Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Pan Am Flight 214/archive1

Pan Am Flight 214

Pan Am Flight 214 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

As of 10 May 2024, 20:41 (UTC), this page is active and open for discussion. An FAC coordinator will be responsible for closing the nomination.

• Featured article candidates/Pan Am Flight 214/archive1

Nominator(s): RecycledPixels (talk) 20:12, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Pan Am Flight 214 was a Pan Am flight that crashed in December 1963 while flying between Baltimore, Maryland and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was the first time that a jet aircraft operated by Pan Am had crashed in the five years that they had been flying, and the crash highlighted the previously unknown risks of lightning strikes on aircraft in flight, leading to new safety parameters in aircraft design. The article has been a Good Article since 2019 and I believe that it has improved to the level of Featured Article since then. Do you? RecycledPixels (talk) 20:12, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Note: If anybody performing a source review does not have access to the New York Times Archive articles, I can send them a link to a Google Drive directory of images of all the news clippings I used in the article. RecycledPixels (talk) 14:44, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

PCN02WPS

Saving a spot. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 21:53, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Lead and infobox

• "leading to new regulations that led to safety improvements" → a touch repetitive

  Changed to resulted in safety impovements. RecycledPixels (talk) 22:46, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Background

• "crew members, and arrived in Baltimore at 7:10 pm" → remove comma

  Split into two sentences. RecycledPixels (talk) 22:46, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Accident

• "made radio contact with air traffic control near Philadelphia" → since it's mentioned earlier in this sentence that they were approaching Philadelphia, I don't think you need to specify Philly ATC here

  Removed duplicate. RecycledPixels (talk) 22:46, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

• Do you think a link to Mayday would be appropriate, just for those who aren't familiar with the term or the convention?

  I have no objection to the wikilink, and have added it. RecycledPixels (talk) 22:46, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

• "holding 1,000 feet (300 m) higher in the same holding pattern" → a little repetitive, recommend removal of the second use of "holding"

  Done. RecycledPixels (talk) 22:46, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Aftermath

• "east of Elkton near the state line" → don't think this is needed since you give the location of the crash site in the previous section

  Agree, and done. Also removed duplicate "crash site" from next sentence. RecycledPixels (talk) 22:46, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

• "was extinguish the fires and to begin collecting" → verbs read like they don't match; either "to extinguish" and "to begin" or "extinguish" and "begin"

  Agree, and done. RecycledPixels (talk) 22:46, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Investigation

• "an impact 100 times as strong as the force of gravity (g)" → Recommend a link to g-force somewhere in here

  Done. RecycledPixels (talk) 22:46, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

• "its tape appeared to be hopelessly damaged" → might want to attribute this since it sorta sounds like WP's voice (and since it ended up being wrong)

  Wording was from the McClement source, but since the sentences afterward elaborated on the damage, I changed it to simply "had been badly damaged.", citing NY Times 12/11. RecycledPixels (talk) 22:46, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

• "the aircraft apparently had caught fire close to its cruising altitude of 5,000 feet" → this caught me off-guard until I remembered that the flight was only from BWI to Philly - do you think a short little bit added on to the end of this sentence just noting the reason behind the low cruising altitude would be warranted/helpful? (Genuinely asking your opinion, I think it's good either way)

  I don't really have any more information than this, other than it actually flew at 4,000 feet as far as the New Castle VOR (which I assume was somewhere around Wilmington/New Castle, Delaware), then increased altitude to 5000 feet for the hold, west of the VOR. So not a very long flight, and none of the official reports or news reports made any comments about this being unusually low. RecycledPixels (talk) 22:46, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

• "disputed early theories that lightning" (plural), "explode, calling it improbable" (singular)

  As far as I can tell, there was only one lightning strike theory, so changed the first instance to singular. RecycledPixels (talk) 22:46, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

• "as a result of static electricity igniting fuel vapor" → link to static electricity could be helpful

  Done. RecycledPixels (talk) 22:46, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

• "left wing tip, and a large area of damage" → remove comma

  Done. RecycledPixels (talk) 22:46, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

• "turbine engines and was also present in Flight 214's fuel tanks" → if you're saying that Jet A was also there, I would change "and was also present" to "which was also present" or something similar

  Done. RecycledPixels (talk) 22:46, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Legacy

• "including experts from the FAA, CAB, other government agencies and lightning experts" → reads like "including experts from...lightning experts", so recommend rewording "lightning experts" to before the list or adding something after "government agencies" so it doesn't sound like you're doubling up on the word "experts"

  Reworded.

• "aircraft fuel systems, and potential measures" → remove comma

• Done. RecycledPixels (talk) 22:46, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

• "lightning strikes, and published guidance" → remove comma

• Done. RecycledPixels (talk) 22:46, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

• "and any items that are installed on the surface" → sounds a little weird going from past tense ("mandated") to present tense ("that are installed") though changing the latter to past tense doesn't sound right either; maybe just remove "that are" altogether?

  Agreed, and done. RecycledPixels (talk) 22:46, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

• "turbine fuels in civil aircraft operations."" → since the quote isn't a full sentence, the full stop should be outside the quotation marks per MOS:LQ

  This was raised earlier. The cited source reads: IN FEBRUARY 1964, the Federal Aviation Agency requested the Coordinating Research Council, Inc. (CRC) to carry out a "thorough and expert technical review. . .in regard to the safety hazards of turbine fuels in civil aircraft operations." CRC proceeded with the request by forming an Ad Hoc Group on Aviation Fuel Safety. The Group was composed of top engineers from the airframe, airline, and petroleum industries, selected because of their individual technical experience and ability. ... The period appears within the quotes in the source, and appears to be quoting exact text from the CRC request, which I don't have access to, which logically appears to be the end of the sentence. That's where I applied the "Include terminal punctuation within the quotation marks only if it was present in the original material" instruction from MOS:LQ, finding the punctuation within the cited source, and assuming that the punctuation existed where it did in the original source that the cited source was using. Any further opinions of that? RecycledPixels (talk) 22:46, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

• "aviation fuels, and to determine" → remove comma
• "likelihood of accidents and/or loss of life."" → ditto with full stop as above

  This was also brought up earlier. Since I am quoting a portion of a sentence, and not an entire sentence from the cited source (which wasn't identified as a direct quote in that source), I've moved the terminal period back outside the quotation marks. RecycledPixels (talk) 22:46, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your patience, sorry that this took so long for me to get to. Prose comments on first read-through are above! PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 20:25, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

@PCN02WPS: Thanks for the look. Let me know what you think, especially about the MOS:LQ issues. RecycledPixels (talk) 22:46, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

The LQ bits look good to me; the explanation seems reasonable enough so I have no issue with it. All changes look good as well so I'm happy to support. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 16:24, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Image review

• /File:Boeing_707_"Stratoliner",_3rd_707-121_production_airplane,_N709PA,_later_delivered_to_Pan_Am.jpg: when and where was this first published?

• File:Pan_Am_Flight_214_recorder_examination.jpg: source link is dead, when and where was this first published?

• File:PanAm214.jpg is tagged as lacking author info. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:38, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I am unable to verify the first image's claim as a public domain image. Searching online, I find this image all over the place, but I can't find anything that reliably backs up the public domain claim. So, I've replaced the image with a photo of a different Pan Am 707-121. It's not the same aircraft, but it serves the same purpose to identify the appearance of the aircraft involved. The FAA website at [1] has a free image of the actual aircraft in a hangar, but it's fairly low quality and resolution, and does not show the entire aircraft.

I wasn't able to verify the second image, either. It was likely published by the Civil Aeronautics Bureau as a press release, but I can't find evidence of that in any reasonable amount of time. Since it was a photo in the "nice to have" category, but not essential, I have removed it altogether.

I have updated the author information on the third photo. It appears in the CAB accident report, and also appears on the FAA website at [2] without a copyright notice.

Thanks for the catches. I checked the licenses on Commons but didn't try to take the extra step of trying to prove the information claimed there. RecycledPixels (talk) 07:04, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

750h

Great article. My [minor] concerns are marked here:

• Suggest splitting the first paragraph of the "Accident" section into one titled "Background".  750h+ | Talk  08:41, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

  Done.

• In the infobox, unlink "United States, per MOS:GEOLINK.  750h+ | Talk  08:41, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

  Done.

• "The pilot in command was George F. Knuth, 45, of Long Island." is this talking about age? than rephrase this to something like "The pilot in command was George F. Knuth of Long Island, aged 45.", as some may not understand.  750h+ | Talk  08:41, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

  Did a variation of that suggestion to eliminate the ", 45, " confusion.

• "The first officer was John R. Dale, 48, also of Long Island." Do the same thing  750h+ | Talk  08:41, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

  Done.

  Thank you for looking over the article. RecycledPixels (talk) 15:13, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

  Support.  750h+ | Talk  04:07, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Harry

• Terminating punctuation goes outside quote marks (MOS:LQ)
• The detached engine fell into a field on a farm southwest of Paris, where the flight had originated, with no injuries "it fell into a field with no injuries" doesn't really make sense.
• The detail on the 1949 Cessna incident seems a little excessive—I found myslef reading through lots of information about places and aircraft that weren't involved in the incident that is the subject of the article.
• occurred on June 26, 1959, when TWA Flight 891, a Lockheed L-1649 Starliner, crashed near Milan, Italy I don't think the plane involved in that incident is essential to understanding this one; also, we don't generally link country names
• Investigators found multiple lightning strike marks on the left wing tip Of Flight 214? The previous sentence is about 891.

That's all I've got. Nice article on an interesting incident from the (fairly) early days of commercial aviation. Haven't checked references. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:20, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

• @HJ Mitchell: Thanks for taking a look. The terminal punctuation was present in the original Harris source, so I've moved them inside the quotes per MOS:LQ. I removed the part about no injuries caused by the falling engine as it wasn't important. I've tried to tighten up the 1949 Cessna incident, leaving the redlink to the accident article that doesn't yet exist, trimming out the aircraft type and the location as not being terribly important in this context. I mentioned the aircraft type in the Italy case to make the distinction that that incident wasn't also a Boeing 707, but a different type of aircraft altogether (piston-engined). Italy isn't wikilinked, the link goes to Milan. I've clarified that the lightning strike marks were found on the Flight 214 incident. See what you think. RecycledPixels (talk) 23:03, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

  LGTM. Support. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:54, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

RoySmith

I may come back with more later, but for now, just a few comments.

• For the NY Times refs, I think you'd do better to link to the archive page (i.e. https://www.nytimes.com/1963/12/09/archives/81-on-jet-killed-in-flaming-crash-near-elkton-md-airliner-plummets.html?searchResultPosition=1) instead of the raw page image (https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1963/12/09/issue.html). People can then click through to the timesmachine image with the article highlighted.
• "It operated three times a week as the counterpart to Flight 213, which flew from Philadelphia to San Juan via Baltimore earlier the same day." I would drop that entire sentence; it doesn't add anything to the reader's understanding of this accident.
• For airports which have changed names, i.e. Isla Verde -> Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport, Friendship -> BWI, I would mention their current names to give the reader better context, as those are the names the reader is likely to know.
• "It wasn’t a large fire ... from the force of the impact" I think long quotes like this are better presented with {{blockquote}} vs running in-line. Also, the source identifies him as "Lt. Don Hash (Retired)" so we should do the same.
• "The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) was notified of the accident and was dispatched from Washington, D.C". The whole board wasn't dispatched, just "a team of investigators" (from the NYT source)
• "Witnesses of the crash described hearing the explosion and seeing the plane in flames as it descended" I know this is what the source says, but I'm vaguely uncomfortable in how this is presented. Witnesses to air crashes are notoriously unreliable; it's not uncommon for witnesses to describe events (in-flight breakup, fire, etc) which are inconsistent with the physical evidence. Notice how on page 4 of the CAB report, they hedge with "aircraft or flaming object in the sky", and are careful to point out how many people reported seeing which things. Compare this with the narrative on page 11, where the CAB goes out of their way to describe some of the witnesses as "particularly well qualified" observers. I'm not sure how this should be presented, but your current version I think needs to better emphasize that "witnesses say they saw X" does necessarily mean "X happened".
• "An investigation by the Civil Aeronautics Board concluded that the cause of the crash was a lightning strike that had ignited fuel vapors in one of the aircraft's fuel tanks, causing an explosion that destroyed one of the wings." I should have put this first, because it's the most important: the CAB said no such thing. What they said was "the probable cause of this accident was lightning -induced ignition of the fuel/air mixture ..." The use of the "probable cause" terminology is critical.
• Related to the previous item, "fuel/air mixture" is not the same as "fuel vapors". A "vapor" is a gas. A fuel/air mixture could be atomized (but still liquid) fuel, i.e. an Aerosol. It may sound like a minor point, but it's actually quite important, as fuel cannot ignite until it undergoes the liquid->gas phase change.
• "The plane entered a sudden spin during a demonstration of the aircraft's minimum control speed". I know the NY Times source says "spin", but I'm dubious that a swept-wing jet like a 707 is capable of recovering from a spin. I suspect, regardless of what the NY Times (UPI, actually) wrote, the plane never actually entered a fully developed Spin (aerodynamics). Also, you say, "aerodynamic forces caused the engine to break away". Nowhere in the source does it say that. The source says, "A Pan American World Airlines spokesman said the right outboard engine had torn loose". "Torn loose" does not imply "aerodynamic forces". Not to mention that you've taken a statement from an unnamed Pan Am spokesman and restated it in wiki-voice. Actually, I'm going to keep going on this one. You said it was an "incident". The source doesn't say that. In aviation, the terms "incident" and "accident" have very specific meanings, see Aviation accidents and incidents. You can't just use the terms without understanding what they mean.
• I'm curious about the statement you made above, in response to a comment from PCN02WPS" I don't really have any more information than this, other than it actually flew at 4,000 feet as far as the New Castle VOR. What source says it was at the New Castle VOR?