Emmys: Humourous or Tasteless?

Conan O'Brien is on a flight heading towards the Emmys, for which he's hosting. When asked if he was nervous, he says, "What could go wrong." The plane proceeds to crash a la LOST (with Conan climbing into the overhead compartment). A totally hilarious scene, except for one thing. A plane crashed hours before in Kentucky.
Tim Gilbert, the general manager of the NBC affiliate in Lexington, Ky., told the Lexington Herald-Leader he was “stunned” by the opening.
“It was a live telecast - we were completely helpless,” said Gilbert, whose station covered the local air tragedy that killed 49 people only hours before. “By the time we began to react, it was over. At the station, we were as horrified as they were at home.”
Additional criticism of the sequence appeared on numerous Web sites including the Los Angeles Times’ where a critic called the spot “cringe-inducing” and “of questionable taste.”
Gilbert, who will file a complaint with the network, said he believes the spoof should have never aired.
“They could have killed the opening and it wouldn’t have hurt the show at all,” said the Kentucky GM. “We wish somebody had thought this through. It’s somewhere between ignorance and incompetence.”

What's unfortunate is that the plane crash spoof was not the funniest part of the opening sequence, but it was an absolutely fantastic beginning. The hatch leading to the Office was what was funny. The fact that it came from LOST's hatch made it all the more so. I cannot imagine being in Kentucky following the story and then watching the Emmys, but I also cannot imagine being so incensed about something that was not mocking plane crashes, but spoofing a television show. Where was the uproar when the show LOST came out? There are hundreds of plane victim mourners who could have been upset with it. If the spoof was entirely about plane crashing or was spoofing only plane crashes, I could understand the disappointment. But it was making fun of a show.

I read an article at Blogcritic.org about E! asking if they could do a re-enactment of Dimebag Darrell's murder. The article stated that his murder was not entertainment. Pantera's publicist had this to say to E!:
"The answer is no, and on behalf of everyone that was there that night and everyone that misses him every day, you can take that no and shove it up your collective asses."

If there were a show about a heavy metal band and one episode was about the drummer who was murdered, that wouldn't be tacky. What E! wants to do is tacky. If the Emmy preshow was specifically about plane crashes or mocking a specific crash, that would be tacky. When planes crash, that's sad. When shows spoof other shows to honor them, that's funny. To make it anything else is to as "cringe worthy" as some may have thought the Emmy preshow was.