Talk:List of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft/Archive 3

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Hindenberg

Added Hindenberg, 1937, which was a "commercial aircraft". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 201.51.222.116 (talk • contribs) 10:41, 27 February 2006 (UTC).

Tense

The current tense is a mixed bag - some 'news like' present tense, some 'narration like' past tense. I suggest deciding on a common tense and sticking to it, and retro-actively fixing all entries to match it. I would vote for present tense, btw. Crum375 23:19, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree - we should harmonise the tense. And in the absence of any Wikipedia manual of style information on this (unless I missed it!), I vote for the present tense. It sounds better, IMHO. — QuantumEleven 06:15, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
OK, I will add a guiding statement to that effect in the intro. If anybody disagrees, please add your comments here. Also, I may start some past->present tense conversions, but it would be nice if others pitch in too. Thanks, Crum375 12:40, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
I disagree, these incidents happened in the past, and so the past tense is correct. The use of present tense is an insidious leakage from the news media. Wikipedia style guides generally require formal and encyclopedic tone, not tabloid newspeak. Pyrope 10:36, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Your opinion is important and welcome, but this issue has been discussed at length. If you strongly disagree with the present tense usage, I suggest discussing it in the guideline's Talk page, and trying to reach consensus for change there. Thanks, Crum375 12:40, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Little flags

While I commend Baston1975 for all his hard work putting all the little flags in, I'm not sure they are such a great idea.

  • They clutter up the page a bit, IMO
  • They don't provide any additional information not already in the summaries (not even if you're just skimming the text, as the icons are very small and sometimes difficult to make out)
  • Their usage is confusing for this particular page (they are also used, amongst others, here). What do they represent, the nationality of the airline whose plane crashed? The country where it crashed (what about international waters)? The nationality of the aircraft builder? I think they add more confusion than they add clarity.

Note I'm not saying that the flag icons are a bad idea on Wikipedia in general, just that they are not appropriate or useful on this page. I therefore propose we remove them and return to the original layout. Any comments appreciated. — QuantumEleven 06:23, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi, not sure if i should edit this page or add a new section for the response (so apologies in advance). I am completely new to Wikipedia editing though i have been actively using it for quite some time now. I am happy for these to be removed if everybody wishes. However in response to the points above.

  • I don't think they cause clutter, personally... perhaps this is more as a result of the sidebar on the top right initially as further down it seems ok?
  • Sometimes a visual clue is all someone is after when quickly skimming through the page - i took inspiration from Rail Accidents which uses the same format as what i have put in place here. I used that page and found the flags to be of excellent assistance when quickly skirting around looking for a particular flag on a date.
  • I was thinking the same as i worked through the list to be honest. I aimed more towards the location of the incident (if it was known) or the carrier if it wasn't known. Unlike rail accidents, air disasters (obviously), can occur over international waters well away from any nation.

I am 100% fine with what the consensus agrees --Baston1975 08:42, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I would vote for flags inclusion, with the clarification in the intro that they are for the country of registration of the accident aircraft (multi-flags for collisions or otherwise multi-aircraft incidents/accidents). Anyway, I think the flags do add color and interest to otherwise drab and sad page. Crum375 12:49, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I have removed the flag icons from the article. I find then to be very confusing and misleading - what importance is the coutry of registration to an accident happening in another country? I cannot think of any reason for the flag icons. Thanks/wangi 10:01, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Single sentence

Another format standardization issue. I notice that most entries are structured as a single sentence, with semi-colons as separators when needed. I think this is a good format for a list. Unfortunately some entries are multi-sentence with periods. If we have a format guide for the article, e.g. addressing the required present tense, we should also mention the single sentence requirement. Does anyone know what is the best mechanism to combine and present these suggestions? Should it be at the top of this Talk page? Do we need a special pointer to it from the article to avoid 'drive-by editing' with improper format? I would follow established guidelines here, as I am sure the issue exists in all lists. BTW I think embedded edit comments in the article Edit page may be ignored by many. Crum375 20:55, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that 'drive-by editing' is one of the things that makes Wikipedia unique, and not a problem that needs fixing - if we can agree on some guidelines here on the talk page and implement them on the article, then users adding new info will usually stick to the same format even if they haven't read the talk page. And if they don't, well, it's not big deal - someone who has read the talk page will come along and improve it.
As for guidelines, I would respectfully disagree with the 'single sentence separated by semicolons' idea. Reading through the entries in the article, one or two sentences are much clearer. For instance, in 1999:
In my opinion, this gives all the info that someone looks for when they browse this article: whose plane it was (airline and flight number), an idea of its route, where the incident occurred (ie where the plane crashed), a short indication of why it happened, and some idea of casualty figures/damage. Two sentences. Some use three, I don't see anything wrong with that, if the incident in question is notable for some other reason (eg it has earned a nickname (Gimli Glider), or if it had important long-term repercussions (the Concorde crash)) or if they feel that additional info is notable enough to be included in the summary, or if describing the incident in only two sentences makes the grammar twist itself into a knot.
In general, I would be for some sort of guideline, but remembering that one of Wikipedia's 'rules' is 'ignore all the rules', I also think that it should be phrased as a guideline, not as a strict follow-this-format-or-else. There are many special cases (hijackings spring to mind, amongst others) where the incident in question does not always lend itself to a summary of this form, and we should use our common sense in each case, and not only strive to make every entry look exactly the same.
My 0.02€, anyway :) — QuantumEleven 06:57, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
I did not address content, or even length, though obviously some modicum of standardization there too is needed, but my point was about format. What is wrong with this:
That is the format of most/many current entries, my point (along with the related 'tense' issue I raised previously) is that some standadization is needed. I am all for individual ideas and free spirits - that is the core of WP - but in a list article, it makes sense for the list items to have some reasonable structure and consistency for the reader to easily compare and scan them. Thanks, Crum375 19:12, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
I apologise - I didn't mean to infer that you said something you didn't. We obviously agree on how these guidelines should be implemented :) As for your proposed structure, I must admit that I prefer the split into sentences rather than split by semicolons - I find it makes for clearer reading. However, I'm not against your semicolon structure on principle, I just don't find them particularly, erm, elegant. In the end, I would guess, the decision to use full stops or semicolons is really not that important in the grand scheme of things... — QuantumEleven 11:50, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
You may have still missed my main point. I do not have a strong opinion about any of the style issues per se - e.g. single sentence separated by semi-colons vs. multi-sentence, present vs. past tense, etc. I do have preferences that I expressed, but would support any well reasoned standard. And that is the key point: I think in a list article you must have a reasonably standardized format for the individual items, otherwise it just looks messy, eclectic, unprofessional, haphazard, and is harder to scan and read. Crum375 13:57, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
I really should try to read comments more carefully :) It turns out... <fanfare> that we agree! I too have preferences (not set in stone) for the preferred format, but fully agree that some kind of standardisation is highly preferable and would support any consensus standard reached here.
Wow, it really was hard getting there, wasn't it...? ;-) — QuantumEleven 06:38, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
(outdent) Let's try to move forward then. Can you do the following?
A) Read the current article looking specifically at the following style issues:
  • Single sentence with semi-colons vs. multi sentence with periods
  • Present vs. past tense
  • Amount of detail: 1-3 sentences or semi-colon phrases vs. 4 or more with lots of detail, like a mini article
B) After reading, decide which consistent style you'd prefer, and compare to my preferences which are:
  • Single with semis (forces the writer to be short and sweet, forces similarity in structure, easier for reader to scan)
  • Present tense (more engaging and riveting as it sounds fresh and dynamic, and ties together all the items better, as they seem to gradually unfold)
  • 1-3 phrases in semis (to add consistency and make it easier to scan) - ideally each item should have a link to its own article (I am working on adding the missing ones)
If you can do the above and state your preferences (note that we have some other votes above) then we can maybe set up a policy statement here and gradually start modifying the article accordingly (I would hate to do it before we have consensus). Thanks, Crum375 12:30, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Timeline.

#2006#2005#2004#2003

For an overview, would it be okay to add a graphic timeline? My draft here has the date, the number of fatalities, and how many crashes (color) there were on that day (up to 4 on 2001-09-11).

If the timeline idea is okay, we still need to figure out how to: not have info overlap, right align it so the article's text can go on the left, what's needed to remove the "till:" kludge, and how to change the ordering from old to new.

I think we need to figure out the look before more entries are added. Should the color be related to the number of fatalities instead of the number of crashes on 1 day? or the length of the lines (if that's possible)? -- Jeandré, 2006-07-15t13:57z

While what you're doing certainly looks interesting, I'm not certain it would add much information to the article that's not already there. In many articles, a picture or graph can help to illustrate the point, I'm just not sure it's the case here. What would it show to the reader? That the number of airline crashes has increased (or decreased) in recent years? That the number of fatalities has changed? All this isn't really relevant to what we're trying to do here, which is compile a list of notable crashes and accidents, while your graph seems more suited to an analysis of overall airline crashes. While it certainly looks cool, I'm afraid I don't think it would add anything to this (already somewhat over-long) article. — QuantumEleven 06:35, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Define notable

I have looked over this talk page today and haven't come across anything but complaints about how flights are described as notable. I think for this article there needs to be a definition or problems come up like someone listing dozens of small accidents that were not anything but local news and tragedies for the familes involved. My proposition would be to make something notable is that it kills a minimum number of people, or it involves someone in the public eye. I'll just throw out a starting number of 30 - that would make the Air Canada Flight 797 fire (I am not even sure if it is listed) in 1983 that killed 23 people not on the list - but the fact that it killed Stan Rogers, a well known Canadian celebrity made it very notable and memorable for many. I'm not saying 30 has to be the number but simply that there are incidents involving small commercial carriers that make the list unwieldy. It could be 10, 15, 20 or whatever. But my definition of notable would be that it kills a lot of people making the national news in a few countries, or it involves a famous person/people (by famous I mean "movie star", politicians, anyone with some sort of public notoriety of some kind), or it is historically significant like the largest disaster of an era (when aircraft only carried 10 people, a crash killing all of them would be notable - today it could almost be unreported). Anyway, just a thought in broad strokes, open to discussion. If someone has mentioned something like this before - well... call me blind.--CokeBear 21:30, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Generaly speaking if it killed around 20 people or made news (such as a American Airlines Flight 924) it is put on this list. Keep in mind that the list is not compleated and more incidets need to be added. – Zntrip 02:17, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Made the news? Then this article is non-neutral, as it is attentive to incidents noted by American News Media. KyuuA4 19:53, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
The list of air disasters in List of disasters generally includes only incidents in which at least twenty people died. That's arbitrary, but any cutoff figure is arbitrary, as is any attempt to define a dividing between 'notable' and 'non-notable'. The 20-death cutoff has the advantage of eliminating long debates on the 'notability' of an individual crash.
So, what distinguishes this list from the list in 'List of disasters'? Someone has recently listed this article as the 'main article' for that section. Should we discuss how these two should relate to each other? -- Donald Albury(Talk) 10:57, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Sure, covert all the information to this page. The list of disasters page is too long anyways. – Zntrip 16:16, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, "Notable" is a rather subjective term. I'm noticing a lot of African crashes are not included in this list while something like JetBlue Airways Flight 292 is included. That incident is only notable due the media coverage. KyuuA4 19:52, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

In any case, if you can cite reliable sources, you can add them yourself. -- Donald Albury 22:42, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for bringing this subject up again, CokeBear - I agree that we've talked around the issue too often and should probably see if we can form some sort of consensus on the definition of a 'notable accident or incident'. I'm going to go out on a limb, be bold, and suggest some criteria for discussion. I am writing these up with the reader in mind, what does a reader expect when visiting this page?
An accident/incident is notable if it fulfills one of the following criteria:
  • Substantial casualties on a commercial flight (which I will 'arbitrarily' set at "over 50% of occupants"). I purposely wish to exclude air taxis and light aircraft from this criterion.
  • Significant incidents in terms of aftereffects (eg the Hindenburg crash, Concorde, Lockerbie...) - where there was a lot of 'fallout' resulting from the incident (eg retiring the Concorde).
  • Incidents representing milestones, firsts, and records. For instance, most number of people killed, or first crash of a new airplane/airline.
  • Crashes that are unusual or notable in the 'traditional' sense. For instance, a forced water landing which didn't kill all onboard (happens very rarely). A crash that was recorded on video while it happened. Exceptional pilot skill (eg UA 232 or SAS 751). Crash for unknown or very controversial causes (eg TWA 800). A high-profile hijacking (eg Singapore 117). Heavy damage to aircraft which still landed safely (eg Aloha 243). A celebrity dying in the crash (eg Buddy Holly). General weird stuff (eg BA 5390). Obviously this list is incomplete, but I'm trying to give examples to illustrate the concept.
In an ideal world, there would be no regional bias - but we'll have to to do our best with the sources we have. I expressly don't think that this list should ever approach a complete list of all aviation accidents and incidents.
Comments, suggestions for improvements, rotten vegetables? — QuantumEleven 10:09, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
I think we should include in this article accidents on commercial aircraft that got a lot of press coverage, i.e. significant notability. Trying to nail it down further may backfire, as there are cases where dozens die yet they could be on the ground or small percentage of the occupants, or there could be no deaths but serious threat to life and hence notoriety (e.g. the Gimli Glider). Notice that we have List of accidents and incidents on commerical airliners and List of notable accidents and incidents on commercial aircraft - an ugly state of affairs, IMO. Crum375 11:59, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
I certainly agree with your last comment. QuantumEleven's proposal is a good place to start. Unfortunately, any hard-and-fast criteria are going to be arbitrary, whereas more generalized criteria of notability (above and beyond what is required for WP to have an article) run the risk of slippage as borderline cases end up being included, pushing the line towards less notable incidents. Unless enough editors stay active on this page to quickly reach a consensus on whether a particular incident is notable enough to be included, I think some hard-and-fast criteria would be more workable to limit the size of the list. -- Donald Albury 12:44, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
I think it will be very hard to agree on any set of arbitrary criteria beyond what's already in the article's title. The only logical strategy is to insist on notability, i.e. wide coverage on mainstream press (at least in the specific country of the occurrence, I presume, which of course makes it tough for English WP to verify, but that's a given hurdle). Crum375 12:53, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
How bought a vote?
Here’s my definition: A notable commercial aviation incident involves 1) at least 18 fatalities or 2) one fatality on a commercial aircraft with over 100 passengers or 3) a publicly identified incident [gets lots of press].
Feel free to modify or make a new definition. – Zntrip 14:39, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Would a heart attack on a flight count, then? :-) Actually, your number 3 generally subsumes your first two points. If we just say 'publicly identified event', even one that 'gets lots of press', it is very difficult to draw a line short of including everything that rates an article in Wikipedia. In that case, a category would be much better than a list. -- Donald Albury 15:05, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

(outdent) I think it will be very hard, if not impossible, to arbitrarily set hard limits on fatalities, or other criteria (remember the Gimli Glider). Our true goal (I think) is to define notability in some objective fashion, so the typical way to do it for a WP List Article is simply to insist on a specific wiki-linked article per item - no red-links allowed. That would shift the burden of proving notability to the individual articles, with possible AfD fights there, while here we could just add the top-level summaries, etc. If an article gets red-linked, its entry here also gets removed. I would also retain the restriction that we include commercial aircraft only. Comments? Crum375 19:05, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

That's certainly workable, but then, a category would achieve the same thing (and I personally would prefer that). -- Donald Albury 21:07, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
A category is different from a list, in that a list includes summaries, and in this case is sorted by a convenient timeline. The list's content is also easier to enforce, as lots of editors monitor the list. Crum375 21:41, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
One thing to consider it that only commercial incidents are included on this list. The Gimli Glider was not a commercial aircraft. Furthermore, “notable” is included in the article name so crashes that killed all 2 people aboard a Cessna owned by a small taxi company are not added to the list. I said 20 casualties, because at that number, the incident is usually considered noteworthy. – Zntrip 17:47, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
The Gimli Glider was an Air Canada flight with 61 passengers, so it was definitely "commercial". Fortunately, the aircraft landed with no serious injuries, so that it was an 'incident', not a 'disaster', but it was indeed 'notable'. -- Donald Albury 18:55, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

User:Blood_red_sandman has just added FedEx Flight 647 to the 2003 incidents - it does not appear to be notable, nobody was killed only two injuries and the undercarriage collapsed due to pilot error - just a bad day at the office ? MilborneOne 22:07, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I tend to agree with MilborneOne, in principle, that this event is not notable enough. There are lots of events where people die (e.g. small commuter or air taxi accidents) both in the air and on the ground, which aren't notable enough for this list, and in this one the only thing that died is an engine plus some incidental damage. But, to use my suggested inclusion criterion above, this could be included due to its having a WP article. So at this point I would leave it unless it goes redlink. My gut feeling is however that most readers would not be interested in a cargo plane had an engine problem and landed safely, and if this one is included then we may need to include hundreds of events per year that are more serious, turning the list into a catalog or database, which WP is not. Crum375 22:20, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
It appears that Blood red sandman has been creating pages about FedEx planes that have almost crashed. These articles should probably be deleted because they aren’t notable. – Zntrip 19:49, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to add a couple of cents of opinion on notability. One aspect which should also be considered when evaluating notability is an incident/accident's impact on the aviation industry in respect to changes/improvements that it precipitates. This is especially important when considering that "famous" is not the same thing as "notable", and that Wikipedia is a research tool, so someone researching aspects of aviation and the changes that the industry has gone through would be interested in finding information on incidents/accidents that led to changes/improvements. For instance, the DHL shootdown incident in Baghdad had no fatalities, but has had a significant impact, as there is now a big push to develop anti-MANPADS systems for commercial aircraft (no, there isn't yet an article about these, but it's on my to-do list). Only one person died on Aloha Airlines Flight 243, so it would be way below the fatality threshold proposed here, but the huge impact (no pun intended) it had on the concept of aging aircraft in general, and high-cycle 737s in particular make that incident extremely notable. So, may I suggest adding to QuantumEleven's list above something like:
  • Significant outcomes or changes in the aviation industry from an incident or accident, regardless of fatalities or press coverage, is considered notable.
Thanks for considering this! Akradecki 17:22, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I mentioned this on the other talk page, but I agree strongly with this. The 1955 Trans-Canada Airlines Viscount accident only killed one person but had significant ramifications for air safety with respect to turboprop engines (and was the first accident for the type as well), so it was notable. TWA Flight 599 only had eight on board; Knute Rockne died in the accident, but more importantly it changed how the CAA functioned, and was itself notable for that reason. The Air Canada Gimli Glider was notable even though nobody died because of both the cause and the ending. On the other hand, PIA Flight 268 was notable because 167 people died even if it didn't attract United States press coverage.
It would be nice to avoid the case where every accident in the United States (and to a far lesser extent Canada, Western Europe, and Japan) that killed more than three people is on the list, but major accidents from the developing world such as JAT Flight 364 or Thai Airways International Flight 311 aren't. --Charlene 20:52, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I still think that our work as list maintainers can be made very simple. We want to have a list of notable events, and WP already insists that each event's article be verifiably notable individually. Therefore, if we stricly insist that no red-links be accepted to the list, we are done. This would include anything that would make the event notable, such as effect on aviation technology/safety, notable casualties, notable 'almosts' and 'near-misses', etc. - as long as the event's article can fend off the deletionist AfD'ers and survive on its own, it can be here. Any other method, e.g. by setting arbitrary casualty cutoffs, is doomed to fail, since notability comes in many flavors. My suggested inclusion policy in a nutshell - delete red-links on sight! Thanks, Crum375 17:35, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Quite reasonable, actually. Akradecki 20:55, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I generally agree with the notability criteria (which leaves me wondering why "the Day the Music Died" got left off, but I'm gonna add it in a sec ;D). I'd add a couple of other criteria, if I missed them: firsts, like the disappearances of Nungesser et al trying to cross the Atlantic, or Amelia trying to circle the globe; air taxis or tourers that led to rule changes, like the ones in the Grand Canyon; & weird ones that indicated design problems, even if they didn't lead to rule changes (but especially if they did), like the DC-8 loss of engine pods on takeoff. Trekphiler 21:25, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Most of the instances are not really relevant to this list as it is a list related to commerical aircraft. Suggest you look at List of notable incidents and accidents involving general aviation. MilborneOne 21:30, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

If adding info here...

If you add an incident to this list, would you please also consider adding it to the appropriate Year in Aviation article (index for the years is at Timeline of aviation)? That would help in making that listing thorough and complete. Akradecki 17:25, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Year Links

Just an idea but should the links from the years on this list go to 19XX in aviation - for example to 1982 and not 1982.MilborneOne 21:29, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Good question...do we want the context for the reader to be the year as a whole, or the year of aviation events? Personally, I can't really see folks using the plain year link that much, but I can see them wanting to see other aviation events. Akradecki 21:36, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I like this idea of using the 1982 version and not 1982. I certainly think that at least one of the 2 is needed, as leaving the year unlinked (as in the current version) is wasting an important resource we have in an electronic encyclopedia of getting instant historical context. The MOS rule does not apply to this type of chronological list, IMO. Any thoughts or comments? Crum375 15:59, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Redlink rejection

I propose for now a simple policy of reducing the growing clutter of non-notable entries in this page. If the entry does not have its own individual article on WP, we remove it from this list page, which is supposed to be notable events. If the event is notable, prove it by setting up its page and fighting the AfD deletionists. If at any point a wikilink goes red, or is redirected to some combined group of events (i.e. not its own individual article), anyone may remove the entry as not belonging to this article. This is simple and fair and supports the title of this article. Please chime in with your opinions. As of now, this list article is out of control, IMO. Crum375 00:53, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Completely disagree. Wikipedia is strongly biased towards recent events - recent years have much more entries in this due to this. To remove redlinked entries you're only removing entries that are probably encylopedic but have yet to get an article written. We really need some sort of inclusion criteria to reduce the amount of entries in recent years, anti-redlinks just reduces years which are already pretty sparse. I'm not saying all the redlink entries deserve to be there - but treat them on merit, not just a whim. Thanks/wangi 04:35, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
You are obviously right about slant toward modern events, but the overall problem is that we are being overrun by non-notable events and right now nothing seems to be stopping them. Soon this article will look like an accident database, which WP is WP:NOT. The redlink rejection can be one tool to weed out the non-notables. Crum375 11:26, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
I also completely disagree with Crum375. Sometimes a red link is a promise of a forthcoming article, a place holder. This is necessary and desirable, in a growing body of evidence that is the Wikipedia. For example, I am about to add an entry of an accident that destoryed a wide-body jet on take-off and resulted in 3 deaths; it's well documented, and fairly recent, but not yet on this list: Garuda Indonesia Flight 865: pilot aborting the take-off on a single engine failure while at 167 knots airspeed and 9 ft altitude. This happened on 13 June 1996 at Fukuoka Airport, and while it is described briefly (but without the flight number) on the page of the airport, it does not yet have an article, and it is not even mentioned among the incidents on the aircraft's article page! The aircraft, a 1979-vintage McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30, was written off. Source: http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19960613-0 Or, do you think this is a non-notable incident? To me, this only indicates a need of new red links, not a need of deleting them. --Mareklug talk 15:40, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
I think you may be missing my point. I am not against redlinks in general. I think they are useful as you say, and I often use them myself. My point is specific in the context of a list article, that purports to list notable events, such as this one. In our case, we have a growing mess of very unnotable events that clutter up the article. If this continues, we'll be nothing more than an accident database, which WP is not. Since having eagle-eyed gatekeepers fighting to remove each extra piece of nn is hard and impractical, and obviously not working, my suggestion was to rely on the redlinks as an 'admission policy'. If someone wants to add an entry here, that's fine, but they must start with the event article. If it gets rejected as event article, we reject it too. So again, nothing to do with the general usefulness of redlinks, everything to do with a proposed method of keeping this article true to its promised title. Thanks, Crum375 17:32, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

August 13, 2004

"Killing both pilots"? The article itself sais that only one was killed.

This is an example for the non-notable stuff that we have now, and this one would even pass my redlink test, so it should be addressed at the article level. Crum375 13:41, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
And, according to the article itself, only one of the pilots were killed, not both. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 13:01, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Inclusion criteria - again

I realize we have no consensus as to what exactly is the inclusion threshold. But as I assume none of us wants this entry to be innundated with non notable accidents or incidents, I think we need to draw the line somewhere. For the time being, I propose to remove any entry that either has no corresponding article or at least no clear justification of notability/inclusion here in the Talk page. The last one I removed, the helicopter accident that killed the blues guitarist is an example. If someone can show (and convince) how it belongs here, I'll reconsider. And BTW, I think others should be gatekeepers too. Crum375 19:34, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

And noticing the latest inclusion, which was certainly notable, the question for me is "what is exactly the criterion of commercial in the title of this article?" - in this latest case as I recall it was some artists hiring a plane to take them to the mainland. Is this covered? If so, what is the meaning of 'commercial'? Crum375 21:38, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Example: I am a famous person. I hire a plane to take me to my gig and I crash and die, The papers have me in the front page with the crash photos. Does this belong in this article? My own theory would be yes if I have a WP article that can be linked here, no otherwise. Any comments? Crum375 21:47, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
I reverted the Aaliyah accident, as I didn't think it fit. -- Donald Albury 22:55, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Well that's one case. Don't we need some clear criterion? Crum375 22:56, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
"the helicopter accident that killed the blues guitarist"? Stevie Ray is more important, & a better player, to my mind, than van Zant, who does get included. You defend that. Trekphiler 21:29, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

"Worst disaster"

In 1985, the Air India bombing killed 280 Canadians, 329 total; but that same year, the Arrow crash killed 256. Yet the latter is listed as the worst. Both flights took off from Canada. Personally, I always hear of the Air India disaster as the worst in Canadian history, and I'd not heard of the Arrow crash until today.

Same year (yikes!) the JAL crash killed 520, and it's listed as the worst disaster to date. But in the 9/11 attacks, both WTC planes killed far more (about 600 + 65 for one, 92 + 1366 for the other).

Clearly, the Arrow and JAL crashes are the worst *accidents*, but I'm not sure they count as the worst *disasters*. Bhudson 07:18, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Air India Flight 182 is usually considered an "Irish accident" because the Irish transportation safety board investigated it and because it happened off the coast of Ireland. In the same way, Swissair Flight 111 is often thought of as a Canadian accident even though the aircraft was flying to Geneva (if I recall correctly off the top of my head) from New York. --Charlene 20:58, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I am noticing that several disasters are listed as the "worst" disaster for this country or that. In 1983 (I think) alone, there were two worst disasters ever in Canadian history. There are about three or so that are listed as the United States' worst disaster, and at least two listed as the worst disaster ever. Is there a way to standardize these or should we delete the "worst" taglines? Fundamentaldan 16:08, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I would simply fall back on the related WP article. If that article says 'worst accident in X' I would (optionally) echo it at the list level, and vice versa if it's not in the article it should not be here. If there is no WP article at all, then IMO there should be no list entry, per the proposed inclusion guideline, which we have begun to enforce lately. The way I see this list, it is a summary and subset of the direct WP articles. Crum375 18:50, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Proposed guideline

Hi, after a lot of thought I decided that the best way to improve this article is by agreeing by consensus on a firm guideline for inclusion and standardized formatting of entries. I have posted my initial draft here, please review and comment in the proposed guideline's Talk page. Thanks, Crum375 16:08, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Incorrect talk page

The following comments have been copied from the incorrect talk page "Talk talk:List of notable accidents and incidents on commercial aircraft/Guideline for inclusion criteria and format" — Tivedshambo (talk) 17:04, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I removed the copy of the Talk page from here - let's leave it where it is for now, till we find a better place. Thanks, Crum375 17:31, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
I moved it to the Wikipedia namespace: Wikipedia:List of notable accidents and incidents on commercial aircraft/Guideline for inclusion criteria and format. —Wknight94 (talk) 18:07, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Clarification - please comment!

As wknight94 noted above, the new home for the proposed inclusion and format/style guideline for this article can be found here, in Wikipedia's main namespace. Everyone concerned with the present and future status of this article is encouraged to carefully read the proposal and comment or modify it. It is our intent to rely on this guideline, once accepted, as a control mechanism for the content and style of this List article. Thanks, Crum375 17:51, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Candidates for 1979

I believe the following are notable additions to 1979, they do not have articles so are parked here pending action (or deletion) (MilborneOne 21:00, 30 October 2006 (UTC)):

  • 13 March 1979 - An Alia Boeing 727 (JY-ADU), forced into the ground during a thunderstorm near Doha Airport, Qatar. Of the 64 on board, 41 passengers and 3 crew died.
  • 17 March 1979 - An Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-104 crashed in freezing fog and rain near Moscow USSR. All 90 on board died.
  • 23 April 1979 - A SAETA Vickers Viscount (HC-AVP) missing on a flight from Quito to Cuenca. Aircraft found five years later. All 57 on board died (52 passengers and 5 crew).
  • 31 July 1979 - A Dan-Air HS 748 (G-BEKF) failed to become airborne at Sumburgh Airport, Scotland. Of the 47 on board, 15 passengers and two crew died.
  • 4 August 1979 - An Indian Airlines HS 748 (VT-DXJ) crashed into the Kiroli Hills 11km east of Bombay. All 45 on board died (40 passengers and five crew).
  • 14 September 1979 - An ATI Douglas DC-9 (I-ATJC) crashed into a mountain ridge near Cagliari, Italy. All 31 on board died (27 passengers and four crew).
  • 31 October 1979 - A Western Airlines Douglas DC-10 (N903WA) crashed landing on a closed runway at Mexico City airport, Mexico. Of the 89 on board, 61 passengers and 11 crew died (and one person on the ground).
  • 26 November 1979 - A PIA Boeing 707 (AP-AWZ) crashed after fire in the cabin. All 156 on board died (145 passengers and 11 crew). (moved to main page MilborneOne 23:54, 12 November 2006 (UTC))
  • 23 December 1979 - A THY Fokker F-28 (TC-JAT) crashed into a hill near Ankara, Turkey on approach. All 45 on board died (38 passengers and 3 crew).
Moved the above into the holding area.MilborneOne 21:25, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Candidates for 1980

I believe the following are notable additions to 1980, they do not have articles so are parked here pending action (or deletion) (MilborneOne 21:17, 30 October 2006 (UTC)):

  • 21 January 1980 - An Iran National Airlines Boeing 727 (EP-IRD) crashed into a mountain near Tehran, Iran. All 128 on board died (120 passengers and eight crew).
  • 12 April 1980 - A Trans-Brasil Boeing 727 (PT-TYS) crashed into a hill near Florianopolis, Brazil on approach. Of the 58 on board. 47 passengers and eight crew died.
  • 25 April 1980 - A Dan-Air Boeing 727 (G-BDAN) crashed into mountain near Tenerife, Spain. All 146 on board died (138 passengers and eight crew).
  • 27 April 1980 - A Thai Airways HS 748 (HS-THB) crashed during a thunderstorm near Bangkok, Thailand. All 53 on board died (40 passengers and four crew).
  • 19 August 1980 - A Saudi Arabian Airlines Lockheed Tristar (HZ-AHK) destroyed on ground after airborne fire. All 301 on board died (287 passengers and 141 crew).
  • 26 August 1980 - A Bouraq Indonesian Vickers Viscount (PK-IVS) crashed into a swamp. All 37 on board died (31 passengers and six crew).
  • 12 September 1980 - A Florida Commuter Airlines Douglas DC-3 (N75KW) crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. All 34 on board died (30 passengers and four crew).
  • 21 December 1980 - An Aerovias del Cesar Sud Caravelle (HK-1810) crashed after onboard explosion. All 70 on board died (63 passengers and seven crew).
Moved the above into the holding area. MilborneOne 21:25, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

1954

I'm pulling this one off the list and parking it here for 2 reasons: 1, it is arguably the result of military action, so may not fully qualify, and 2, does not have its own wikipedia article.

I'm fully willing to be reversed on this, though. Akradecki 05:08, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I think it might be best if you did reverse this and place it back on the list. This flight definitely could have a page of its own and this list includes "incidents" on commercial aircraft. This incident sounds quite similar to BOAC Flight 777 and several others involving military shoot downs of civilians planes. Maybe if you changed the article to:
Someone else could write the article for the story. There is a page at Aviation Saftey about the crash, and I haven't checked but I'm willing to bet there's some NY Times articles about this flight available through the nytimes proquest database.--David Straub 13:50, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Merger into sortable table

Would it make sense to merge the by date, by location, by airline, and by death toll lists into a single dynamically sortable table? (See List of United States disasters by death toll for an example and Help:Sorting for documentaion.) That would seem to make this info easier to maintain and improve. -- Beland 03:57, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Although table format has its advantages in principle, I am not sure it's ideally suited for this particular list, for the following reasons:
  1. The theme and focus of this specific list is to show chronological progression of accidents/incidents over time, hence other sort modes would disrupt this focus
  2. Due to the 'notability' criteria, the inclusion threshold is somewhat fuzzy, hence sorting by parameters such as death toll would not be valid, as that is not a clear inclusion requirement; other parameters could be even fuzzier
  3. Our coverage for the early years is drastically reduced compared to recent ones, also Western coverage is much better than Eastern or Third World, hence any conclusions based on raw numbers could be way off
  4. A table would make sense for a true exhaustive database, like ASN [1] or NTSB [2] (which of course are limited in scope in their own ways); a query there is fairly reliable and includes most/all accidents within their specified scope, while our list is very (subjectively) selective in nature (at this point we insist on a corresponding WP article for each item here)
  5. A table format would make some larger entries, e.g. for the 9/11 crashes and other special events, including collisions, more difficult to squeeze into standardized spaces
Having said all that, there is no reason you couldn't try a separate table-ized version experimentally, either in your Sandbox or in even article space. There are already lots of variants of this list elsewhere, and probably a better variant to try it on would be "accidents with more than 20 fatalities" etc. Crum375 14:33, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
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