User:AHeneen/sandbox/Proposed aviation incident styleguide
Note: This page is a draft guideline that I will propose to Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation to be used. It has yet to be proposed to the group for feedback/constructive criticism and does not have any recognized status as a style guideline for aviation incidents.
These guidelines are intended to provide guidance for the structure and content of Wikipedia articles about aviation accidents.
Notability[edit]
Large aircraft operated by an airline[edit]
For civil aircraft aircraft operated by an airline (excluding both air taxi and charter operations which had fewer than 10 passengers), an accident is noteworthy if it meets one of the following criteria:
- The accident was fatal to humans (including people on the ground)
- The accident involved hull loss or serious damage to the aircraft or airport—eg. Air France Flight 358 (all 297 persons aboard escaped before fire destroyed aircraft after runway excursion)
- The accident or incident resulted in changes to procedures, regulations or processes affecting airports, airlines or the aircraft industry—eg. Eastwind Airlines Flight 517 (no fatalities or significant damage, but led investigators to determine the cause of a rudder problem that caused at least two fatal crashes that killed 157 people)
- The aircraft has disappeared and—if it doesn't meet one of the above criteria—it is presumed or is reasonably expected to have crashed, involving fatalities and/or serious damage to the aircraft—eg. 2003 Boeing 727-223 disappearance (stolen Boeing 727 last seen leaving Luanda, Angola and flying out into the Atlantic Ocean)
Light and military aircraft[edit]
Accidents involving light aircraft (including light aircraft operated by an airline) and military aircraft are mostly non-notable. They account for many more accidents and incidents than larger civil aircraft. Nearly all accidents involving military aircraft in non-hostile situations are unlikely to merit their own article. Many are suitable for inclusion in the relevant List of accidents and incidents involving military aircraft. Accidents involving military aircraft in hostile situations (and during training exercises which have a Wikipedia article) may be included in the relevant Wikipedia article.
For accidents involving light aircraft (maximum gross weight of 12,500 lb (5,670 kg) or less) or any military aircraft the standard for inclusion is:
- the accident involved the death of a person of sufficient individual notability to have their own biography page in Wikipedia (and the biography is not solely due to them being an accident victim)—eg. 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash (all 96 passengers and crew were killed, including the Polish president)
- the accident resulted in a significant change to the aircraft design or aviation operations, including changes to national or company procedures, regulations or issuance of an Airworthiness Directive (or the equivalent to an AD in the case of non-certified aircraft).
- the accident involved a large number of fatalities, particularly of non-passengers—eg. B-25 Empire State Building crash (collision with the Empire State building resulted in death of three crew and 11 civilians), 2003 Iran (IIRG) Il-76 crash (275 members of the Iranian military killed, the ninth-deadliest aviation accident as of 2015)
Treatment of recent incidents[edit]
In the weeks following an aviation crash, it is sometimes unclear whether an incident meets any of the above criteria. In non-fatal incidents involving large commercial aircraft, there will often be debate about whether the amount of damage is significant (or if it will be considered a hull loss) and whether or not the incident will "[result] in changes to procedures, regulations or processes affecting airports, airlines or the aircraft industry."
An article for an incident involving a major airline is usually created shortly after initial news reports are made and usually before the severity of the incident is established. This sometimes results in articles being created for relatively minor incidents that are soon deleted. However, it may take 24-48 hours for the severity of damage to be assessed and revealed to the public. Therefore, there should be at least a 24 hour waiting period after the event before any deletion nomination. On the advice of Wikipedia's event notability guidelines, for breaking news "it is recommended to delay the nomination for a few days to avoid the deletion debate dealing with a moving target and to allow time for a clearer picture of the notability of the event to emerge, which may make a deletion nomination unnecessary."
Article title[edit]
In most cases, the article title is "[Airline] Flight [flight number (omitting the ICAO or IATA airline designator)]". For example, use Qantas Flight 32, not Qantas Flight QF32 or Qantas QFA32. Redirects should be created with alternative titles that incorporate the ICAO or IATA airline designator. If there is an established common name for an event (eg. Tenerife airport disaster), it should be used as the article title.
If there is no flight number for the flight or common name for the event, the following composition should be used for the title: "[year] [location] [airline/operator] [aircraft type] crash/collision/disappearance/hijacking". For example: 1998 Occidental Petroleum Boeing 737 crash, 2009 California mid-air collision, and 2013 Ethiopian Air Force An-12 crash.
General content considerations[edit]
First and foremost, all articles are subject to the Manual of Style. The guidelines on this page are intended to address subjects which deserve more specific style guidelines and should be applied with common sense—there are times when exceptions are appropriate. The purpose of these guidelines is to apply consistent layout, style, and formatting across aviation accident-related articles; when exceptions are appropriate, it is more important to be consistent within an article than to be consistent with other articles.
The amount of information available for aviation incidents varies significantly based on the type of aircraft, era, and location. Thus, there is generally more information available for the crash of a commercial aircraft in 2010 than a similar incident in 1957. Likewise, there would almost certainly be more information available for an accident in sub-Saharan Africa involving an Airbus or Boeing aircraft than for an Ilyushin (Soviet-built) aircraft, owing to the fact that the BEA (France) or NTSB (US) will be involved in the investigation and their published findings would be more detailed than from the country of the incident or Russia. Such discrepancy in the amount of available information should be considered when judging a good article or featured article candidate. For example, sufficient information about an incident in 1957 may not be available to justify separate "Passenger" and "Crew" sections.
The article should be understandable by the average Wikipedia reader, who does not have much knowledge of aviation terminology. However, the content of the article should not be simplified to the point that it loses its encyclopedic value. This subject is explained in detail at Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable, an editing guideline that every aviation incident article should follow.