The big news story of the last few days was the terror attack against Northwest Airlines flight 253 on Christmas Day. It is yet another story that reveals why the Canadian media is becoming irrelevant. There hasn’t been much of a Canadian angle to the story published by our news outlets beyond the regurgitation of statements by the Canadian government.
All of our major news outlets are republishing and broadcasting reports primarily from American wire services. There is very little original reporting on the Canadian aspects to this story. Yes, Canadian media outlets have interviewed the Canadian passenger on the flight, but they haven’t gone much further than this.
Transatlantic flights follow a great circle route that takes them though Canadian airspace en route to their destinations. The Amsterdam to Detroit flight path is no different. (NWA 253 Flight Route)
When the terrorist attempted to blow up Flight 253, he did so over Canadian airspace. This is an extremely important angle to the story. The Lockerbie bombing resulted in 270 deaths after a terrorist exploded a device in mid-air resulting in the break-up of the Pan-Am Boeing 747.
Eleven of those deaths were on the ground when the remains of the aircraft fell to the ground.
Here’s the question I’d like to see answered in the Canadian media; where was NWA 253 over Canadian airspace when the terrorist attempted to combust his explosive device and does the Canadian government have the capability to respond to a Lockerbie-like incident?
A plane falling apart over Midland would require a massive emergency response. With CFB Borden and pretty much the entire Land Forces Central Area command on Christmas Leave, where would the response come from and how long would it take to mount?
It is quite possible that not only were the passengers of Flight 253 lucky, but Canadians on the ground were lucky as well.
We’ll see if the Canadian media covers this angle in the Monday newspapers. I doubt it, the media’s angle on this story will be the line-ups at Pearson airport due to the new security regulations.
The media is dying because it is no longer thinking deeply about the news, it’s merely reporting what it’s told by government news releases and sources.
**UPDATE (28 Dec 09 2200GMT): **The Toronto Star ran a piece on this topic on Sunday. It did not appear in any of the Google searches I ran prior to posting. The graphic attached to the article shows the potential area of the debris field which does not cover a major urban area. The plane flew near Midland, but at no point was Midland below the flight path. I choose Midland as the example based upon the flight arc I linked to.