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NPR listeners could've benefitted from a little more aviation expertise and a tad less hyperbole in 

its story on All Things Considered this evening

, stemming from yesterday's story about a plane crash in Colorado in which the National Transportation Safety Board 

 when he lost control of his airplane in miserable weather conditions.

NPR's guest on the story was writer David Yanofsky, who was looking through Instagram pictures a few months ago and 

found too many selfies taken in the cockpit of airliners

. His article in Quartz sparked a fierce -- occasionally, 

 -- backlash from many commercial pilots.

There's much more context to the story than merely suggesting pilots in general are ignoring an FAA ban. To start, 

 had nothing to do with commercial pilots or the ban.

"Up until yesterday, there was no NTSB report has ever cited photographs as the reason for a crash," Yanofsky said.

That's incorrect. The NTSB didn't rule that the cause of the Colorado crash was a pilot taking selfies. It ruled that the cause was a wing stall in the clouds with the pilot likely becoming disoriented. That happens all the time. The NTSB noted the pilot wasn't "current" in his instrument rating. According to the Aviation Safety Foundation, the average life expectancy for a VFR pilot who strays into the clouds is about 3 minutes.

 that the reason the pilot became disoriented was because he was

 taking selfies, as he had on a flight somewhat earlier. Maybe. But NTSB investigations are usually more fact-based than this.

Comparing the actions of the pilot in the Colorado crash to professional airline pilots is beyond absurd, however.

"The real concern with any industry is a culture of rule breaking and you don't want to have any profession looking at the laws that govern them and say, 'Oh, this set of rules doesn't apply to me,'" Yanofsky said.

It's important to remember when and why the FAA clamped a ban on the use of personal electronic devices in the cockpit. It was a response to several incidents, including Northwest Flight 188, the pilots of which were so distracted, apparently because they were on their laptops, that 

they forgot to land in Minneapolis St. Paul in October 2009.

 That suggests a greater concern than simply snapping a picture.

In its final rule, issued last February, the FAA specifically noted that pilots riding in a "jump seat" are excluded from the ban. That's significant because several of the photographs Yanofsky provided in

, were taken by pilots in a jump seat. There was nothing illegal about them.

Other images posted in the Quartz article included those from corporate pilots, not scheduled airlines and, thus, aren't covered by the rule.

Between that and the jump seat, two of these three pictures that accompanied the Quartz article appear to be legal, then.

Minnesota-based airline pilot Sam Weigel reminded me in the original post I made on the subject last December, that it is entirely legal to snap a photograph with a camera, and download the image from an SD card later.

It's reasonable to suspect, however, that 

 pilots are taking an occasional selfie. Whether that's significant of a rampant culture of law-breaking is open to debate.

Yanofsky pointed out the FAA has no intention of issuing any special advisory after the Colorado story and there's probably a good reason for that: It doesn't see the threat that Yanofsky sees, nor believe there's a culture problem at the front of the plane.

For the record, there's no mention of "selfies" or "photographs" in the language of the FAA rule, though they would be covered because a cellphone can take a picture. The FAA doesn't want pilots to be like the two on Flight 188 and have their heads buried in a website when they should be flying the plane. The rule had to outlaw a device, because it was impractical to pick and choose which of all the things a device can do constitutes a legitimate threat to safety.

NewsCut

Bob Collins

Author

NPR listeners could've  benefitted from a little more  aviation expertise and a tad less hyperbole in its story on All Things Considered on Thursday evening, stemming from yesterday's story about a plane crash in Colorado in which the National Transportation Safety Board  suggested the pilot was taking selfies when he lost control of his airplane in miserable weather conditions.

There’s less to selfies in the cockpit than meets the eye

Go Deeper.

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