Talk:List of missing aircraft

There is a Wikipedia article - The Mull Air Mystery- which tells the tale of Peter Gibbs and his mysterious night flight and subsequent disappearance. Though his body was recovered (on land) his (hired) aircraft was never located and positively identified, and is therefore still missing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.73.55.200 (talk) 09:06, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

1945 Australian Air Ambulance

The 1945 Dakota A65-83 disappearance might be eligible for this list.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

Why no link to the page dedicated to this missing airliner? Valetude (talk) 18:05, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Similar to the one already in the remarks column? MilborneOne (talk) 18:11, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, Milborne. I was checking the left-hand column. Didn't spot the one at the right. Apologies. (Valetude (talk) 19:58, 1 November 2014 (UTC)).

Suggested changes

Changes I would suggest:

1. Change the table heading "Notable people" to "People on board". For flights with no one notable or large amounts of people, the box would state "220 passengers and 12 crew" or similar, while those involving notable people would not change.
2. If a flight had a flight number, the aircraft column should list that instead of the airplane's designation.
3. "Context" should be changed to "Type of flight".

Thoughts? Oiyarbepsy (talk) 20:39, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

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Scope of this article

Three options had been proposed and there is a clear consensus only for including those entries for incidents where we can link to the incident's article per WP:NOTNEWS. Kraose (talk) 07:49, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Hey everyone, so I want to poll a consensus on what exactly this article should focus on regarding the status of missing aircraft and their notability. Please share your opinions below... - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 14:45, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Opinions

1. Should aircraft that were once widely reported as "missing" but have since been found be included?

• No this is a list of missing aircraft not found aircraft. MilborneOne (talk) 15:04, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
• No - Per MilborneOne NickCT (talk) 16:50, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
• No It missing aircraft. scope_creep (talk) 21:29, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
• No. If it's not missing, it's not missing. Maproom (talk)
• Yes if.... Unless we also have (and link to) a list of "found aircraft" then this list remains the list people will be consulting. Our job is to serve the reader, not bicker about the semantics of the title. The aircraft was missing once It won't bankrupt anyone to add a note "found at... on... see...". Washington was president once; do we leave him out of the list of presidents because he no longer is president?JonRichfield (talk) 08:37, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
• Probably no but strongly support some sort of link to a "found aircraft" list or page. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:36, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
• No. An aircraft that has been found is not missing. Hickland (talk) 14:28, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
• Depends – An aircraft that was missing for a long time should probably be included for a similar amount of time. And an aircraft that's become famous for being missing shouldn't just be deleted from the article when it's found; if it's famous for being missing, then listing it in a section such as "Long-missing aircraft that were found" might be good as a way to link it for people trying to catch up. That is, a missing aircraft being no longer missing is not necessarily reason enough to expunge it as if it was never missing. Dicklyon (talk) 05:21, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

2. Should we only include entries for incidents with a link to the incident's article? (WP:NOTNEWS)

• Yes or certainly ones that are noteworthy and could support an article in future. They are probably thousands of missing aircraft particularly during wartime but hardly any would or could support an independent article. MilborneOne (talk) 15:04, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
• Yes - Per MilborneOne NickCT (talk) 16:50, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
• Yes It is encyclopedic. scope_creep (talk) 21:29, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
• Yes. Notable missing aircraft only. Maproom (talk) 07:35, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
• Yes, but... bear in mind that writing an article takes time. No point having conniptions because someone still is researching it. JonRichfield (talk) 08:37, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
• Yes per MilborneOne Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:36, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
• Yes per MilborneOne Hickland (talk) 14:28, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

3. If a passenger on x plane has an article on Wikipedia would that be a criteria for incident inclusion?

• No this is a list of missing aircraft not missing persons, the notability of the event and person may not be the same. MilborneOne (talk) 15:04, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
• Not sure - Think the relevant policy here is WP:LISTCRITERIA. If there is RS to unambiguously support something being on a list, then it should be on the list. It would seem weird that we'd have RS that a passenger on a missing plane went missing, but not the plane itself. I think this question may be poorly formed. NickCT (talk) 16:50, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

  @NickCT: Believe it or not for Walter G. R. Hinchliffe, and Elsie Mackay there is no article for their plane's disappearance. I'm just giving an example here - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 17:01, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

  @Knowledgekid87: - When you say "incident inclusion", do you mean "Incident inclusion in the List of missing aircraft" or do you mean "Inclusion in Wikipedia as a stand-alone article"? Those are two different questions. Just b/c something is in this list, I don't think that means there has to be a stand-alone article. NickCT (talk) 14:01, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

• No Stick with aircraft, but could depend on sources, if the published link between them, that has some depth. scope_creep (talk) 21:29, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
• No. Notable missing aircraft only. That means, there's a Wikipedia article about the missing aircraft. Maproom (talk) 07:35, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
• Usually If the passenger has an article, that argues sufficient notability for a missing plane to be correspondingly notable. Any major plane disappearance of a plane and passengers, especially under unexplained or notable circumstances is in itself notable. In a list of this nature the level of notability could be quite low for justifying inclusion. The passenger's article is unlikely to include flight details, so to be able to link to the list would be constructive. JonRichfield (talk) 08:37, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
• No - scope is aircraft Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:36, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
• Yes, but cautiously - the notability of the event is dependent on both the circumstances of the event, but also the people on the flight. Deciding the notability of the event based on the notability of the people on the flight may be difficult, but it is possible. Hickland (talk) 14:28, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Followup

The planes that were previously missing but have since been found were moved to their own section (article creation is up to editors). As for incidents requiring an article, I took a double take of the list and that would pretty much remove most of the entries on the list. I'm going to go with the third area in question regarding "passenger on x plane has an article on Wikipedia". Its not a perfect solution, but I don't want to gut the article of content as there is plenty of room for aircraft article creation for the earlier entries. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 14:47, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

"unknown" grey cells in military entries

I think it looks odd when the military aircraft entries are coloured green across the entire row apart from those cells that use the {{unknown}} template as this forces the associated cell to be grey. I've tried out a couple of fixes: in the 1900–1919 section for the Manuel Rodríguez entry, and in the 2001–present section for the Antonov entry. It's just a manual over-ride but I think it looks better. Any objections? Rodney Baggins (talk) 23:18, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

I mean we could either leave it blank or center "Unknown" in the middle without using a template, I would prefer the latter as you did with Manuel Rodríguez. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 14:46, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

OK I'll see what I can do about this in the next day or two. In the meantime, I have another more pressing query, please comment below. Thanks, Rodney Baggins (talk) 17:58, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Aircraft IDs

I've been trying to tidy up the tables a bit and something quite fundamental has occurred to me. I think we need to clarify the way in which the missing aircraft are defined, because at the moment there are some inconsistencies and errors that need ironing out. First of all, I would like to suggest rewording the 2nd paragraph of the lead section something along the lines of:

"The tables in this article have an Aircraft column in which each missing aircraft is defined, using one or more identifying features. If the aircraft was known by a custom or personalized name (e.g. Pathfinder), that name is presented first (in italics) followed by the aircraft type (in parentheses). The make of aircraft, although not necessarily a unique identifier, is also provided where appropriate. Aircraft registrations began to be used in the early 20th century for individual identification, so this is included in the later tables (in parentheses). Note that flight numbers, first used in the 1930s, are not used because these are not unique to the missing aircraft; the flight number simply denotes the route that was being operated by the aircraft at the time of its disappearance, and not the aircraft itself."

I think I'm right in asserting that an aircraft is identified by its registration and/or custom name but NOT by the flight number, which just denotes the route that the aircraft was operating when it went missing. So I think the following entries should be changed accordingly:

• June 23, 1950 – Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 2501 → Douglas DC-4 (reg. N95425)
• November 8, 1957 – Pan Am Flight 7 → Boeing 377 Stratocruiser 10-29, Clipper Romance Of The Skies (reg. N90944)
• February 3, 1961 – Garuda Indonesia Flight 542 → Douglas C-47A-20-DK (reg. PK-GDY)
• March 16, 1962 – Flying Tiger Line Flight 739 → Lockheed L-1049H Constellation (reg. N6921C)
• January 30, 1979 – Varig Flight 967 → Boeing 707-323C (reg. PP-VLU)
• August 3, 1986 – LIAT Flight 319 → de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Series 310 Twin Otter (reg. V2-LCJ)
• August 25, 1989 – Pakistan International Airlines Flight 404 → Fokker F27 Friendship (reg. AP-BBF)
• March 8, 2014 – Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 → Boeing 777-200ER (reg. 9M-MRO)
• July 22, 2016 – 2016 Indian Air Force An-32 disappearance → Antonov An-32 (reg. K-2743)

The carrier / flight number (specifically the title of the linked wiki article) can be mentioned in the Remarks column but I think the Aircraft column should just include the specific identifying data. What do you think? Rodney Baggins (talk) 18:00, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

As I've had no response to this, I'll try implementing the change in the lead and see what happens... Rodney Baggins (talk) 08:56, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Possible addition

Women's Air Service Pilot Gertrude Tompkins Silver, is still missing

Should she be included in this list?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Tompkins_Silver — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.98.176.46 (talk) 02:43, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

 Done I added the entry, thanks! - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 16:47, 3 August 2020 (UTC)