27 March 2014

Plane crash (not) off Spain's Canaries

There are multiple articles, by the BBC and José Miguel Sardo at BuzzFeed, about the 'crash':
The BBC says: A tug boat ferrying a large object at sea sparked an alert off the Spanish Island of Gran Canaria after being mistaken for a crashed plane. Local media said a aircraft had plunged into the sea close to the island and rescue services were sent to the scene. But the Spanish authorities quickly revealed the alert was a false alarm. Pictures of a tug boat taken from the shore showed a large white structure that, at a distance, resembled an aircraft's fuselage.
BuzzFeed says: Within minutes the world’s news websites were leading on this developing story. It shot straight to the top of the BBC’s most read stories. Newsflashes were sent to all subscribed devices. And then, erm, about five minutes later the Spanish emergency services realized something was up.What happened? Well there was something out at sea. And the coastguard saw it. This is the view from the Canary Islands shoreline:


Until you find someone with a zoom lens and take a photo of it. And then you start to see it’s a plane-shaped boat:


The scoundrels. Still, it’s an easy mistake for the coast guard to make. Right?This is a translation of how the Canary Islands authorities sheepishly admitted their mistake on their official Twitter feed:

Rico says it's called releasing news without checking first...

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