Fortunately, the reason the causes could be determined was the existence of sophisticated data link recording capabilities used for spacecraft. In the past few months we lost the data from flight recorders from two transport aircraft accidents-in Turkey and in China. Finding out what happened and why will be most difficult, if not impossible. More importantly, accident prevention measures will not be developed without those data. There is more we can say about the benefits of international communication and cooperation, but I'd like to shift the focus for a moment to the media and journalism.
Modern news is driven by the portability of satellite technology.
From the beginning, aviation accidents were big news. Even so, the evolution of journalism over the past fifty years is nowhere more evident than when a large commercial plane crashes. I have a few clips I think will illustrate my point nicely. I want to thank the folks at the Television News Archive at Vanderbilt University and EFX Video of Arlington, Virginia for the clips you are about to see. We will start with two older shots from the fifties and the sixties.