Talk:1996 Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision

Cleanup & Polish?

In my humble opinion, this is a relatively poor article in comparison with many others on aviation disasters. Seen as this is the deadliest mid-air collision in history, it seems fitting that the article should be of a slightly higher quality. Something akin to these, perhaps: [1] or [2].

Another problem I have with the article is that the “history and cause” section doesn’t really have anything to do with that in the subsequent paragraphs.

A golden coin and a kipper to the person who can work on this person’s efforts and produc a polished article... – J.S, 6th May, 2007 02:31am GMT

One of the problems is, despite this being one of the worst air disasters in the world, and as compared with other major air disasters, there is an appalling lack of official information on-line about it. The official report from the Justice R. C. Lahoti Court of Inquiry (15 July 1997), which includes the report of the accident inspector, K P S Nair, is no-where to be found. The only sources seem to be press stories. --GregU 17:24, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Mishap or massive disaster?

Why is this page called a mishap when 349 upper-class people died in the world's biggest mid air collision in history? Tri400 13:14, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Title

Is this disaster a mishap or a mid-air collision? Most people who'd heard about the disaster will always refer to it as a "mid-air collision". And those people might not know about the name of the location and say that it happened over "somewhere in India, probably near New Delhi". The page should be renamed so it can be more easily identified. 202.95.200.12 05:49, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Agree totally. A mishap is when two cars hit each other with minor damage, in other words it denotes a non-major incident. As there seems to be general consensus in other posters, I will be WP:BOLD and move to mid-air collision. --Russavia 07:12, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

This still hasn't been moved. is there a reason? 81.108.183.76 00:19, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I renamed it from "... air mishap" to "... mid-air collision". --GregU 07:22, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Improper rename

Now this article has been renamed again, back to one of the two flight numbers (Air Kazakhstan Flight 1907), due to someone improperly listed it in the "clearly uncontroversial moves" section of Wikipedia:Requested_moves [3], and then an admin quickly processing it without question. This should have been discussed here. I believe Flight 1907 was the less notable of the two flights, comprising only 10% of the fatalities, and that the previous title of 1996 Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision should be restored. --GregU 13:54, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

• I agree with Greg's. If no more information is stated here, we shall rename. WhisperToMe 05:15, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
• There are three naming possibilities in a situation like this - aircraft 1, aircraft 2, or a description. Now, we have precedent - the Tenerife disaster. However, this doesn't have such a name attached to it in culture or media yet, at least not in the English speaking world, that I know of. Either way, naming it after flight 1907 is right out, that's the worst possible name. As for whether it should be named after flight 763 or the (imo clunky) name offered by GregU, I don't know, but the current name definitely needs changing. I wouldn't challenge either way as long as it was done, just offering my opinion. --Golbez 22:29, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

• Definitely not 1996 Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision, since both Air Kazakhstan Flight 1907 and Saudi Arabian Airlines Flight 763 are used much much more. --213.155.231.26 12:17, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I still believe choosing a combined name for the event is better than picking one of the two aircraft involved. Even if the popular media hasn't settled on a memorable name for this event themselves. I'm not convinced on the relevance of the Google counts, as the individual flights are going to show up in articles from the viewpoint of those flights. Only search hits that are trying to document the whole tragedy should be considered. And even then, the numbers are not overwhelmingly different, being in the same order of magnitude.

A less clunky title would be "1996 Delhi mid-air collision", since both planes were in the process of arriving at or departing the main airport in Delhi. But it is less accurate than "1996 Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision" as the planes were 50 miles out, and Google shows it being used even less. So I still vote for the latter. If we can't agree on the best title, let's at least restore the better title that existed before the improper rename. --GregU 18:38, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I moved it to the old name... for now. WhisperToMe 08:49, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

My move request was correct, since the 1907 caused the accident, while that accident was not related to Delhi an airport or Charkhi Dadri (is it a location?) it didnt even happen there... The 1907 is the most prominent flight in this accident and so the article should have its name... A redirect is fine, too, but it doesnt show up in the catergory, which is bad... It is always about the cause and not so much about the effect or the location... Thx. Bye! --Homer Landskirty (talk) 11:57, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

• Actually, Delhi's air traffic control system is blamed for the accident. Watch the Head-On Collision episode and you would see why. WhisperToMe (talk) 17:58, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

The article doesnt say so... And I cannot even imagine how the ATC could cause this deviating altitude... Even if there were severe turbulences it should be possible to keep the plane at the same flight level +/- 200ft... But I dont know much about turbulences (I have just heard, that gas bubbles over the Bermuda triangle can make planes fall down; and I have heard, that pilots r quite eager to avoid lightning and turbulences, which might be the reason why they have an on-board weather radar in their nose)... --Homer Landskirty (talk) 19:59, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I will watch "Head-On Collision" one more time and I will explain what the show said about Delhi's air control system (which was altered after the crash). WhisperToMe (talk) 20:01, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay, some of the reasons stated:

• First mistake: Delhi had departures and arrivals in the same civilian airspace corridor (Much of the Delhi airspace was taken by the military, reducing the space for civilian flights) - The aircraft should never have been assigned to the same airspace in opposite directions. Since the airport has separated departures and arrivals into two separate corridors)
• Second mistake: The Kazakh radio operator and the navigator hear 15,000 feet and does NOT acknowledge the height. The men had to translate for the captain and other crew because the other men had very limited English.
• Third mistake: The captain does not tell his crew about the estimated time and assigned flight level.
• Fourth mistake: The radio operator tells the controller that he is at 15,000, but this is not correct. He may have been unable to see the altimeter.
• Fifth mistake: Indira Gandhi Airport did NOT have secondary surveillance radar, which gives atcs altitudes of individual aircraft - The controllers used primary radar, which gives approximate headings.
• Sixth mistake: Both aircraft had no TCAST systems.

This was shown on the show "Head On-Aircrash"

The air traffic controller himself is not to blame. It was the system that failed. So, yes, the Kazakh airliner made a lot of mistakes, but the Indian air traffic control system was also responsible for the crash. WhisperToMe (talk) 21:01, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus to move the page, per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 03:31, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

---

• 1996 Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision → Air Kazakhstan Flight 1907 — Since the ATC orders r imperative and can only be superseded by clear evidence, that they are wrong, we can stick to the common naming policy (deviating plane gives the name...). --Homer Landskirty (talk) 14:08, 16 December 2007 (UTC) — Homer Landskirty (talk) 14:08, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Oppose - There is no common naming policy to name after deviating plane, and I don't think this would be a good policy. The more important aspect is that it was a mid-air collision, and so that is the naming convention used for articles about two large planes, rather than singling out one of the two planes and having title imply it is a single-plane accident. GregU (talk) 10:20, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
• Support -- I meant "common" in the sense of a "de facto standard"... For the property "mid-air" and other such properties (accident, plane involved, ...) we have categories... It is not necessary to mention that in the article name... Furthermore the location is _not_ Charkhi Dadri, because air space is (at least in F.Rep.GERM) under federal control, while the city is just (not so) happy to have an airport... --Homer Landskirty (talk) 13:53, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose - As GregU said, this is a mid-air collision involving two passenger airliners, and the most important aspect is to show it as such - "1996 Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision" is unbalanced between the two airliners involved. WhisperToMe (talk) 14:21, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Hajj pilgrims ???

I don't think any Hajj pilgrims would have been on board Saudia 763. The date of the disaster in the Islamic calendar was 2 Rajab 1417, but Hajj is five months later in the month of Dhu al-Hijjah. --GCarty (talk) 19:20, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

i marked it as questionable (using the {{fact|date=...}} template)... --Homer Landskirty (talk) 06:56, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Summary doesn't make sense

This paragraph:

'Flight KZK 1907 was cleared to descend to 15,000 feet (4,600 m) when 74 miles (119 km) from the airport while Flight SVA 763, traveling on the same airway as Flight KZK 1907 but in the opposite direction, was cleared to climb to 14,000 feet (4,300 m). About eight minutes later, around 6:40 PM, Flight KZK 1907 reported having reached 15,000 feet (4,600 m) but was at 16,000 feet (4,900 m). At this time, Dutta advised the flight, "Identified traffic 12 o'clock, reciprocal Saudia Boeing 747, 14 miles (23 km). Report in sight." '

Doesnt seem to make sense? If KZK 1907 was cleared to descend to 15000 feet, but instead descended to 16000 feet, they couldn't have hit SVA 763 at 14000 feet? The rest of the article make us believe that KZK did something wrong, but if this was what they did wrong - that they didn't descend far enough, the accident shouldn't have happened!!

I don't know enough about the accident to fix this, but someone who knows what happened should probably fix this paragraph. My guess: KZK 1907 did in fact descend to 14000 feet, but reported being at 15000 feet.

--Avl (talk) 20:58, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for catching that. I've corrected the narrative, citing the Aviation Safety Network.[4] --Itsfullofstars (talk) 22:46, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I watched the Mayday episode. According to it, it said it was at 15000 when it was actually at 16000. However, it continued to descend after that point, and eventually dropped below 14000. Griffinofwales (talk) 18:55, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Dead link

During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!

• http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9611/14/india/index.html
  • In 1996 Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision on 2011-05-25 06:19:05, 404 Not Found
  • In 1996 Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision on 2011-06-08 03:45:46, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 03:46, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Dead link 2

During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!

• http://www.natgeochannel.co.uk/programmes/air-crash-investigation/india-haryana-1996
  • In 1996 Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision on 2011-05-25 06:19:11, 404 Not Found
  • In 1996 Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision on 2011-06-08 03:45:56, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 03:46, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Flight numbers

I think we should use the official two-character airline codes for the flight numbers - they are SV and K4 - instead of the three-letter ones that are mainly used in flight plans and flight control operations. 67.194.199.224 (talk) 01:00, 18 August 2011 (UTC)