A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter faced widespread criticism Sunday after deleting tweets that many readers said downplayed a nighttime emergency water landing involving U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Republican nominee for Wisconsin governor.
Tiffany, 68, and pilot Leonard Boltz, 73, were returning Saturday night from a Lincoln Day Dinner in Onalaska when their Beechcraft K35 Bonanza lost power on approach to Wausau Downtown Airport. Boltz ditched the aircraft in Lake Wausau around 8:50 p.m. The two men climbed onto the plane, called 911 from the water, then swam roughly 100 to 150 feet to a shallower spot as the aircraft sank. Rescuers reached them by airboat about 16 minutes after the first 911 call.
Tiffany needed stitches for a gash above his right eye after hitting the dashboard; both men were treated for minor injuries and released. Tiffany later described the impact as like a high-speed car crash and credited the pilot with raising the landing gear before hitting the water.
Hope Karnopp, a politics and breaking-news reporter for the Journal Sentinel, posted remarks about Lake Wausau’s depth that she later deleted. She noted that the lake is “only” 30 feet deep and adding that 30 feet “doesn’t seem like much to me,” in posts some described as an attempt “to explain the gravity of the situation.” Lake Wausau, a Wisconsin River flowage, has a maximum depth of 30 feet and an average depth of about 7 feet.
The posts drew sharp pushback. Critics argued that even relatively shallow water is dangerous when a plane hits it at speed at night, that drowning can occur in far less depth, and that the wording treated a life-threatening emergency as minor. Conservative commentators and social-media users accused Karnopp of minimizing the ordeal of a Republican candidate. Screenshots were widely shared after the originals were taken down.
Karnopp later posted that the tweets “were misunderstood.” She said she was trying to note that limited depth could have meant the plane hit rocks, making the situation more dangerous, and that she “did not mean to imply the depth made the landing less serious. It was the opposite.” In a follow-up she wrote that reporters gather context in breaking news, including facts readers might ask about the lake. Many replies rejected the explanation, pointing to the deleted phrasing that 30 feet did not seem like much.
Tiffany’s Democratic opponent, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, issued a statement expressing relief that no one was more seriously hurt and praising the pilot. Federal investigators from the FAA and NTSB are examining the loss of power. Karnopp also filed a straightforward news account of the landing for the Journal Sentinel. As of Sunday afternoon the paper had not issued a public statement specifically addressing the deleted tweets.
