Video: "Plane crashed a few blocks from my house. I filmed it."
Clarence Center Plane Crash, by "SpikeTheCowboy711." Uploaded just as news of the Continental Airlines crash began breaking on cable networks. Update: now "video has been removed due to a terms ot use violation," but that doesn't make any sense to me. If you know more, add it to the comments.
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Sad and tragic news indeed. Still, I am amazed at how close the internet functions to the speed of real life.
Quick question. Since this guy uploaded to youtube, and my local news service may/or not have used said footage. Where does that stand on copyright?
Good "speed of the Internet" discussion going on here.
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/4315267/
Are there links available to actual news coverage instead of just YouTube & Flickr blurbs, or is it still too early?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4846949a12.html
LATEST: All 48 people aboard a plane that crashed into a house near Buffalo, New York, were killed, MSNBC reported, citing the Federal Aviation Administration.
The 44 passengers and four crew aboard the plane, a Continental Connection flight operated by Colgan Air which was on a flight from Newark, New Jersey, to Buffalo, were killed, FAA said.
The plane, a Continental Connection flight 3407 operated by Colgan Air, was on a flight from Newark, New Jersey, to Buffalo, when it crashed in the Buffalo suburb of Clarence Center amid rain and sleet, officials said.
There were "multiple fatalities," a local official said in a new briefing carried by local television.
Buffalo News said on its website that the 48 people on the plane and one person on the ground "reportedly died" in the crash. It gave no source for the report
The Federal Aviation Administration said there were 44 passengers and four crew on the plane and it crashed 10km short of the airport.
what ethical considerations emerge with accelerated and frequently unattributed diffusion? South Korea just tossed a doom saying financial blogger into jail for "scaring people". New York City banned (or ried to ban) geiger counters to avoid "irresponsible panic reporting". What's the journalistic ethics warranted of a "citizen-journalist"?
Title infers the crash was filmed, which it was not. However, some really crappy footage of crash site in the distance was viewed. What a non-story this turns out to be. ***YAWN***
Was that debris in the tree, or was some enterprising diner trapping squirrels for a low-cost meal?
Audio capture of the air traffic control chatter available here: http://www.liveatc.net/recordings.php
M
It's a shame there wasn't a river around to crash land in.
Anonymous @ #2, I believe that'd typically fall under 'fair use' provisions.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7887555.stm
So now Boing Boing is showing snuff movies?
Isn't boingboing supposed to the directory of wonderful things? What's so wonderful about posting videos of plane crashes? And I'm not even going into the ethics/motivation of doing this either. After all, there is nothing to be learned/understood by watching or posting this video. Just some shaky footage.
TEKNA2007 @#7 That was a suet feeder for birds hanging in the tree.
Takuan, interesting and frightening question. The ethics should be the same as in the journalist's charter as it has always been. Objective reporting. Creating panic isn't in there. But we don't want to squash.
Interesting bug at the end of the bbc article fpf linked to, all in bold (this is probably a standard thing now, I haven't been to the bbc site in a while as I get my anglophile news from either the radio or Cory):
So, Tak, the BBC feels that the most citizens need to know is "stay safe and legal" before becoming de facto correspondents.
I think there's many good arguments for mandating "media studies" in middle or high school, and part of that curriculum should include a crash course in journalistic ethics. What was once specialized thinking needs to become public, because what was once a specialized field has become ubiquitous.
Wow. A blob of bright orange in an urban setting. Glad this guy was able to hang around and impede emergency services to grab that youtube gold.
BTW, where I live we've had nothing but pictures of stuff burning on the telly for the last week. Just go along to any Australian news service and there's plenty of way better stuff than this to see.
Enjoy!
It's going to be hard to teach an ethics course in this sort of journalism, when we don't know what the ethics are, currently. As the BBC says, staying safe and legal is a basic requirement, but I wonder what is going to be the future if the first thing around an accident or catastrophe is a bunch of people on their mobile phones capturing the moment, instead of people wanting to give first aid, or help, or call the emergency services?
In the UK, more and more draconian controls are being imposed against still photography, although I have seen no evidence that these things are used/of use to a terrorist... it seems to contrast spectacularly with the lack of control over citizen reporting from newsworthy sites. Not that I want control, you understand.
I don't want control, or laws, or for it to be impossible to send footage from a demonstration without risking jail...on the other hand, if I am in a disaster, I'm not too keen on being the focus of a lot of twitterers and youtubers...maybe that's unavoidable, not sure.
I think it needs thought and discussion, though. We're in new territory here. There's a reason why it took news organisations longer to publish information about the Hudson ditching than the twitterers, and that isn't just that they didn't happen to be on the ferry next to the downed plane... there are checks and balances between the reporter and the public which just aren't there with the mobile phone blogger. Again, I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing, but not having them there is new, and needs new thought.
Fee
Not that it could necessarily have saved lives here, but remember gel-fuel, which the aviation industry (?) developed to diminish the explosive capacity? Whatever happened to it?
I'm assuming it's fairly morbid anyway, but the video has been taken down off You Tube...
So the news factor of this article has gone from:
Here is a video of a plane crash that happened.
TO:
Somone filmed a plane crashing but you cant see it...
@OHMZ
It showed some shaky footage of a large fire in an urban night setting. You didn't miss much.
Interesting that its been pulled, though.
sorry for the slight off-topic post but..
i watched this a few hours ago, and went to show my gf and its 'been removed for terms of use violation'
What did this violate exactly??
And yet youtube leaves all those f&$king craptacular slide-show picture 'videos' that haunt search results.
@walter:
I remember watching some show about a new airline fuel designed not to explode. They went and filled an airplane with it, laoded it with dummies, and crashed it on landing.
Fireball!
I wish I knew where the video came from... either Beyond 2000, or some other thing on the discovery channel.
People have been chasing ambulances and taking pictures of crashes for as long as there have been cameras. There were usually crowds of people present, with many of them taking pictures. While the ubiquitous camera and video equipment in everyone's pocket or purse is new, the only real difference is self publishing and speed of distribution.
I think there are so many people doing this that a lot of people are going to say meh. Also, There will probably be a lot of people who decide not to get involved. Once those images are captured you become a material witness. YOU could become news. On smaller events where you may be the only one taking pictures, this could make people think twice about pulling out that phone or uploading.
Censorship! I am outraged!
Seriously, did they censor it because it was an accident? "YouTube is not a shock site. Don't post gross-out videos of accidents, dead bodies or similar things intended to shock or disgust."
Real citizen journalism is too shocking for You-Tube. Thanks for protecting us, Nanny Google!
@Foetusnail
During the bushfires in Victoria, they broadcast video shot by a guy fleeing the fire. On foot.
So this guy is on his property, hanging out as long as he can, and then the fire (travelling at up to 100 km/h) hits the farm.
He says, "fuck, everything I own is going to burn, and I'm going to die if I don't move as fast as I can. Better GET OUT THE HANDYCAM AND SHOOT THE SCENERY AS I RUN FOR MY LIFE".
Then again, he probably got some cash for it.
Is this still Steven Johnson's fault?
That sucks it got taken off? That is weird I was just watching lost when I seen this post.
Just as a note for folks who wonder about the Red Cross and what they do, the chapter I manage in New Jersey has part of Newark Airport in its footprint. We have volunteer mental health counselors on site at the airport to assist family members and loved ones, and staff on hand to provide any other assistance needed.
http://www.tricountyredcross.org/2009/02/plane-crash-near-buffalo-ny.html
Read the news on the BBC before coming here - vid's gone, eh? Well, for a while it has real cash (and perhaps evidentiary ) value.
It will probably pop up on a news channel. Such things usually do (if not tasteless and dis-respectful to the dead or their survivors).
Does anyone know WHY this was removed? It doesn't say anything about a DMCA violation or anything...
I am worried this is some kind of censorship- this is the kinda stuff YouTube was made for- posting your life in videos. If this was a local guy's view, it should stay on. Where would we be if all videos shot by amateurs were silenced? Remember, that's how the BART shooting outrage started- with videos!
And to anyone saying "it was a shock/gore video, so it got removed"- have you ever searched YouTube for gore videos? There's tons of them, and they don't seem to get removed. So I wonder why something this fresh and ACTUAL news got taken down. Ideas?
The video may have been purchased, the new owners may have had it pulled down. This is another reason for not uploading.
Now we must ask ourselves a few questions to upload or not to upload:
1. Do I want to get involved? Do I want to be in the news?
2. How exclusive is my material?
3. Do I want to upload and possibly decrease the value of my work?
4. If I upload all or part of my stuff, will this help me find a buyer or even start a bidding war?
I think I see a new business opportunity, News Photography and Video Broker. Some out of work news professional, with connections, sets up a site to find buyers for amateur photographs and video. Working on commission, the broker finds buyers and negotiates price, while shielding the photographer or videographer from the media.
"The video may have been purchased, the new owners may have had it pulled down."
So you see, you can censor video that comes from amateurs and citizens - you just need to buy it. I'm not saying that's what has happened here, but if this was material that someone didn't want you to see, than they have succeeded.
Note to police: you could hand out wads of cash on the spot to citizen journalists who catch you doing bad things on camera and get to keep the evidence. The citizen walks away with something too. It's win-win!
So, we have another question.
5. Do I need to upload this immediately, to inform the public or help prevent the suppression of information?
This is the same question we have always asked ourselves when witnessing an event whether it is a crash, demonstration, or a crime. Does my duty as a member of my community compel me to expose myself to public scrutiny?
So it says it was taken down for 'terms of use violation'. Does that mean that it was yanked since no news service can make money off of it?
Sorry guys, that was a copyrighted plane crash.
Citizen journalism. Pure and unbridled. I've always been a fan of telling a story. This is a story, just like any other. I applaud the efforts of the person who filmed this.
need a video only wikileaks-type facility that never remains resident anywhere so it can't be quashed. That and lots of cheap, USB video cameras with simple video upload. Streaming from phones will probably stop working soon as the cops get jamming equipment (or worse, mandated, built-in kill codes on all phones) so cheap,ubiquitous cameras that store an hour of decent quality video.
CNN. The word on the wires (as opposed to the series of tubes) is that CNN bought it.
Additionally:
Found some footage here, but I don't think it's the same one.
Is this the same footage on another YouTube page?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDyibzB_f5E
The reasons for take down could be myriad - the user themselves may have chosen to do so. It's just an interesting facet of this immediate age of user sourced information we're wading through.
My thoughts go out to the victims and their families.
Cheers.
Just a thought, but perhaps rather than filming something terrible happening, you should get involved and try to help people?
Mind you, filming something like police brutality is a means of holding people to account. But in the case of a fire or accident or disaster I'd be far more interested in what I can do to help than is how I can document the event.
Of course, sadly, there was nothing to be done for the people in this case I suppose.
User put up video again; don't know if it's the same one but seems to look like it.
Not wonderful anyway.
Is it just me, or do there seem to be more plane crashes NOW than there were ten years ago?
It's just you. The USAir water landing ended the longest streak of no accidents in commercial aviation history.
@#40, I don't know how to help effectively, and by the time I could get there, I would be in the way of emergency services personnel who actually know what to do. My major alternative is staring, as opposed to documenting the thing.
@43: there also seems to be more people and more planes than yen years ago!
#43: There might be slightly more accidents now than there were 10 years ago. But there are not as many fatalities. And since there aren't fatalities, the media might be making a bigger deal about non-fatal incidents, e.g. skidding off the runway or landing with the nose gear rotated 90 degrees. These things would not be news if commercial flying weren't as ridiculously safe as it is.
And there are more commercial flights (I'm pretty sure we're back to pre-9/11 numbers of flights, just about), so overall, even if there are more accidents (and even if there were more fatalities), flying is safer than it was 10 or 20 years ago.
And as Steve Johnson noted (yes, #26, it's still his fault ;]), fatalities don't really happen in full-sized jets anymore (i.e. Boeing and Airbus planes), not in the US. My theory is that point-to-point service flown in Embraers or CRJs or turboprops is growing more quickly (relative to flying between hubs in 767s) and so with more flights in smaller airplanes come more accidents in smaller airplanes.
Here's a nice article about all the things that have gone into making flying safer:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/01/business/01safety.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
And for the more visually-oriented people:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2007/09/28/business/20070930_SAFETY_GRAPHIC.html
Recently at work I was shown a graph starting in the late 50s (i.e. around the time the 707 and DC-8 came out) and going until a couple years ago. The X axis was years. There were three lines on the graph: Millions of departures (it climbs from zero to almost 20, there's little dip in 2001), Hull loss accidents per year (very squiggly line, stays between 15 and 25 on most years, no overall trend going up or down), and then Hull losses divided by Millions of departures (looks like an exponential-decay (half-life) curve, but a little more squiggly). And as the link above shows, the same half-life trend can be seen when you zoom in to just the last 20 years. So flying really is safer.
As for citizen reporting... Eh, this comment is long enough. I'll just say I like the "Transparent Society" idea, and leave it at that.
#2: When you upload something to YouTube, you agree that it may be embedded anywhere (unless you check a box that disables this). I don't violate your copyright when I embed your YouTube video on my website, so why does a news show violate your copyright by airing it? I recognize it's not EXACTLY the same thing (the hit counter on YouTube does not come up, people can't click on it to learn more, etc) but it's pretty close. Unless the uploaded did check the "do not allow embedding" box, in which case showing the video anywhere but on its YouTube page is arguably copyright infringement (unless you show only a small part of it, or other Fair-Use kinda use).
And for all the people asking why the video was taken down: Even ignoring the idea that someone else could buy the rights to the video (or even the rumor that CNN did just that), #24 gives a pretty good answer (even if #30 points out that the rule might not always be enforced).
"Thou shalt not overload our servers"
It's in really small print in the TOS agreement.
that exact footage just made it onto channel4 news at 7:15GMT here in the UK, do you think it got taken down from youtube because the uploader sold it to a news crew?
if they mentioned it was a "Continental Airlines" aircraft, then it will have been taken down by Continental's lawyers for trademark abuse...
I was in downtown Minneapolis when the bridge fell a couple years ago. When I got word (via Twitter, no less), I was on the light rail passing near the bridge, outbound. I just happened to have a cued-up-and-ready-to-roll camcorder in hand, laptop, some wireless abilities, some time before my overnight bus to Chicago. I had to ask myself: should I go and shoot some footage and share?
My decision: no.
Why? For me, the key element at the moment was: as a citizen journalist: I had the choice not to, unlike a professional getting paid for the job, who would face loss of job/income/prestige/opportunity/reputation for not jumping on an opportunity like this. I didn't feel like anything I could add would add value, for the survivors, for documentation, for posterity/history. I wasn't trained/equipped for rescue and didn't have skills/tools in that regard, so my presence (even at a discreet distance) could only serve to compromise privacy / cause disruption.
I'm not saying that this is the only reasonable course of action, or what somebody else should do, or even what I would do in slightly different circumstances. But I found it helpful to take the time to reflect on the bigger picture, balancing the potential effects and benefits of my actions.
As it was, I proceeded to the airport and stopped in at a nearby conference where I met somebody from right in my own backyard who had an enormously beneficial impact on my life, just the right person at the right moment to make a big difference.
Benny Hillify it!
The catchall "terms of use violation" works it magic. It isn't big brother, it's just a copyright issue and a matter of public taste. Move along.
The original video was taken down because it had the incorrect flight number