A sharp-eyed Twitter user noticed that during a breaking news segmentย about the crash of the Russianย Metrojet Flight 9268 in Egypt this week, CNN briefly displayed an Adafruit Industries component while discussing the possibility that an ISIS bomb might have brought down the aircraft.
Adafruit is an open-source hardware companyย that sellsย Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and Beaglebone boards and components. The component that CNN showed appears to be Adafruit’sย BMP180 Barometricย pressure, temperature, and altitude sensor. The photo that CNN displayed, in fact, appears to be pulled from the component’s product page.
Itย wasn’tย immediately clear whether CNN meant to imply that an Adafruit sensor had been found at the site of the crash or whether they put the image up to illustrate the generic possibility that a barometric pressure sensor could have been used to trigger an explosive.
In response to questions fromย Make:,ย CNN spokespersonย Neel Khairzada clarifiedย that it was the latter.
“This graphic was part of a conversation about barametric [sic] pressure triggers,” Khairzada said. “It was not identified as something used but a larger conversation about these triggers.”
Some electronics enthusiasts were unforgiving.
“Adafruit should sue [CNN]ย for their stupidity,” wrote one user on the electronics subreddit.
Regarding the crash, Make:ย sendsย condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims.
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