We all know what happened. We’ve gotten really good at Internet sleuthing, jumping to conclusions, and being forensic scientists.
Of course we can be completely wrong. However, the standard process of these investigations is to wait… gather ALL the evidence before releasing even a preliminary report.
The biggest example of this was the Challenger Explosion in the 80’s. Millions of people watched the Space Shuttle explode on live TV. As a middle schooler at the time, I certainly did. Even with the technology of the time, within hours, we saw the plume of flame emit from the “O” ring of the solid rocket booster.
However, months went by before as many pieces of the shuttle could be gathered and recreated in an airplane hangar. The public had already known 95% of the facts and had made their own determination before the Rogers Congressional Commission was released a year later.
During other tragedies such as 9/11, theories were speculative and mostly wrong. But as facts began to come out, it painted the grim picture of that fateful day.
I think that in the true age of social media both of those events would’ve been solved in a matter of hours.
That brings us to last week’s terrible tragedy in Washington D.C. where an Army helicopter collided with a flight from Wichita, Kan. – killing 67 in all. It was terrible and hard to watch. But it was also resolved fairly quickly by social media in a matter of hours.
While the full report won’t be out for months, a preliminary report is due out in 30 days. These are timelines much too long for TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter. Live streams went out almost immediately featuring helicopter pilots familiar with the route, and airline pilots who have flown in and out of Reagan National Airport.
Within a matter of hours, the social media investigation beat broadcast news and beat reporters. It began to focus on three areas of concern. The first was the conversation between the FAA tower and the helicopter. The second was the staffing of the helicopter, with a three-person crew, not four. And the third was the helicopter’s altitude when the crash occurred.
And sure enough, a few days later, those came out as official areas of investigation. For all the blame social media gets, there’s nothing like informed experts piecing together a puzzle.
And I’ll bet you dollars to donuts those will be the findings from the NTSB when it’s final report is released – whenever that will be. Sometimes jumping to conclusions is actually right.
This is one of the very few good things about social media lately. Now, all we need to do is fix all the other bull crap on social media.
(Get sleuthing and more from Kamler on X at @chriskamler)
