Uh oh. As the news about the closure of Heathrow airport circulates around the country, Mr S has been rather concerned to see instances of faulty reporting by the media. Both Sky News and, surprise surprise, the Guardian got rather confused in their coverage this morning – mixing up the Swedish airline SAS with British special forces unit, the Special Air Service. Awkward…
Sky News broadcasted that ‘the Special Air Service says all 12 of their round trips to and from Heathrow are cancelled’, while the Guardian reported at 7 a.m.: ‘The Special Air Service, or SAS, has said that it [is] also impacted by Heathrow’s closure.’ An hour later the newspaper’s online site updated its coverage, noting: ‘This post was amended at 7.38 a.m. GMT. An earlier version incorrectly said the initialism SAS referred to the “Special Air Service”.’ Oh dear. Wouldn’t expect anything less from the Grauniad, eh?
The slip-up comes as Heathrow airport shut down for the day after a fire at an electrical substation nearby – disrupting almost 1,500 flights and just under 300,000 passengers. Aviation experts have likened the impact of the disruption as being ‘similar to 9/11’ while the Times reports that counterterrorism police have been deployed to probe whether sabotage played a part in the overnight fire. The disruption is likely to continue ‘for the next few days’, according to a travel network CEO. The upside is this might give Sky and Guardian reporters time to get their heads around airport acronyms…
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