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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect to Continental_Airlines#Minor_incidents. While this incident does not have the same impact as a crash with several fatalities, it is still covered in various sources. However, a full article may be inappropriate and since the incident is already covered elsewhere, the reasonable choice is to leave a redirect there. Tone 13:56, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Continental Airlines Flight 128

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Continental Airlines Flight 128 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)
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I do not believe that an aircraft encountering turbulence in flight, resulting in no deaths and a small number of injuries is notable. If you look at the debate on incident notability on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Aviation/Notability you will see that this would not meet any of the proposed notability criteria. Simple Bob (talk) 11:49, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete The author insists in godlike fashion that the cause is known and that it is turbulence. He will not allow edits to that effect. There are many other possible causes. There should be no implication as to the cause until the official investigation is complete. The type of accident should be "Under Investigation" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.230.21.246 (talk) 16:06, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
One of the reasons I rarely participate in AfDs is because I am uncomfortable with the incredible ease so many editors determine certainty in these matters. The article in question is classic. I don't see how anyone can be "strong" delete or "strong" keep. This is not an easy call. I understand User:S Marshall's point about coverage in the media, but you know what? We're all going to see in time that contemporary coverage will not automatically translate into long-term notability. Wikipedia is not a news source, and if we truly were to adopt the standard that SMarshall (and many others) so blithely promote then we will become a news source (and ultimately, a news archive). On the other hand, calling this an easy delete is also not very thoughtful. Something very unusual happened here. It may well be that we may learn something from this that changes airplane maintenance, or something like that, forever afterwards. And really, just having 14 people hospitalized is a very big deal, even without landing in the Hudson. Regardless of the ease with which participants here declare these to be black and white issues (and some, of course, are), I think that many of these articles fall into a gray area. I wish I could come across more people acknowledging that. Anyway, I'm going to vote in favor of preservation, in this case, but I do so without the assuredness that so many of my fellow editors possess. Unschool
  • Well, Unschool, a major benefit of the GNG is that it does enable certainty in many cases. An editor can easily determine for themself whether the GNG is passed, and if it is passed, the editor can create an article with confidence that their hard work will not be deleted. And that confidence is important, because it enables people to write without going through a committee process first.

    That's why, where I see an article at AfD and the GNG is passed, I tend to use strong, clear language to indicate that fact.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 14:08, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate your comments, Marshall; they are thoughtful and clear. But I think that if it was a cut-and-dried as it appears to you, that AfD would be a much less contentious place. Wikipedia guidelines appear at times to be like scripture: Anyone can find support for whatever he is looking for. Indeed, in the very same policy that you use, just a few paragraphs down, it says, it takes more than just a short burst of news reports about a single event or topic to constitute sufficient evidence of notability. To me, that makes it seem clear that we simply cannot yet know whether or not this article possesses notability, since that line appears directly applicable to this event. I still see lots and lots of gray. Unschool 14:55, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • KEEP: Meets WP:AIRCRASH - Air carrier criteria - It is an accident which involves a scheduled or charter air carrier. An occurence that results in serious injury or loss of life is an accident by definition. Mjroots (talk) 15:23, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - great story but no relevance. Plane suffered turbulence, got diverted. Nothing special here. If it were a case of "airline safety saves the day" (compare Grayrigg derailment, for instance), things might be different, but there's no assertion of anything other than "it was covered in the media". If this incident meets other criteria, those criteria serously need to be reviewed. 81.110.104.91 (talk) 15:25, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete It should be remembered that WP:AIRCRASH is an essay, not policy, and that it was written with out any exclusions. The essay suggests that we should bypass the specific WP:NOT provision that "Wikipedia considers the historical notability of persons and events" (shortcut WP:NOT#NEWS), in favor of finding some way to keep any recent news event. To consider historical notability, let us suppose that there was turbulence on a Piedmont Airways flight in, say, 1967, and some people were injured. Would it be considered important 42 years later? It's not likely, nor is it likely that anyone would write a series of articles about 20th century airplane flights that made news at the time because of turbulence. WP:AIRCRASH is recentism of the worst kind, and it is simply a list of keep arguments. The delete arguments, from WP:NOT, are what should be followed. Mandsford (talk) 17:52, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Per WP:NOTNEWS. There is nothing historic, significant about this crash. Sure an investigation is underway, but that happens for most accidents in general, as does injuries and whatnot. Triplestop x3 18:20, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - The aircraft was damaged and there was severe injuries reported. Zaps93 (talk) 18:30, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FYI - I also just nominated Vueling Airlines Flight 9127 (Discussion) in which eight people (from more than 160) sustained minor injuries using the escape slide - an incident even less notable than this one. --Simple Bob (talk) 18:39, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - the incident is already mentioned at Continental_Airlines#Minor_incidents (note the section title "Minor incidents"). Perhaps one solution is to merge some of the relevant information from this article into that section then delete this article. --Simple Bob (talk) 07:13, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete. I was going to give it a weak keep (and a life-threateningly weak one at that) but I can find nothing particularly unusual about this whatsoever. Any incident, no matter how minor, is going to be investigated. News coverage (on the day that it happened) by the BBC and CNN makes it notable? No. Not for me. --candle•wicke 19:57, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. Thryduulf (talk) 20:29, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question: How does WP:NOTNEWS support deletion of this article? If you read the actual text of NOTNEWS, it's talking about "routine coverage of announcements, sports and tabloid journalism". Said policy seems to me to be totally irrelevant to the matter.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 10:02, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • The very first sentence: "Wikipedia considers the historical notability of persons and events", of which the subject of this article currently has none. See also WP:N#TEMP. There's some good discussion of this at WP:News articles. 81.110.104.91 (talk) 13:10, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Hmm. I note that it doesn't say "Wikipedia only considers the historical notability of persons or events".

        I'm deeply unimpressed by that News articles essay; the authors' thinking doesn't align with mine at all, so I shall disregard it.

        WP:NTEMP opens with: "Notability is not temporary: a topic needs to have had sufficient coverage in reliable sources to meet the general notability guideline, but it does not need to have ongoing coverage from news sources." Which seems, at least to me, to support keeping the article.

        I can't help wishing these policies and guidelines were phrased in simple declarative sentences. "Grounds for inclusion are x, y, and z; grounds for deletion are a, b and c." Telling us "what Wikipedia is not" is, of course, a lot easier (which is probably why so many people spend so much time saying what Wikipedia isn't), but policies and guidelines phrased in the negative are far from easy to apply to specific cases.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 15:39, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

        • It remains the case that Wikipedia is not a news source, and there's no evidence that this incident is anything other than a news story. In the days of 24-hour rolling news and online journalism, "was covered on CNN" is no longer evidence of anything. 81.110.104.91 (talk) 09:39, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • Incidentally, nice bit of selective quoting there. WP:NTEMP does indeed say "... it does not need to have ongoing coverage from news sources." However, in the very next sentence it says "it takes more than just a short burst of news reports about a single event or topic to constitute sufficient evidence of notability". 81.110.104.91 (talk) 09:49, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • ←On the contrary, "was covered on CNN" is certainly evidence of something. It's evidence of non-trivial coverage in reliable sources.

    I'm totally opposed to this attempt to undermine the general notability guideline. If we went around disregarding the basic notability guideline and deleting material regardless, then content creators could not check for themselves whether the material they propose to write is notable. They would need to go through a committee process before they started, or risk having their hard work summarily deleted.

    The GNG is there to protect content creators, and I feel very strongly that it should prevail here.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 12:07, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • I'm watching the BBC News channel as I write this. It's a week after the incident, and there's nothing there. What has been featuring most of the day is a story from Thailand, it's been running for most of the day. Could this be more of the ongoing feud between supporters of current PM Abhisit and former PM Thaksin? Controversy over the handling of refugees from Burma? No. An elephant fell down a hole. The guideline refers to significant coverage in multiple sources. This in itself implies more than routine news coverage. Remember that a rolling news channel typically operates in a competitive environment, and will choose its stories not so much for their importance, but for their currency and for the sake of beating their opponents. My personal threshold is something that is reported independently of it actually happening, which this hasn't achieved. 81.111.114.131 (talk) 13:37, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment This accident will get further coverage in the future. The investigation will be completed and a report will be issued. These things take time - months to years - before they are finalised. Mjroots (talk) 05:10, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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