The article begins:
As he prepared for a routine landing at a tiny island airport, a warning that there were a couple of tornadoes on the way was possibly the last thing he expected.
But moments later, the pilot of the domestic passenger service to Stornoway was forced to take evasive action as two Tornado GR4 warplanes screamed past.
Then, as the confused airman came around for another landing attempt, he spotted a pair of Black Hawk helicopters that air traffic control had not even seen.
There's even a 'How it happened' illustration, showing stage-by-stage what each aircraft did - including those 'Black Hawk helicopters':
But it seems the Mail is a little confused.
The report actually refers to 'two black Hawk ac' (page 16) which is not the same as 'Blackhawk helicopters'. It refers to this RAF Hawk training aircraft ('black Hawk', as in a Hawk that has been painted black).
Moreover, in sourcing a photo of the helicopters from the Alamy agency, the Mail has used a picture of two Blackhawks from the 'Japan Ground Self Defence Force'.
The BBC's report on the incident correctly refers to the Hawks as 'jets'.
(Hat-tip to James for pointing me to this blogpost on this story.)
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I like the caption that states air traffic control had no idea the 'choppers' were there. I'm sticking my neck out a bit here but I'm guessing that this was because they weren't.
ReplyDeleteYet another case of the Mail giving a detailed report of something that didn't actually happen.