Taking risks
Go Deeper.
Create an account or log in to save stories.
Like this?
Thanks for liking this story! We have added it to a list of your favorite stories.
If you didn't read the full Pioneer Press piece about the danger politicians face when flying small planes, you'd think it was about, well, the danger of small planes. Actually it was about the dangers of political personalities.
"Campaigning in small planes is extremely dangerous," said former Sen. Lauch Faircloth, R-N.C., who survived a crash. "Small planes are dangerous themselves. But the campaigning is extremely dangerous for the very simple reason that they push and take chances they never should take. It's push, push, push. We think we're so important and this admiring throng is waiting for us, we fly through thunderstorms and fog and whatever, thinking we can get there."
That's a good quote. Too bad the writer didn't spend the rest of the article examining what goes on inside a politician's head.
Turn Up Your Support
MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all.
Planes rarely crash because of the planes; that is, a technical glitch is seldom enough to bring a plane down. Usually, when a technical glitch is involved, it sets off a chain of events when a pilot forgets a simple rule for staying alive: fly the damned plane.
But most of the time, planes crash because someone decided to take off in the first place. That's why the piece should've been headlined, "politicians are dangerous."
The piece that was printed, however, is what happens when reporters and columnists "try this at home."
Yet they're also 40 times more likely to be in accidents than commercial jetliners, according to National Transportation Safety Board statistics.
It then lists all of the small planes that killed politicians. What say we look a little closer at the real problem.
Oct. 25, 2002
