Just One More Canuck
@Cassidy: So how does he propose that such a system be implemented. Perhaps there could be these events where people would choose who should make sure that everyone gets looked after. Maybe they could have these events every few years, so if they don’t like how things are run, they could choose other people to do it
mai naem
@Mandalay: I know he’s a pilot but even beyond the flying stuff, he lived in China very recently. I believe he’s lived in Japan too. He knows a lot about defense issues. He seems to be technophile. He was a speechwriter for Carter. And he’s a good writer to boot. I guess he must not want the grind of having to produce a couple of pieces every week.
tz
I read that piece and the fictional flourishes were sticking in my mind. It was a great sensational read however, I mean I have to hand it to the author for his writing style.
In this day and a age of news hybridized with fiction being presented as fact, the story is really no surprise.
Bubblegum Tate
@the Conster:
“artisinal Brooklyn fiction” is such a great burn.
Cassidy
@Just One More Canuck: lol
ruemara
@Cassidy: Does he understand that even if there was no centralized government, there’d need to be some form of formal government to organize within a community and then to organize between communities, meaning that eventually, there’d be some form of centralized government again?
dr. luba
@NotMax: No, placentophagy was never common among humans. Or so say Wikipedia and the obstetric literature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placentophagy
Mandalay
@mai naem:
I don’t think that’s the reason since he has already written 18 columns this month. But he certainly is a helluva writer in many unrelated areas.
He was skewering the tire swingers back in 1997!
ETA: I just looked at his Amazon page. Pretty incredible that someone can write books on so many different topics.
cmorenc
Gallagher’s tale of what happened on his particular flight may be complete horseshit, but problems with an electrical short in an entertainment system that was tied in with the plane’s circuitry in a manner making it extremely difficult to isolate without cutting off all power throughout the entire plane was exactly what caused the horrific crash of a Swiss Air flight 111 near Halivax, Nova Scotia in 1998.
RaflW
Late to the party as usual.
The story is bullshit, but the writer wasn’t passing it off as reporting.
As long as fabulists like Augusten Burrows and David Sedaris write stuff as equally bullshitty as this “ohmahgawd the plane gonna crash” nonsense, for fame and wealth, then back page of the NYT Sunday magazine shouldn’t really be seen as a spot for true reporting. IMO
Trollhattan
@Ab_Normal:
Was wondering who’d snag the song ref.
Captain C
@Cassidy:
Isn’t that essentially government (or at least a part of it)?
appleinaz
@Betty Cracker: That’s pretty common, yo. And it helps. So, bad example to an otherwise legit point.
Nunya
@Mart: Orange County/Santa Ana (motherfuck John Wayne, that goddamned scumbag) still uses the ramp to tarmac unload method to this day! I fly there fairly regularly, and it’s the only international airport I know of that doesn’t use jet bridges at its gates. SNA is the airport I’d fly into for visits when my grandparents were still alive, so the old-school method of deplaning onto an open stairway always brings a lot of childhood memories flooding back.
Kathleen
@Bill E Pilgrim: Amen.
NotMax
@dr. luba
For the record, I never said it was “common” (as in majority, commonplace or prevalent practice), just that it was less common (as in occurrence) now than in times prior.
Use of the phrase “not unheard of” was intended to make that distinction abundantly clear.
Rand Careaga
Did anyone catch this bit from an earlier Fallows piece on the story?
The circumlocution is so suave and yet the meaning–“lying sack of shit”–so clear.
Mnemosyne
@RaflW:
I generally don’t assume that writers whose books are found in the “Humor” section are writing factual articles. Were you also under the impression that Bertie Wooster wrote a series of autobiographies?
I mean, I’m with you on Burroughs, but what exactly led you to believe that Sedaris was presenting you the whole truth?
ETA: Newsflash — Erma Bombeck and Dave Barry also did not tell the exact truth about the events in their lives. Try not to be too devastated.