The Daily Record has oddly claimed an ‘anti-submarine plane taking off’ caused a ‘sonic boom felt across UK’, the only trouble? The aircraft is a converted airliner unable to travel at the speed of sound.
The masterclass in reporting starts off by stating:
“An anti-submarine aircraft which took off from Inverness ‘has caused a sonic boom to have been felt across the UK’. The RAF Boeing Poseidon MRA1 (P-8A) left the Scottish Highlands this morning and according to the British Geological Survey was behind a number of reports of a sonic boom.”
This article is a fact checking article, if you believe we’ve made an error you can submit a correction in line with our correction policy.
Where to even start? It took off from Lossiemouth first of all and secondly, the British Geological Survey have made no such claim.
Look closely at the statement from the BGS:
“Data from BGS seismic networks were examined and signals consistent with a possible sonic origin were recorded at that time. British Aerospace confirmed they did have aircraft airborne at the time and two RAF aircraft but cannot confirm at this time if any had gone supersonic.”
By the way, in case you’re wondering, it was a Typhoon fighter jet that caused the boom whilst operating over the coast.
I've sent an email to the @Daily_Record linking them up with the Comms and Engagement team at @RAFLossiemouth.
Hopefully they reach out and make the corrections to the article / start afresh.
Sadly this sort of misinformation is what generates mistrust in traditional media.
— Dan Chorley (@DanChorley) February 15, 2022
The rest of the article is just filler, desperately trying to tie the aircraft ongoing tensions with Russia. Am I being too harsh? Maybe but this is a really poor effort from the outlet, especially after one of their ‘trainee reporters’ yesterday misrepresented a tweet of mine about an ongoing incident, citing my words to “multiple witnesses told the Daily Record” when in fact she had just read my tweet. Dishonesty or poor practice, I don’t think there’s much of a distinction.
It seems like the daily record wants to be a daily mail lite.
Not surprised! Deary me. Shame them to the rooftops.
It was so powerful it knocked the Scottish health sec clean off his feet
The comments on the DR story are very good!. worth scrolling to that part.
This article is interesting though – I guess the BGS have some very very good equipment and way to process the data. Picking up an atmospheric event on seismic equipment cannot be trivial – OK, they can rattle windows, but the amount they rattle tectonic plates must be quite a small amount! The movement would be tiny and the freqnecy would be way above the normal 1Hz order of magnitude range of normal seismology, I wonder what instruments picked this up, and what their normal purpose is.
The MoD have a small bunker in a quiet area near Eskdalemuir. It is connected to AWE for the monitoring network to detect nuclear tests, but I believe also has other roles regards seismic stuff.
I’ve always assumed it is in an old ROC post.
This link shows the main site used by Eskdalemuir Observatory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskdalemuir_Observatory
Boh this newspaper outlet is an idiot
Looks like the article has been taken down now.
Wow. Sonic boom on take off. Even Concorde would struggle with that one with a 20 mile runway lol.
The journalist and editor who let it pass should get a special prize for this nonsense. I wonder what other total garbage they publish.
Truly stunning levels of ignorance by the reporting and editorial staff at the Daily Record.
You aren’t being too harsh. To be a competent journalist requires at least the rudimentary understanding of reality required to tell when an assertion simply cannot be true. You only have to glance at a P-8 to be able to tell that it’s a subsonic plane.
Daily Record happily prints SNP propaganda so they are used to printing fantasy and fiction 🙂
I think it shows that our beloved free press dont always if ever report the truth as it spoils their circulation. “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”
Even with the truth given to some, they still refuse to acknowledge it, as we all know from the conflict in Ukraine.
Disgraceful malpractice. What you’d expect of Russian bot farms or primary school kids, not a British newspaper. If you’re a reporter, report the facts, not what you’d like them to be.
Oh you are being too serious its not really a newspaper, its a pretend newspaper founded in a comic LOrd Snooty and all that
Ssssshhhhh!!!!! Dont tell the Russians or the Chinese.
What do you expect from an illiterate pro SNP newspaper,
Perhaps they beleive that their readers are more stupid than they are, however its what you want to beleive that perhaps carrys the day rather an opposing view