http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=11622628
It seems strange to me that a news story about a tragic accident is turned into an advertisement for CAP. Promoting CAP seemed to be as important as reporting the facts of the crash.
You make a good point, but as General McChrystal recently discovered, the media is pretty much free to report on whatever aspect of the story they like.
It was also a slow news day, and that was the #2 story aired on tonight's local news. It's obvious they didn't take the time/expense to travel down south the 4 hours by car or the $1000+ round-trip in their helicopter it would've taken to interview the local sheriff or get video footage; meanwhile, UTWG's hangar and Incident Command Post are only a few miles from all three local stations' studios.
I'm sure the Piute County Sheriff will be pissed at the meager mention his department received--but again, not exactly CAP's fault.
By the way, the pilot shown pulling out the aircraft and cranking it up is CAPTalk'er SilverEagle2.
Nitpicking:
1. No mention of USAFAUX status - made CAP look like a flying club of good Samaritans like REACT, not the group tasked by USAF for SAR.
2. "Civil Air Patrol is one of those organizations where we are all volunteers," said Capt. George Tudder. "We're pilots who are out there looking after pilots." - What happened to DR, DDR, Cadet Program, AE, etc?
3. Where was the PIO? I somehow don't get the feeling that this was an authorized interview.
To points 1 & 2:
Just because there was no mention of our auxiliary status or CAP's other missions in the aired report doesn't mean they weren't mentioned in the interview. Again, the media gets to choose what they include in their report, not us.
To point 3: The gentleman interviewed was the IC, which pretty much makes it an authorized interview.
You guys are a tough crowd; we get some positive press and all you can do is complain about it?
Don't get me wrong, I think CAP did good, and we can use the good press, but it just struck me a bit funny.