Ed Helicopter Crashes into Glasgow Pub

TV now. A Sikh in a turban, in tears, saying in a marked Glasgow accent that he's just been to the cathedral to light a candle for the people who were killed.

Programme not up on iPlayer yet because it's only starting now on English BBC. We saw it an hour ago.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03nbmpf/The_Crash_that_Shook_Scotland/

ETA: It's on live now on BBC1 online. Am I going mad? I don't remember the voice-over announcer having that plummy English accent. Have the English guys re-voiced it to remove a Scottish announcer?

Rolfe.
 
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I'm a wee bit uncomfortable with the way everyone is carrying on about the response of the people nearby, running towards the crash to help, not away from it. They're all saying this is a peculiar virtue of the Glasgow people.

Surely to goodness people in Liverpool or London or Paris or Berlin or New York or even Edinburgh would have done the same?

Rolfe.
 
LondonJohn said:
I've rebuilt and serviced manual and automatic automotive gearboxes (I hope never to have to rebuild another automatic!) and there's usually at least a little metal dust adhering to the magnet in the sump. Obviously a lot of metal dust - or metal chips - would signify varying degrees of damage to the gears, but in my experience even a small pile of fine metal dust is par for the course, especially in very new or very old boxes.

I'm wondering, therefore, whether the same might be true in helicopter gearboxes? Obviously the torques involved are much higher, so the safe operating envelope is probably much tighter. But would even a little metal dust on the magnet signify an impending serious problem? Or does the electrical circuit require a significant amount of metal dust - or even metal shards - to be present before the alarm is triggered?

(I'm just curious, that's all!)
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You would be surprised how little metal a large gearbox like that will make when made to these tolerences. But most "chip detect" annunciations are false alarms due to build up of metal dust as you describe.
 
I'm pretty confident that it's what people in a very, very many places would do and had been speculating about this whilst reading yesterday's papers. Presumably this is the media's idea of finishing on an upswing or something....bones of comfort, perhaps.
 
Rolfe said:
I'm a wee bit uncomfortable with the way everyone is carrying on about the response of the people nearby, running towards the crash to help, not away from it. They're all saying this is a peculiar virtue of the Glasgow people.

Surely to goodness people in Liverpool or London or Paris or Berlin or New York or even Edinburgh would have done the same?

Rolfe.
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I think it's an unfortunate byproduct of the way the media like to present these sorts of stories.

Typically, all "disaster" stories have to have some sort of "redemption" or "silver lining" angle, as far as the mass media are concerned. Their focus group work tells them that people like to think that something good about the human spirit has been awaken by a tragic event, and that "something good" - even if relatively small compared to the tragedy itself - might have come out of the whole horrible business.

A psychiatrist might add that a possible explanation for this is that consumers of news respond to these sorts of tragedies in two sequential ways: 1) Thank God it wasn't me or someone I love involved; 2) What would I have done if I had been there? What the media are doing, therefore, is providing a handy - and morally acceptable - answer to that second response. Many people like to think that they too would have "run back into the (metaphorical) flaming building to save the screaming baby". News of others doing likewise serves to act as reinforcement that "yes, that's the sort of thing I'd definitely do in the same situation as well".

Exactly the same sort of thing happened in relation to the 9/11 tragedy. And the same happens in almost every other similar event.

Incidentally, one other reason why these sorts of stories are hugely prominent is purely legalistic and commercial: you can't libel someone by falsely accrediting them with being a hero,and you can't alienate the local community by accrediting it with being populated exclusively with heroes. On the other hand, you most definitely can libel and alienate by accusing bystanders of reprehensible behaviour. Just ask the Sun newspaper about its infamous post-Hillsborough coverage..........
 
Rolfe said:
I'm a wee bit uncomfortable with the way everyone is carrying on about the response of the people nearby, running towards the crash to help, not away from it. They're all saying this is a peculiar virtue of the Glasgow people.

Surely to goodness people in Liverpool or London or Paris or Berlin or New York or even Edinburgh would have done the same?

Rolfe.
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I have no reason to believe otherwise. Not even in Edinburgh, I imagine, do people leave disaster victims unaided if it's possible to help or rescue then.
 
Sorry, I'm just twitching about the voice-over in the English broadcast. I swear they have obliterated the original Scottish announcer to put an incongruous plummy English voice linking the interviews.

Vote YES.

Rolfe.
 
I was quite pleased to see this, as it meant that people were putting the event above politics, as it deserves to be.
Rolfe said:
Yes. A couple of over-excitable nationalists over on Wings were criticising the BBC for giving him publicity, but they were promptly and firmly sat on. He was obviously very shocked when he gave that interview, and as you say it was very moving.
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Which made me less happy to see this.
Rolfe said:
Sorry, I'm just twitching about the voice-over in the English broadcast. I swear they have obliterated the original Scottish announcer to put an incongruous plummy English voice linking the interviews.

Vote YES.
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Time and place, notwithstanding my own last post.
 
Craig B said:
I have no reason to believe otherwise. Not even in Edinburgh, I imagine, do people leave disaster victims unaided if it's possible to help or rescue then.
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"You'll have had your medical treatment"
 
Yes, probably inappropriate. But it just seems so insulting. Unless I'm completely hallucinating the whole thing and BBC Scotland originally made the programme with a plummy English voice-over. Better Together, when even the voice of a professional broadcaster isn't good enough, because it's not English?

Of course, we'll probably discover that I'm imagining the whole thing, since the BBC Scotland broadcast is nothing but a memory now.

The reason for the English broadcast being later than the Scottish one wasn't so positive either. HIGNFY, full of unpleasant sneering "Jock" stereotypes, anti-independence propaganda and a straight "vote No" exhortation.

Rolfe.
 
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Architect said:
"You'll have had your medical treatment"
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Genuinely LOL.


Rolfe said:
Yes, probably inappropriate. But it just seems so insulting. Unless I'm completely hallucinating the whole thing and BBC Scotland originally made the programme with a plummy English voice-over. Better Together, when even the voice of a professional broadcaster isn't good enough, because it's not English?

Of course, we'll probably discover that I'm imagining the whole thing, since the BBC Scotland broadcast is nothing but a memory now.
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You could be right, but it's also possible that it was made without a voiceover, and each region put their own on after, or indeed that it was made with an English one but then that was felt inappropriate to broadcast on BBC Scotland for whatever reason.
 
Rat said:
Genuinely LOL.
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Kudos. To both of you.

Rat said:
You could be right, but it's also possible that it was made without a voiceover, and each region put their own on after, or indeed that it was made with an English one but then that was felt inappropriate to broadcast on BBC Scotland for whatever reason.
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It's a BBC Scotland production. They're not going to send it out with silent passages and a script.

This reminds me of the Co-op adverts. We get a bloke on TV with a normal Scottish accent pushing the brand. "Good with Food." You could just put umlauts on these vowels and be done with it. But then in the actual shop there's some sort of "Co-op radio" coming over the PA system, I don't know if it's a recording or what. It's a woman with the same script, but vastly different vowels. "Goooooood with foooooood."

It's just annoying, for some reason.

Rolfe.
 
Rolfe said:
This reminds me of the Co-op adverts. We get a bloke on TV with a normal Scottish accent pushing the brand. "Good with Food." You could just put umlauts on these vowels and be done with it. But then in the actual shop there's some sort of "Co-op radio" coming over the PA system, I don't know if it's a recording or what. It's a woman with the same script, but vastly different vowels. "Goooooood with foooooood."
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Which is odd, since the TV ads even here seem to use what sounds like John Hannah, with an accent that I can't stand for reasons I can't explain. Coop radio here I've only ever heard bad music on, with no voiceovers that I've noticed.
 
Architect said:
Aha, last victims named. The anticipated missing individuals are all there, alas:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-25195952
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That's sad, though as you say we already knew. Did you hear John McGarrigle's son in the half-hour broadcast saying the police had only phoned him half an hour ago? He was on a bus when the news of the crash came out, and someone told him just in passing that a helicopter had crashed into the Clutha. He said he immediately knew his Dad had been killed. He was outside the place the whole night.

Rolfe.
 
Rat said:
Which is odd, since the TV ads even here seem to use what sounds like John Hannah, with an accent that I can't stand for reasons I can't explain. Coop radio here I've only ever heard bad music on, with no voiceovers that I've noticed.
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What just happened with the BBC just seemed so wrong to me, because the accent of the original voice-over blended with the accents of the people being interviewed. She was in there and part of it. Although she was a professional broadcaster and obviously highly understandable - more so than some of the interviewees I suppose though none of them were talking broad Weegie really as I recall.

Then the BBC London version has someone else, whose voice grates as incongruous in between these normal, shocked and grieving Glasgow voices. I mean, why for goodness sake?

Rolfe.
 
I was supposed to go shopping on Saturday in Glasgow but I couldn't face going into town. Glasgow has a great night life especially in pubs. People are always friendly, we always chat away to everyone around us and always have a good time.
Glasgow taxis are offering free rides to the hospital for anyone visiting casualties of the accident.
 
Rolfe said:
Sorry, I'm just twitching about the voice-over in the English broadcast. I swear they have obliterated the original Scottish announcer to put an incongruous plummy English voice linking the interviews.

Vote YES.

Rolfe.
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As a knowledgeable and experienced materials engineer who has extensive experience with regard to helicopter transmissions and someone who's been involved with investigating the failure of such systems and components, I find your comment very disturbing.

There is no place for nationalism, sniping, political positioning, gerrymandering or any other kind of ***** with regard to this incident, irrespective of what you deem to be acceptable within your political bent and how it is reported on the BBC or any other organisation. If you have a complaint, then direct it to them - publish your written letter and let them respond.

You have turned an incident in which people have lost their lives into a political one to suit your own agenda and that shows you as the rule10 that you are. I'm angry on this one, angry because the likes of you simply can't leave it alone.

You seem to believe that news coverage of an item must wholly reflect your own view and prejudice, irrespective of the wider audience or the fact that we live in a multi-media age whereby the interested party can access information from multiple sources.

Thank everyone that you have absolutely no place amongst us engineers, some of whom, will actually figure out the problems and strive to find solutions.
 
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