Talk:Mount Erebus disaster/Archive 1

Moved

I have moved text from the Air New Zealand article to this daughter article. WhisperToMe 15:40, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Beat me to it Whisper. Cheers. Moriori 19:41, Nov 22, 2003 (UTC)

Removed sentence

I have removed this sentence: so he could not be said to have been guilty of unauthorised low flying.

Why? It is totally accurate. You are deliberately censoring significant remarks made by Justice Mahon. (Incidentally, I have reformatted the par indents here to hopefully make it clearer).

Air NZ sent a briefing to pilots dated 8/11/79 with the following notification: Delete all reference in briefing dated 23/10/79. Note that the only let-down procedure available is VMC below FL160 (16,000ft) to 6,000ft as follows: 1.Vis 20 km plus 2.No snow shower in area. 3.Avoid Mt Erebus area by operating in an arc from 120 Grid through 360G to 270G from McMurdo Field, within 20nm of TACAN CH29. 4.Descent to be coordinated with local radar control as they may have other traffic in the area. Thus, although Collins had been cleared to descend by McMurdo, he was still in breach of company regulations.

Excuse me! Do you think we should also state that the company DELIBERATELY encouraged its pilots to breach regulations? You do acknowledge that Air New Zealand ADVERTISED its Antarctic flights on TV by showing aircraft at very low altitude? I didn't think that especially relevant to the original article, but it would be relevant and would need to be included if you added that information.

I don't think the airline can be accused of deliberately encouraging pilots to breach regulations when they issue an unequivocal briefing such as the one above. However, if you can find and quote sources to prove this, in addition proving that the TV ad footage showed flights below permitted altitude, please let me know where it is. I seem to recall the ads didn't depict the DC10 flying as low as all that.

In this light, 'not being guilty of unauthorised low flying' is incorrect, however, I'm not sure how to replace the sentence. I do realise it was in Mahons report and the sentence was no doubt reflecting that, but I can't figure out a good place to point out this briefing that he failed to take account of. Perhaps someone else can.

Wikipedia can't censor those words. They are correct because the pilot was indeed authorised to fly low, the words were written by Justice Mahon, the Privy Council did not overturn them, and the government has formally accepted his report.

I am not censoring those words - as already said, I removed them because it is misleading for Wikipedia to present Mahon's claim without also presenting the information from Air NZ that pilots were briefed on the minimum allowable height. Hopefully the new structure of the article will make it easier for Mahon's view as well as the Air NZ information to be presented for evaluation without committing the 'sin of omission'.

By the way, while researching this all, I came across this web link: http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=111360&perpage=15&pagenumber=1 in which airline pilots discuss the accident. Originally I believed the Mahon report in that the pilots were completely not to blame, but after reading this thread I have changed my mind. -- 219.88.44.214 08:20, 11 December 2003 (UTC)

We can all believe what we like. But we can not change facts, or censor them. The purpose of the enquiry was to try to deternmine what happened. The main question everyone was asking was, who was to blame. Justice Mahon cleared the crew of blame, yet you have embellished the article with information which deals not with blame but with allegations of ANZ coverup/lies. Why?

Moriori objected to some additions I made to the article on the grounds it made the article unbalanced, and so deleted them. I have reinstated them and hope we can move the discussion to the talk page rather than engaging in an edit war. Personally, I think that adding content to the other theory is a more constructive way of restoring balance.

I think it disengenuous of you to ex post facto say you hope we can move discussion to the talk page. Why not before amending the page? If I revert the article to where it was before you added your POV, I trust you will heed your own advice to discuss my action here. Or does disussion before action apply only to people other than you?

Because you amended the page without calling for discussion first as well. The change in structure to the article will hopefully allow both theories to be detailed without disturbing the other.

I suggest this is done by maybe breaking the page up into two subheadings - 'Crew Error Theory' and another heading reflecting Mahon's verdict - although I'm not sure what it would be called - System breakdown theory? Communication error theory? These would contain a summary of the main points from the Official Accident Report and the Mahon Enquiry, with a brief ending stating Mahon's verdict was overturned on appeal, however public opinion remains polarised. I'll start on that when I next have some time. How does this sound to everyone? -- 219.88.44.214 10:05, 11 December 2003 (UTC)

No. The original article was a factual report on Flight 901, without POV, and should be retained. As it correctly stated, Mahon's verdict was NOT overturned as you claim here. The part dealing with coverup/lies was overturned, but his remarks regarding blame were not overturned. By insisting on publishing such a deliberate error you would sucessfully destroy the integrity of Wikipedia as an authority on anything. We may not agree with Mahon's findings but we are bound to report them accurately. If you feel you need to have an article on "Crew Error Theory" then fine, you should create it, and add a link to it. The page you amended was about Flight 901, not latter day crew error theory (which of course would need to include that Mahon's enquiry has significantly influenced how air accidents are investigated today). Subsequent writings and postulations are fine, but they can't change history. The original article was an accurate encyclopedia report of an event in NZ's history. I have no axe to grind. Note that I added the word "controversially" to describe Mahon's outburst re coverup/lies, and I added the line "and public opinion regarding this disaster still remains polarised." Moriori 00:35, Dec 12, 2003 (UTC)

Again, I hope the headings I've added to the article will make things clearer. I have no axe to grind either - in fact, as stated previously, I agreed with the Mahon report until reading some of the opposing literature and discussing the issue with every pilot I could lay my hands on. JazzNZ 04:08, Dec 12, 2003 (UTC)

List of victims

Moving on to another topic altogether - should a list of the victim's names be posted? Cast your vote here. I am ambivalent but leaning towards 'yes'. I suggest first majority rules. -- JazzNZ 04:11, 12 December 2003 (UTC)

YES - publicly accessible information, possible historical interest in future, for sake of completeness. (I note some Sep 11th victims have articles, if convention matters at all) -- JazzNZ 04:13, 12 December 2003 (UTC)

This is a very old thread and it appears that nothing has been done about it. Nevertheless, my vote is YES, but the data should be held somewhere seperately, either in a separate article or possibly at WikiSource. -- FP ^{<talk><edits>} 12:22, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

FP, if you're interested into incorporating a list of victims into the article, here is a list. — † Webdinger ^{BLAH | SZ} 01:45, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Name of the Article

Currently this article is called Air New Zealand Flight 901. However I believe it should be changed to Mount Erebus disaster, because most New Zealanders would know the accident under this name, rather than flight 901.

Also the title of the royal commission in the accident was called Report of the Royal Commission into the crash on Mount Erebus, Antarctica, of a DC10 aircraft operated by Air New Zealand Limited, 1981, it does not even contain a mention of the flight number. A quick survey of how the media refers to the accident reveals that Mount Erebus disaster (or some variant) [1] [2] . -- Popsracer 11:09, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

This article has been moved back to Air New Zealand Flight 901 in line with the (emerging) Wikipedia naming practice for other air disasters. Mount Erebus disaster redirects to it. Personally I think the current title is more encyclopedic. Any objections? -- FP ^{<talk><edits>} 12:25, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

Actually I'm not sure that the new name is based on a Wikipedia naming practise at all, although GCarty seemed to think so [3]. I will ask for comments on the New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board to get some feedback on the more appropriate name. -- FP ^{<talk><edits>} 12:34, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

Exhibit 164

So what was exhibit 164? The article mentions the number but no more. -- William M. Connolley 11:54, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Someone has since added this to the article: "Exhibit 164" refers to a photocopied diagram of McMurdo Sound showing a southbound flight path passing west of Ross Island and a northbound path passing the island on the east. The diagram didn't extend sufficiently far south to show where, how, or even if they joined, and left the two paths disconnected. Evidence had been given to the effect that the diagram had been included in the flight crew's briefing documentation. -- FP ^{<talk><edits>} 12:28, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

Legacy

Just a note for the sake of completeness. Air New Zealand's decision to replace DC-10s with Boeing 747s probably had more to do with the grounding of all DC-10s for five weeks in 1979. There's a very brief mention of this grounding at McDonnell_Douglas_DC-10#Safety_record; I'm surprised Wikipedia doesn't have more on it. Had Air New Zealand not been government owned, it might have collapsed at that point (this is purely speculation on my part).-gadfium 07:54, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Movie

Not any contribution but would like to know if anyone can help with the name of a dramatized movie made of the Mnt Erebus disastar. edras1@absamail.co.za

There was a TV serial (miniseries) that was broadcast in NZ and AU called Erebus: The Aftermath, made in 1988. Perhaps this should be added to the article. --MCB 17:19, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

44 Unidentified victims

How can there be so many people who were unidentified? Wouldn't Air NZ have some kind of paper trail that would say who was on the plane?

That sentence should probably be clarified. It's not that ANZ didn't know who was on the plane, but that the remains of 44 of the victims were not individually identifiable and thus could not be returned to their families for funerals. --MCB 18:01, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

• Now fixed. --MCB 19:30, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Changing of coordinates

Who changed them? It's not clear in the article, and I think it's important to note, especially since Mahon found it to be the reason the plane crashed. Iorek85 05:41, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Brian Hewitt of the Navigation Department on the 17th floor of Air New Zealand House 1 Queen St AUckland

But Mahon got this terribly wrong- not being a pilot

The coordinate error would not have mattered if the crew did not arm the Inertial Nav under VFR

The Inertial Nav is an IFR instrument - to be used safely above Minimm Safe Altitude (MSA) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.155.178.202 (talk) 11:04, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Victim Nationalities Discrepancy

This site [4] doesn't agree with the nationalities of victims listed here. It has the following listed:

US:18 (this article says 22) UK:8 (this article says 6) SWISS:3 (this article says 1) JAPAN:23 (this article says 24) FR:1 (this article says 1 - hey something matches) CA:3 (this article says 3 - and again!) NZ:203 (including 20 crew) (this article says 200)

(this article also says 1x Australian)

These add up to 259, so it doesn't even agree with itself (257 victims) - but where are the nationalities listed on this page sourced from? I couldn't find it in any of the refs. PseudoEdit ^(yak) _(track) 21:52, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Added a cn tag. PseudoEdit ^(yak) _(track) 04:15, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

About the information I removed

First, mentioning that the airline sold it's DC-10s later seemed irrelevant since nobody faulted the plane itself.

Second, in order to have as cozy a community as the "sizable portion" assertion claimed; everyone would need to know 10,000 people if we use the ultra-conservative figure of 2,000,000 for the population. Of course the higher the actual number, the more people each person would need to know. (I just divided 2,000,000 by 200) I've talked to many friendly New Zealanders but I seriously doubt people's Christmas card lists down there go into the thousands. Anynobody 08:48, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Front page news

This particular article made the front page of The Press today. Seems that an IP address traced to Air New Zealand made some edits to this article that were designed to make the article more favourable to Air NZ. The edit mentioned in the article was appears to be this one from 2003. I had to laugh at the sentence from the article that read "Computer experts contacted by The Press also tracked the altered entry back to Air New Zealand's computer server." -- as if using WHOIS is that hard. Evil Monkey - Hello 21:08, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Turns out the edits were first discovered by the NZBC blog. They also pointed out another edit that made large additions to the article. Evil Monkey - Hello 01:23, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

An orchestrated litany of lies

A line in the article:

The phrase "An Orchestrated Litany of Lies" has entered New Zealand popular culture.

has been tagged as citation needed. What would be a suitable citation for this?

It would be easy to add three references (or more) from a variety of New Zealand sources showing use of the phrase unconnected to the Erebus report. Is that enough, or do we need a source which actually says "This phrase is now part of New Zealand popular culture"? Here are some sample uses: [5] (the album of this name: ...a famous quote from NZs recent political past...), [6] (...To quote a well known phrase, there has been "An orchestrated litany of lies”...), [7] (...in a phrase that is likely to resound as did “an orchestrated litany of lies” in another investigation...). Some of these are not considered reliable sources, but we are not using them to establish facts but usage.-gadfium 19:40, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Since no one replied, I've added these three refs to the article.-gadfium 17:55, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Continuation of Antarctic flights

Did this incident spell the end of sightseeing flights to Antarctica run by Air New Zealand? Either way I think mention of the continuation (or otherwise) of the service should be made in the "Legacy" section Dick G (talk) 06:29, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, there were no more after this. I don't have a ref though.-gadfium 04:41, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I'll let you off, just this once... Dick G (talk) 05:36, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Minor edit to correct nature of the Ross Ice Shelf

I have made a minor edit to correct the statement that the Ross Ice Shelf is sea-ice. It certainly isn't; ice shelves are formed where glaciers flow into the sea and are in Antarctica are continuous with the great ice sheets of the continent. --APRCooper (talk) 09:48, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Are all of the crew members from New Zealand?

Were all of the crew members from New Zealand? If so, what source states this? If not, what source and what nationalities are the non-NZ crew members? WhisperToMe 08:45, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

This: http://www.antarctic.homestead.com/901.html states that all of the crew were from Auckland - But does another source say this? WhisperToMe 08:50, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

When was the error to the flight plan made?

In "Circumstances surrounding the accident":

At that time flight plan coordinates were entered into the computer by hand, and during this process a single digit had been typed incorrectly. This resulted in the flight plan, originally intended to fly down the middle of the wide McMurdo Sound, actually being programmed to fly directly over Mount Erebus, some miles to the east.

In "Changes to the coordinates and departure":

Unknown to them, the coordinates had been modified earlier that morning to correct the error introduced years previously and undetected until now. These new coordinates changed the flight plan to fly 45 kilometres (28 miles) east of where the pilots intended the plane to fly. The coordinates instructed the plane to fly over Lewis Bay and directly over Mount Erebus, a 3,794 m (12,448 ft) high volcano, instead of over McMurdo Sound.

So what exactly happened? What I gathered from the article is that the original plan flew over McMurdo Sound, this was changed for some reason to fly over Mt. Erebus, and then the pilots unwittingly entered the new plan. But that contradicts the first quote, which makes it sound like the error was made during the entry process.

The other interpretation I'm getting is that the original plan wrongly flew to Erebus, it was changed westward to McMurdo, but the pilots entered wrongly to go back to Erebus again. But that makes no sense as to why changing the flight plan would've been a problem. Kelvinc (talk) 20:37, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

see section above on who changed the coordinates —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.155.178.202 (talk) 11:07, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I just came across this article through random browsing, and I agree with the OP that the quoted section is entirely incoherent and simply cannot be understood as presently written. As I have no other knowledge of this incident I have no idea what really happened. Can someone with knowledge please correct the offending sections to be comprehensible? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.84.172.249 (talk) 16:59, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:AirNewZealandFlight901.jpg

Image:AirNewZealandFlight901.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 04:19, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

When was the error to the flight plan made? - any answers?

Any answers to the question "When was the error to the flight plan made?" above? This article doesn't make sense as it stands. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.97.73.18 (talk) 15:45, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

The end of this article helps clarify a little, I think. Also, I think the article used to have this right, look at this diff. 79.69.17.154 (talk) 23:20, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree, the article is ambiguous and contradictary in this part. The Mahon Inquiry report seems to clear details about it up though. I'm still reading through all the details (it is a big report and a big download), but it appears that in the pre-flight briefing held some days previously, Captain Collins copied down the lattitude/longitude coordinates shown on a flight plan print-out that was, at that the time, the current one stored on Air New Zealand's ground computer. However, it appears that print-out was text only (computer systems I imagine very basic in 1979). Captain Collins took these coordinates, and hand plotted them on his own personal atlas, which corresponded with a flight path SW down McMurdo Sound, leaving Mt Erebus well to the East. So, this is the route he expected to take, and he was not provided with copies of any maps from Air NZ. However, it appears Air NZ's approved route WAS to fly over Mt Erebus (in the centre of Ross Island), which rose to a height of 12,000 feet. If Air NZ had also given Captain Collins a flight plan map, then he probably would have realised there was a discrepancy. Air New Zealand ground staff spotted the error in the lattitude/longitude waypoint coordinates stored in their ground computer's database and corrected it at 1:40 am the morning of the flight. On the morning of the flight, a fresh print-out of waypoint coordinates was given the the flight crew, who entered these into the flight computer. However, Captain Collins was still under the impression from his previous mark-up of his atlas that he was NOT going to fly over Mt Erebus. Figures 3 and 4 in the Mahon report I think helps clear this up nicely.--NiceDoge (talk) 08:44, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Some further conjecture on my part, but the other part of the question I would like to see answered is WHY Air NZ had, as their approved flight plan, a flight path taking aircraft over the only piece of high ground in the area? That doesn't seem very safe to me, and I bet if any of the previous flights had flown the "authorised" plan (instead of the erroneous one flown by the 13 previous flights) the returning flight crews would have quickly requested that it be changed to a safer one away from Mt Erebus. It may have been that the "authorised" plan was ill-conceived in the first place, and someone just strung together a set of known coordinates already in use in the area and never properly joined the dots together on a map, or did so and didn't consider the safety issues in terms of checking for any high ground along the flight path. Also, who made the corrections to the ground computer navigational database that morning and why? Was it like a junior clerk doing some late-night cross-checking of the paper documents against the computer records when he had nothing better to do on a night-shift? Why didn't Air NZ procedures trigger some sort of safety review by say, an experienced flight crew, before amending the ground computer database records?--NiceDoge (talk) 09:35, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, I think I've got through the guts of the facts presented during the Mahon Inquiry around the sequence of events. I've ignored the parts of that report that have been contested by Air New Zealand (Mahon hypothesises about some events and motives for them) and limited myself to the evidence presented by Air New Zealand staff to the Inquiry. I've inserted the bulk of the text required to fix up the ambiguity and contradictions but I have to do some reference link tidy-ups and also fix up the paragraph in the next section (there is now a little bit of repetitive content).--NiceDoge (talk) 15:48, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

"Recent Revelations" section

Like a previous editor, I removed the conspiracy-theory-laden section titled "Recent Revelations" [sic]. The material is very poorly sourced; it does not meet Wikipedia's verifiability and reliable sourcing policies and does not belong in the article. (The "revelations" are not particularly recent, hence the "[sic]" above.") It is a rambling section that basically consists of original research by synthesis.

As to the sources, the only one that could be considered reliable is John King's 1994 book, New Zealand Tragedies: Aviation Accidents and Disasters, but no direct quotation is given, and the book cannot be verified online. The reference to Secret NZ is cited to a footnote that merely reads, "Secret NZ". The multiple references to poneke.wordpress.com are to an ordinary blog hosted on a blog site, the type of self-published source that is inappropriate for Wikipedia. And both http://www.iasa.co..au/folders/Publications/Legal_Issues/Erebus25yearson.html (even with the extra dot removed from the URL) and http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominionpost/4398336a6749.html are nonexistent links.

This is fringe material that raises a red flag. Exceptional claims require exceptional sources. That is not the case here. Please do not re-inster this material unless well supported by reliable, established sources. --MCB (talk) 07:50, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Changes made to "Circumstances surrounding the accident" section

Below I need to cite relevant sections I sourced my changes from in the Mahon Inquiry Report, for both my benefit and for the community to be able to verify the source material. Unfortunately, the source document I am working with (External Link for the article) is a 190 page PDF that was scanned without OCR (text shown as images only) and had to extract from many 1,000s of words (Mahon unfortunately is not very good at "getting to the point" sometimes) a semi-decent summary.

- "...shown a print-out of the flight plan stored on Air New Zealand's computer systems". Paraphrased from Pg 12, Point 35.

- Alteration of coordinates of McMurdo waypoint on Air NZ ground computer system. Pg 13, Point 37.

- Advice from US ATC that descent possible to 1,500 ft. Pg 5, Point 13.

- Cloud base being 2,000 - 3,000 feet. Pg 8, Point 18.

- Flying in visibility out to 23 miles. Pg 10, Point 28.

- Pause in route to descend though cloud. Pg 11. Point 32.

- Captain Collins plotting course on map/atlas night before flight. Pg 12. Point 36.

- Some summary information on how coordinates got mixed up, and why Captain Collins had to make own maps. Pg 12-13

- Great figures showing difference in routes between the one Captain Collins plotted and expected to fly, and actual route. Pg 13-14 Fig 3 and Fig 4.

- Approved route Minimum Safe Altitudes. Pg 17

- Role of pre-flight briefings regarding heeding US ATC advice in descending to 1,500 ft despite route MSA. Pg 18. --NiceDoge (talk) 03:31, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Made some further edits and re-arrangements to this section. Apologies for taking so many edits to "get it right", but as discussed before, the 190 page Mahon Inquiry report is a REALLY hard document to extract concise summaries of facts out of. You really have to scour and re-read sections over and over again to get all the tit-bits together to get a complete picture of what happened. This is probably why the original article and most external sources were ambiguous to begin with (and many with minor factual inaccuracies)--NiceDoge (talk) 16:42, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

A further proposal I would put is to remove any reference to Air New Zealand's data entry into its ground computer of the McMurdo waypoint coordinates being as a result of a data entry "error" (The much quoted single digit typing error). Although that was Air New Zealand's version of events, Mahon believed the coordinates input to the ground computer to be intentional as the first route was impractical, and the "incorrect" route was better, already in use by the airline's pilots, and corresponded to the route used by military aircraft on their approach to McMurdo. He didn't believe Air NZ's version of events (although I think he stopped believing anything much that the Air NZ executives said pretty early on. He was pretty outraged about the shredding of documents immediately after the crash in what appeared to be a very shady way). So the "official" accident report says there was no data entry error, but Air NZ's "official" position was that there was. I suggest wording this neutrally then.--NiceDoge (talk) 16:42, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Vandal alert!

Someone inserted cannibalism claims into the Operation Overdue section! 91.83.26.231 (talk) 21:35, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

The graphic

CG render of Mt. Erebus being hidden by lighting conditions among the clouds in front of ZK-NZP

I appreciate the effort and all, but this image is WP:OR and such images don't belong in Wikipedia articles. Tempshill (talk) 06:37, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I disagree that the image is Original Research. The OR policy defines OR, in summary, as "unpublished facts, arguments, speculation, and ideas; and any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position." The image creator has rendered an important part of one of the key findings of the inquiry, about which there appears to be little dispute. He/she took care to reproduce the relevant text from the inquiry in the image description page.

The OR policy states: "Summarizing source material without changing its meaning is not synthesis; it is good editing." In my view, the CG rendering in question, is the graphical equivalent of summarising the official findings regarding the likely view from the DC-10's cockpit in the final moments of the flight. The image is an important contribution to the article, as the rendering would add to a reader's understanding of a critical component of the subject. In terms of OR, I see it as analagous to the hundreds of thousands of graphs and diagrams (and even labelled maps) created by users and uploaded in order to illustrate a concept in an article - very few of which can be challenged, on any reasonable basis, as original research. Elsewhere, the OR policy staes: "...editors are encouraged to...draw pictures or diagrams...to illustrate articles. Original images created by a Wikipedia editor are not, as a class, considered original research – as long as they do not illustrate or introduce unpublished ideas or arguments, the core reason behind the NOR policy." I see nothing 'original or unpublished' represented in the image of the plane flying towards Erebus. Having said all this, I can appreciate that your post above is clearly in good faith, and you were right to raise discussion regarding your concerns, rather than, deleting the graphics for example :)GlenDillon 06:56, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Tempshill, I totally understand your concern, and indeed I considered the issue of OR when creating them. I couldn't agree more with GlenDillon, in fact he's saved me a lot of time by making the exact points I would have.

If I had depicted clouds of smoke from the volcano obscuring the peak then you'd be exactly right, since in such an image I'd be adding something not described in the sources.

GlenDillon, I really appreciate your post :) Seriously not only does it save me time writing a long involved explanation of why the images are cool from a policy standpoint but I also value your support :) Anynobody(?) 01:41, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

The image is original research and is not allowed on Wikipedia. It depicts a scene that cannot be proved existed. Did the sky look like that? Was the plane in that exact attitude when it was at that point? Were there birds in the sky? This is an imagining of what this moment in time might have looked like, and as such it's clearly WP:OR. I appreciate that these images probably took a lot of time for you to create, but they are not allowed. I'll bring it up at Village Pump. Tempshill (talk) 21:28, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I find the image very similar to the photos and description that Mahon used in his Inquiry's report to illustrate the view most likely seen by Flight 901 (whiteout conditions). He actually got another aircraft to fly the exact same route as Flight 901 and take pictures of Mt Erebus just before his aircraft "crashed" (the aircraft he was on diverted at the last possible moment for realism's sake). Perhaps all that is required is a change of caption to something like "Illustration of whiteout conditions similar to that experienced by Flight 901". This way the image creator is stating that the image is not actually the view seen by Flight 901, but rather a similar view (as Mahon did for his photos), and he/she can refer the source material as being similar to the photos seen in the Mahon report.--122.108.197.181 (talk) 14:12, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Pilot error?

I remember this accident happening when I was a kid and hearing that the blame was put on the pilots. After the Mahon report a lot of blame was shifted away from the crew. As a pilot myself I can see how it is very easy to put blame onto the crew, especially when they can not defend themselves. I am sensitive to the fact that this was a very well trained and highly regarded crew. But this really reminds me a lot of Cali accident with American Airlines Flight 965. The crew in that accident erased waypoint data from the Flight Management System while flying blind down a mountain valley at night. Then the waypoint they selected in the FMS wasn't the one they wanted eventually resulting in them impacting a mountain. There are so many reasons this should never have happened. Some blame was assigned to Honeywell as the FMS manufacturer and Jeppesen for its aviation database. Most of the blame remained with the crew. This is because the crew didn't have the basic navigation equipment tuned to the frequencies of the nearby navaids. When the FMS route was erased the crew had no plan B to instantly fall back on. This didn't seem like a problem initially until it became clear the airplane was going somewhere other then where they wanted it to. Flying at night in a mountain valley with suddenly no idea where they were an accident is almost unavoidable. This accident has some similarities that are not easy to dismiss. On the previous Antarctic flight the crew noticed their position was not where it was supposed to be. This article states they checked and compared their position with the McMurdo TACAN and NDB to confirm it. These are ground based navaids that should have been available to the crew of New Zealand Flight 901. Clearly the crew thought they were flying down McMurdo Sound, not Lewis Bay, but did they cross check this with the ground based navaids? Possibly in the severe conditions of the area the navaids were out of service but the crew should have attempted to cross reference their position by these navaids if they were available. As highly experienced as this crew was sadly I think there is some blame to place on them if this was not done. I don't have a copy of the flight data recorder transcript to know one way or the other though. Clearly there is still a lot of blame to go around and the circumstances of the flight planning are unforgivable. Unfortunately though a lot of crews have gotten in trouble when the automation and high tech cockpit systems fail and let them down. The basic instruments were there and they should have been used just in case the magic of the automation failed them. Skywayman (talk) 02:23, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Air New Zealand Flight 901/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

GA Sweeps: Delisted

As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria. I believe the article currently has multiple issues that need to be addressed, and as a result, I have delisted the article. The majority of the article is lacking sources. Add additional citations from a variety of sources to provide a balanced representation of the information present. Perhaps sources can be pulled from the main articles linked to within the article. Look to books, magazines, newspaper articles, other websites, etc. The lead should also be expanded to better summarize the article, see WP:LEAD guidelines. The one non-free image is lacking a fair use rationale for inclusion in the article. Although the article has been delisted, the article can be return to GA status by addressing the above points. Once sources are added and cleanup is done, I recommend renominating the article at WP:GAN. If you disagree with this assessment, a community consensus can be reached at WP:GAR. If you need clarification or assistance with any of these issues, please contact me on my talk page and I'll do my best to help you out. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 04:35, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Crash Site

Does anyone know of the exact co-ordinates this crash happened, or which side of the mountain I can find the left over debris? Will this be visible from Google Maps at all? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.34.172.200 (talk) 10:11, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

"Recent" Revelations Section

Many thanks for taking the time to explain why my "Recent Revelations" section had to go. Unfortunately the person who removed it the first time didn't do this.

The two "non-existant" links that I cited didn't work because I mistyped them. The stuff.co.nz one should have ended "6479 not 6749" and the other one should have been ".com.au" not ".co..au."

It's a pity that the poneke.wordpress.com blog is not allowed as a source. The writers all seem to know what they are talking about and it's very well written and detailed.

Secret New Zealand is a New Zealand TV series, presented by Peter Elliott, about cover-ups and the like in New Zealand's history that screened on TVNZ's Channel One in 2002 and is currently being shown on Sky Network Television's History Channel (New Zealand) with the Erebus Disaster episode being screened last week. Unfortunately there is no Secret New Zealand website.

I'm a bit stumped as to how I could rewrite the esection in a way that doesn't constitute Original Research.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.92.48.133 (talk • contribs) 3:15, 16 October 2008 (UTC)