Talk:Air France Flight 447/Archive 7

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60 Minutes Australia (Channel Nine)

...presented a re-edited and re-dubbed version of this Channel 4 show (website) in prime time on 12 May; 95% of the footage was from the original show, but they tried to rehash it to make it look like their presenter interviewed the people from the original program e.g. by editing in shots of him sitting in a chair and seemingly nodding his head in acknowledgement in the interviews. The show was highly publicized using cheap headline grabbers like "the Titantic of the skies" and repeatedly replayed sound bytes of actors using words from the CVR. It was tortuous to watch how it had been sensationalized, but seems that's not stopped someone from editing this article based on what they saw. Enough said - now does anyone have any opinions on the reliability of the original Channel 4 show as a reference here? Or Mayday/Air Crash Investigations S12E13 (Title: "Vanished")? Socrates2008 (Talk) 13:06, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Having contributed occasionally to this page, my reaction to this "dramatized" TV documentary is of the non printable variety. It "uses" David Learmount as its prime source of credibility, then lets itself down badly by editorially distorting facts to such a degree that all credibility goes out the window with, "... the aircraft crashed into the South Atlantic".Kiwi Kousin (talk) 23:19, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Summary box

I have no idea what BRD means, but I'm confused that a no-brainer change of the summary is rejected. The current summary is, well, let's say as "funny" as saying that a car crash resulted in an impact. I think changing the summary to the conclusions of the official report should be a no-brainer. Maybe some Wikipedia author being proud of his own wording does fight any change of it? I also saw that there is a huge debate about the summary above. I didn't read it in detail, but can it be that that all this discussion of Wikipedia nerds decoupled a little bit from common sense? Well, that said, all best to Wikipedia authors, while the world of Wikipedia may be not really understandable to outsiders, I think Wikipedia is one of the most important Websites. Thanks for all your work! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.104.44.103 (talk) 11:22, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

BRD. No-brainer nerd No.123 (talk) 11:27, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
If you were to read the discussion about the summary (several parts above this), you would see why it's not simple, not funny, and the official conclusions are longer than our article. Their summary of their conclusions may be longer than our lead. It was an accident where several failures interacted to produce a catastrophe. We will never know to the level that a one or two line summary will be anything other than both OR and SYN. htom (talk) 22:46, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
Apologies for the misplaced sarcasm. Is anything at Wikipeda ever a "no-brainer", I wonder? Martinevans123 (talk) 12:22, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
I was out of patience and snapped at you; I'm sorry. Some of the humor stuff is funny, but everyone seems to have a different opinion of which. htom (talk) 13:23, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
No problem. All I was actually doing was linking WP:BRD for the anon ip editor. And suggesting that I was one of the nerds. I'm sure nobody would argue with that. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:41, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
I agree with htom.--Gautier lebon (talk) 06:56, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Agree too. Socrates2008 (Talk) 11:01, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Agree with htom. Just link to detailled section or omit entirely.LeadSongDog come howl! 19:59, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Makes sense to me. I also agree with htom's well-made comments. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 20:16, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Blushes. Thank you. htom (talk) 01:29, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Problem at passengers by nationalities list due to "mystery Swedish person".

There is no explanation what this "1 (2) Swedish citizens onboard Flight 447" is supposed to mean. There is no reciprocal "-1" at any other natiuonality, so that the passenger total would sum up to either 228 or 229.--FoxyOrange (talk) 13:10, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Cleaning up independent analyses

Now that the dust has settled on this crash, I would like to bring up a pet peeve of mine about this article - the independent analysis section. In my (humble) opinion, even if this section is well sourced, the overall article could benefit from some trimming. Historically, we had a lot of such independant analyses in the article because the complete BEA report was not yet available. Now, many of the issues and topics that are discussed in these analyses are redundant with the official report. In particular:

  • The New York Times talks about the "myth" of a self-flying aircraft, which does not add much to the article.
  • Sullenberger underlines that pilots and automated systems have to work together, and stresses the need of an Angle of Attack indicator. The disorientation of the pilots and their lack of understanding of the data that was presented to them is already discussed at length in the article. Moreover, the inclusion of an angle of attack indicator on airplanes cockpits is actually one of the recommandations of the BEA report (page 205), and should be moved to the main body of the article.
  • Erreurs de pilotage and Popular Mechanics perform a comprehensive analysis on the leaked CVR transcript. As this information is not available elsewhere, is is probably worth to keep it in the article.
  • The Daily Telegraph talks about the design of the cockpit sidestick, and argues that it may have been a contributing factor to the crash. This topic is actually addressed in the BEA report(page 174), and is considered to be of low importance compared to all the other problems that arose during the flight.
  • Le Point talks about the potential fatigue of the crew, another matter which is already analysed in the BEA report (page 100).

So, to summarise this, I would suggest to:

  • Move the Angle of Attack indicator discussion from Sullenberger to the main body of the article.
  • Keep the Erreurs de pilotage section.
  • Remove all the others.

What is your opinion about this ? Cochonfou (talk) 19:11, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Your suggestions appear sensible to me.--Gautier lebon (talk) 10:12, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
I would not like to see the point of view (yoke vs sidestick) expressed by Sullenberger and Ross in references 223 and 225 deleted. In my humble opinion it is the single most important cause despite you and the BEA considering it of "low importance". Quoting Ross, "Indeed, it is hard to believe AF447 would have fallen from the sky if it had been a Boeing." Darrell_Greenwood (talk) 21:32, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Agree that Yoke vs Sidestick needs some mention. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:14, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Yoke vs Sidestick is of course equivalent to Boeing vs Airbus. While each a/c and crew has its own characteristics, it remains up to the fliers to know and manage those characteristics. It seems that this crew was not prepared to do so. Sullenberger's notoriety is based on the fact that he knew and managed an Airbus in a crisis. OTOH Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 is a recent case of a Boeing aircraft having a similar automation-induced crisis where the crew didn't manage well the in crisis. Yokes have their own issues, it is not black and white.LeadSongDog come howl! 08:22, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
I don't know. It's been pointed out that all sources commenting directly on Yoke vs Sidestick are biased sources. A suitable coverage might be to briefly mention that Boeing associated sources have speculated on contribution of limitations of the sidestick. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:18, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
My concern is that the NPOV balance of the article will be destroyed by the deletion of reliable source references under the cover of "cleaning up" an editor's pet peeve. Darrell_Greenwood (talk) 19:57, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
In the BEA report the crew fatigue issue appeared rather shapeless, so IMO Le Point should be kept. The "I didn’t sleep enough last night. One hour – it’s not enough" is not even mentioned in the BEA report. --Regards, Necessary Evil (talk) 17:32, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

This study of Safety in Engineering Ltd ("Situation Awareness and the Human-Machine Interface"), about Situation awareness, Coffin corner and the Airbus sidesticks may be a interesting further reading.
Regards, PauloMSimoes (talk) 18:59, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

The main problem I have with the "independent analyses" section is the way that each sub-section summarizes the comments of a single commentator. The result is that the structure of the article is being driven by the sources. It would be better if WE decide what TOPICS we want to cover, and then do so using multiple sources for each topic. The yoke/sidestick issue is addressed in both the Sullenberger and Daily Telegraph sections, and also in a number of sources which we don't currently use - these various viewpoints should be brought together to provide a comprehensive (i.e. encyclopedic) narrative on that topic.

Moreover, the current structure is holding back development of the article. For example, Capt. Bill Palmer has much to say on the yoke vs. sidestick issue in his book Understanding AF447, and his view (as an A330 captain and instructor) is probably more authoritative than that of Capt. Sullenberger (A320 captain) and Nick Ross. Yet where to include his assessment in the article? Not in a section devoted to Capt. Sullenberger's commentary. And not in a new "Understanding AF447" section, where it would be (a) intermixed with Palmer's analysis on other topics, and (b) remote from Sully's related analysis. Instead it should go into a section which addresses yoke vs. sidestick as topic.

Thus, in the first instance, the analysis section should be reorganized on a topic-by-topic basis:

  • "Sullenberger" (minus its final paragraph) becomes "Angle of Attack indication"
  • "The Daily Telegraph" (plus the final paragraph of "Sullenberger") becomes "Sidestick control"
  • "Le Point" becomes "Fatigue"
  • "Erreurs de pilotage" becomes "Human factors"

I agree with CochonFou that these topics can and should be incorporated into the main body of the article.

That leaves the NYT sub-section. This plays a slightly different role from the other analysis sub-sections which look at the technical aspects of the accident. But that is not the only perspective, and there is no doubt that AF447 has reverberated around the aviation industry more than any other accident in recent history (possibly since Tenerife). It should be noted that the heading "New York Times" is inaccurate as it incorporates commentary from that journal, and also from Guy Gratton. In fact it is already a good example of melding a single topic from multiple sources, the topic here being the significance of the accident. 86.5.176.168 (talk) 05:41, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Understanding Air France 447

With the greatest of respect for the work, but I wonder if is the book of Mr. Palmer sufficiently notorious to be in the section, along with NYT, Sullenberger, Daily Telegraph and Le Point. Could be on external links?
PauloMSimoes (talk) 22:22, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Appears to be more promotional than adding any value to the article so could be just deleted, that said I cant see the need for any of the Independent analyses section which was mainly speculation, if any of the comments are really notable to the accident then they should be added to the main body. MilborneOne (talk) 22:27, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

In regards to deleting the entire Independent Analysis section: each one of these cited works adds something to the discussion beyond the Wiki article or the final report by the BEA. The exception may be the NYT article, which doesn't seem actually be an Independent Analysis. Despite the lack of fame and corporate media backing, the book is the most complete "independent analysis" of all those cited.

In regards to whether the book is "sufficiently notorious to be in the section" With all due respect. The book "Understanding Air France 447" is new, and has hardly gotten an chance to become "notorious" yet. (Is that a genuine criteria? There's no sex or vampires in it, so perhaps it never will.) Kidding aside, it provides 200+ pages of explanations of all the factors involved that non-experts can truly understand, far beyond what any Wiki article can or should cover. It also includes a unique approach to the analysis of the accident (the four phase approach). It is the one work out there written by an expert on the plane, who takes a matter of fact approach to the accident and not one of sensationalizing it (e.g., "panic brought down AF447" etc). Readers who truly want to know more about the accident are well advised to read it.

Yes, I wrote the book and posted the reference to it on the page. If you think it's not objective enough, let's fix that.

The fact is, that I am more knowledgeable on the subject than any of the other sources cited. Notorious - perhaps not, but there is no question as to my qualifications to author this work and provide the insight that I do. But it is not merely promotional. I'm not saying how great it is. The description simply states what it has to offer to the discussion. The current Wiki article glosses over many important points. Points that need a more comprehensive explanation. (For example the handling characteristics of alternate law, the changing stall angle of attack with mach number changes, why the stall warning was intermittent in the last 3 minutes, how the crew's training affected their stall recovery actions, and more.) The book makes connections and draws conclusions beyond the accident report, and adds value to the understanding the important lessons resulting from the accident. I and those that have penned the Book's Reviews believe that it is a "must read" for those that want to learn something from this accident. These are not my friends and family leaving these reviews, most are airline pilots, many flying the A330.

--Wfpalmer (talk) 05:57, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

As author of the book you should not be really adding anything related to it to the article without consensus, if it was only published a few weeks ago then clearly it doesnt belong until a secondary source picks out anything of note. You say that each one of those works in Independent analyses "adds something to the discussion beyond the Wiki article or the final report by the BEA". That is not really the purpose of an encyclopedia, if reliable sources disagrees with the final report then sure it should be mentioned if appropriate But from what I can see they are mostly speculation produced while waiting for the final report. MilborneOne (talk) 11:21, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
I have removed Understanding Air France 447 section as a clear conflict of interest, I have added a reference to the book in the further reading section, thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 11:25, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

MilborneOne: RE:"As author of the book you should not be really adding anything related to it to the article without consensus." Sorry for not knowing the proper protocol. Please explain how one builds consensus before editing the article? Here in the talk section?

RE: "if it was only published a few weeks ago then clearly it doesnt belong until a secondary source picks out anything of note." What would be an example of an adequate secondary source?

I accept the inclusion of the book in the Further Reading section. It should at least be there. Thank you for that.

Ok, so say there are sections of the article that are incomplete, or that my analysis disagrees with the final report (based on fact, not conjecture, of course). What is the proper way to interject that information into the article?--69.43.177.50 (talk) 18:01, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, it doesnt mean you cant contribute but just be wary of adding references to your own book or introducing original research, a secondary source could be something like a journal or report that quotes something from the book. All you need is to mention here anything that could seem to be a conflict with you as a book author to make sure nobody objects. If you think that the final report is wrong then you have to be wary of original research, speculation and keeping a neutral point of view. If you are adding information from other sources then you dont need to come to the talk page, and remember we are all here to improve the article and keep it neutral and balanced. It may well be that the "Independent analyses" might need to morph into a section dealing with "other issues" not covered by the report like the captain's fatigue issue. Please ask here if you need any help. MilborneOne (talk) 18:23, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
Capt Palmer, a tip you may not be aware of yet, by typing into the search box at the top of this page a jargon phrase used by Wikipedians prefixed with WP, such as WP:Secondary source, you will get more information on the rules that have been developed to prevent editors gaming Wikipedia. Other examples are WP:Original research, WP:Neutral point of view, WP:Conflict of interest. By the way, your last edit on this page was performed without logging in to Wikipedia resulting in your IP address being recorded. You can correct that by editing that signature while logged in. Welcome to Wikipedia and thank you for your contributions. Darrell_Greenwood (talk) 19:18, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Agreed that the addition of the "Understanding AF 447" section was inappropriate advertising. Successful advertising, mind you - it sold at least one copy as a result! For what it's worth, I can thoroughly recommend Capt. Palmer's book to anyone who is at all interested in this accident. And, no, I am in no way related to the author. 86.5.176.168 (talk) 05:51, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

"The aircraft broke up on impact, killing everyone on board"

Can it be said with a degree of certainty that those on board the plane would of all been killed on impact? I'm slightly confused as to whether the text I have highlighted conclusively points to this. --Somchai Sun (talk) 17:28, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

As opposed to what? There are no credible reports of any survivors. Conceivably someone might have died before the impact, but that would have to remain unfounded speculation at best-there is no way to investigate the possibility.LeadSongDog come howl! 19:00, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
Never mind then. --Somchai Sun (talk) 19:11, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Omission of detail in Accident summary may be confusing

While the introduction to this article mentions ice crystals, the "Accident" summary does not specifically mention that ice crystals caused the instruments to display "incorrectly for half a minute." It simply says "the icing event had lasted for just over a minute." I had to read over it a couple of times before I understood that the "icing event" mentioned was referring to the period in which the instruments malfunctioned. I have zero technical knowledge and little knowledge of this accident, so others equally uninformed might have the same issue. I'll let someone with more expertise edit for clarity if deemed necessary. Sadiemonster (talk) 14:27, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Article uses Imperial System Units only

Since this article is of interest for the general public and a french airline is involved the usage of metric units would be, in my opinion, recommendable. 129.132.83.34 (talk) 07:37, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Well in aviation, even French airlines use feet, knots and nautical miles and the sources would be using these units; I had a quick look and all units seem to have metric equivalents anyway. YSSYguy (talk) 08:01, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

"Impacted" as a verb

I don't think "impact" as a verb has become mainstream English yet, especially outside American English. Even though it's accepted in some publications (I assume), it isn't in many others; for example the Guardian's style guide, which I consider way more modern and forward-thinking than Wikipedia's own guide on many issues, says the word is "a noun, not a verb: say "affected" rather than the awful jargon phrase "impacted on". Only a tooth can be impacted." (http://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-i) It seems to me that an encyclopedia is not the proper place for new or emerging English to be used until it is well and truly absorbed and accepted; how many Wikipedia editors would be happy, for example, if "literally" were allowed to mean "not literally" in Wiki articles? So would anyone be upset if I replaced "impacted ocean" with "crashed into ocean"? Popcornduff (talk) 17:51, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Not sure that impacted is that rare and certainly better than "crashed into" but in this instance perhaps "From the time the aircraft stalled until it entered the water" may be better. MilborneOne (talk) 17:58, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
"Entered" would be nearly as misleading, as the impact (at the very least) broke parts off, including some which were buoyant. "Struck", perhaps? LeadSongDog come howl! 18:51, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
I also think that "struck" would be better, and clearer. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:56, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
The sentence is talking about the operation of the engines which is why I went for entered but I dont have a problem with struck. MilborneOne (talk) 18:59, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
"Struck", "hit" or "crashed into" all seem OK to me, and no worse than "impacted" but for the fact that impact isn't really a verb in proper English at this point. Popcornduff (talk) 23:20, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
Says who? Impact as a verb appears in the OED. — Lfdder (talk) 23:54, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
So does "literally" to mean "not literally". And at least one style guide for a major publication contests it. (I know that's hardly definitive, though I haven't looked anywhere else, but you did ask.) Popcornduff (talk) 00:45, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
a) this isn't the Guardian's 'impacted on'; b) 'impacted' is found in scholarly publications — Lfdder (talk) 01:03, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
They explicitly ban it as a verb. (I know we're not the Guardian, just sayin'.) Popcornduff (talk) 01:10, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes, but they don't seem to consider this usage of it. — Lfdder (talk) 01:27, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
Are you saying they don't seem to consider the use of it with regards to aviation? Because you're right, they don't. However, they seem to be pretty clear to me that, in the Guardian's eyes it is a noun, not a verb, and that "only a tooth can be impacted" (ie not an ocean). (FYI: I'm just arguing this out of interest now, to see how Wiki works, and have no intention of editing the page.) 01:33, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
BTW, I don't feel very passionately about this and I won't make the change if people rather I wouldn't, but now I'm curious about how this sort of thing works on Wikipedia. At what point does non-standard English become acceptable on Wikipedia? How standard does it have to be, in the normal migration of deviation into norm that happens in language? For me using "literally" to mean anything other than "literally" in its original sense would be completely weird in an encyclopaedia, just like "impact" seems to me now, but is the rule "once it's in the OED, it's fine"? Is this written down somewhere? Genuinely curious. Popcornduff (talk) 01:00, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
'impact' is found in aviation lit., isn't informal and isn't hyperbolic. How's comparing it to 'literally' appropriate? — Lfdder (talk) 01:12, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

If using 'impact' as a verb is standard aviation literature, that convinces me it's appropriate here, and I'm happy to admit my ignorance.

About "literally" - assume (and I may be wrong!) that "impact" as a verb is a recent change in English that isn't universally accepted yet. You suggested that because "impact" is listed as a verb in the OED, that means it's kosher. In response, I pointed out that "literally" also appears in recent OEDs in its recent inverted definition, reflecting popular use. I am now genuinely curious to know if that means Wikipedia can now use "literally" to mean "not literally". I would have assumed that wasn't appropriate yet, but perhaps it is? Popcornduff (talk) 01:16, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

It's apparently first appeared as a verb in the 17th century. (OED/NODE) I didn't say it's 'kosher' -- I meant that it's indication it's seen enough use (for it to appear in the dictionary). I should've responded to your OP. — Lfdder (talk) 01:40, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Just throw some light on this subject, perhaps helps in the decision.
Summary_BEA
"These initial elements enabled investigators to conclude that.
ˆˆ- The aeroplane was intact at the moment of impact;
ˆˆ- It struck the surface of the water with a positive pitch-up attitude, slight bank and a high vertical speed" (pages 2/5 and 3/5).
PauloMSimoes (talk) 19:20, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Rfc: Search and Recovery

After reading the citations provided, I recently made a handful of changes to the "Search and Recovery" section. They were reverted en masse by another editor who refuses to say why. Can someone else give me a reason why these changes might have been reverted. Thanks. 86.5.176.168 (talk) 16:51, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Edit 1

The first edit was an incidental one: the picture of Brigadier Cardoso appears to be out of proportion to the other pictures, so I reduced it in size with this edit. 86.5.176.168 (talk) 16:51, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Edit 2

With this edit I added an additional source describing the Metron study, and some relevant text. 86.5.176.168 (talk) 16:51, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Edit 3

This edit is the only one that I can see might be at all controversial as I deleted a chunk of text. But the current version gives undue weight to a fruitless 6 days of searching in one small area far from where the wreckage was eventually found, to the exclusion of the other 39 days of the third phase which were much closer. 86.5.176.168 (talk) 16:51, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Edit 4

This teaser sentence about the fourth phase of the search seems unneccessary given that the whole of the next section is devoted to the fourth phase. Note that I preserved the citation by moving it to "External links" in case it contains other useful material. 86.5.176.168 (talk) 16:51, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Edit 5

Describing the third phase of the search, I expanded the text "Oceanographers from France, Russia, Britain, and the United States each separately analysed the search area, to select a smaller area for closer survey" to "The search area had been drawn up by oceanographers from France, Russia, Britain and the United States combining data on the location of floating bodies and wreckage, and currents in the mid-Atlantic in the days immediately after the crash". At the same time I replaced two dead refs at the end of the sentence with one working one. Diff here. 86.5.176.168 (talk) 16:51, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

RFC Discussion

Did you by any chance talk to the editor in question to try to resolve the conflict per WP:RFC? Also, before removing dead references, you could try adding web archive URLs. Additionally, a link that may belong in references may not belong in external links. If what you said is true and some of your edits were purely constructive (e.g. the edit expanding on the Merlon study), then maybe they were only reverted as a side effect of some of your more controversial ones. You could tentatively add them back maybe. But deleting stuff for undue weight should probably be discussed on the talk page beforehand. – FenixFeather (talk)(Contribs) 17:17, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Name the pilots?

In its reports, BEA never mentions the pilots by name, referring only to PF and PNF. Some contributors here have followed this convention while others have used the pilots' names. Thus in the accident section we read "the pilot [...] made an abrupt nose-up input on the side-stick", and later, in the side-stick section "this might have been a factor in the failure of Robert and Dubois to countermand the manual input by pilot Bonin". Our readers can have no way of knowing what manual input this is referring to. We should be consistent, either using PF/PNF throughout, or using the names throughout. Which way should we go? 86.5.176.168 (talk) 16:15, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

PF/PNF makes more sense in understanding the actions on the flightdeck. MilborneOne (talk) 16:29, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
Captain/PF/PNF (since there were two PNF) and section "Passengers and crew" for reference.PauloMSimoes (talk) 21:25, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
Using the terms PF/PNF may be confusing because the two pilots switched roles during the incident. Bonin was originally flying the plane but after it had stalled and fallen around 10000' he said he was going to apply the speed brakes, Robert told him not to and took over control. According to the CVR, both Robert and Dubois believed that Robert was trying to bring the nose down to get lift. At 7500' (45 seconds before impact) Robert (who thought he was flying the plane) made a comment about not climbing, Bonin then said that he had been holding the nose up for some time, this made Dubois realize why the plane was falling and he yelled "no, no, no, no, stop climbing." Wayne (talk) 18:34, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Using the terms PF/PNF in the "accident" section is confusing. First, as mentioned, their roles changed when the captain left. Second, PF/PNF is likely confusing to persons reading this without much knowledge about aviation (WP:Jargon), especially since the term is mentioned only once, much further down in the article. Also, I don't see it mentioned in this section (or elsewhere, skimming through the article), but didn't Robert make an opposite input (down on the side stick as is standard procedure in a stall?). I recall from one of the tv documentaries made after the boxes were located that the captain left the cockpit without clearly (but maybe ambiguously) designating the pilot in command. This was a significant factor in the confusion between Robert/Bonin. If that's correct, then perhaps one of the first officers may be "pilot flying" in the report, but that that term is a little ambiguous when writing for Wikipedia's audience (a little clearer and less technical). In my opinion, the names of the captain/FOs and where they sat should be stated (in prose, not bullet form) in the "Accident" section, but use the names of the pilots in the prose. AHeneen (talk) 01:24, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
I just read the CVR transcript and the pilots switched roles more than once. Robert was PF three times while Bonin was PF four times from 02:10 when the autopilot disengaged to 02:14 when the plane crashed. This repeated switching of roles led to some if not most of the confusion yet the accident section reads as if the same pilot was in control the entire time. Wayne (talk) 02:14, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Alternative theory - control system failure?

Having watched a documentary detailing the flight recorder evidence, it strikes me as odd that any pilot would pull back on the stick and even more odd that he would maintain this position to his death. Could it not be that he did not do this and there was actually a computer control system fault that caused the nose up attitude of the plane perhaps resulting from the extreme electrical disturbances generated by the storm or as a result of a bug in the software not discovered in testing as this was an unusual set of circumstances?

Incidentally, i read that "Pitot tubes on aircraft commonly have heating elements called pitot heat to prevent the tube from becoming clogged with ice." Why then did the tubes ice up? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.114.162.68 (talk) 12:53, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not the place to construct alternative theories as that would be original research which is not Wikipedia's aim. Alternatively we should be careful to add theories that are not broadly supported as we do not want to give fringe theories a platform. In any case we would need high quality sources to do anything with above suggestion. Arnoutf (talk) 13:29, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
Quite agree. Any source (probably the full and final accident report) would have to make clear if the signals recorded related to the demand output by the stick, or the position of the control surfaces, or both. I think there may have been some discussion on this point previously. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:18, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

New report

Excerpts from recorded conversations between 37-year-old David Robert, Pierre-Cedric Bonin, 32, and Marc Dubois, the 58-year-old captain of the plane, reveal that two of them were asleep when the plane got into difficulty in a tropical storm.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2790768/f-dead-pilot-shouted-air-france-jet-plunged-atlantic-final-moments-doomed-flight-447-two-sleeping-pilots-revealed.html#ixzz3G1oyI3P8

Note, the article is incorrect. Two Pilots were asleep, not one - published in the October edition of Vanity Fair magazine. The article needs correcting 82.7.152.107 (talk) 12:45, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

I could not open the link. If you have reliable sources (and that works), can insert this on suitable place on article (as additional information, as the conclusion of BEA report was that only the captain was resting).
PauloMSimoes (talk) 15:38, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

ACARS messages

The ACARS messages are summarized in the text and then detailed in a table. IMHO the article does not need both, and the text summary is sufficient. Therefore I am inclined to remove the table, but what does everyone else think? 86.5.31.8 (talk) 07:46, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Cause of accident needs to be changed

There is a piece of information that I feel is missing from from the accident cause in the infobox. We now know that AF447 entered a stall which was aggravated by pilot error and temporarily frozen pitot tubes. The 2nd officer pulled back on the A330's flight control joy stick, trying to make the aircraft climb to get out of the bad weather over the Atlantic, and he made the aircraft climb up to the point where the lift provided by the air up there could not support the plane any longer, and the 2nd officer didn't know this or didn't believe it- because inexplicably he kept pulling back on the joystick, even when the aircraft's computers were telling him that the plane was losing altitude and the stall warning light was on. In addition to lack of communication with the other pilots and (with all due respect) competence or emotional control on the 2nd officer's part, these actions are ultimately what caused this accident- because by the time the captain realized what was happening, the aircraft didn't have the required altitude to get out of the stall, and that was that. There is just no way pilot error can be left out of this accident, I feel. --Hmdwgf (talk) 17:29, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

What it sais in the article is fairly clear about the presence of pilot error:

the crew made inappropriate control inputs that destabilized the flight path; the crew failed to follow appropriate procedure for loss of displayed airspeed information; the crew were late in identifying and correcting the deviation from the flight path; the crew lacked understanding of the approach to stall; the crew failed to recognize that the aircraft had stalled and consequently did not make inputs that would have made it possible to recover from the stall.[229]

.....

the crew lacked practical training in manually handling the aircraft both at high altitude and in the event of anomalies of speed indication; the two co-pilots' task sharing was weakened both by incomprehension of the situation at the time of autopilot disconnection, and by poor management of the "startle effect", leaving them in an emotionally charged situation;

......

the crew did not respond to the stall warning, whether due to a failure to identify the aural warning, to the brevity of the stall warnings that could have been considered spurious, to the absence of any visual information that could confirm that the aircraft was approaching stall after losing the characteristic speeds, to confusing stall-related buffet for overspeed-related buffet, to the indications by the Flight Director that might have confirmed the crew's mistaken view of their actions, or to difficulty in identifying and understanding the implications of the switch to alternate law, which does not protect the angle of attack. Arnoutf (talk) 17:38, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Not a reasonable thing for Wikipedia to address. The term "pilot error" has fallen into general disfavour,[1] as it impedes the correction of accident causes. It is an oversimplification which tends to gloss over the contributing human factors which lead to the critical error(s). In this case aircraft design and training standards appear to have been such contributing human factors. The use of the term "pilot error" also causes conflict between the goals of accident investigation and those of legal attribution of responsibility under the Warsaw Convention.[2]

LeadSongDog come howl! 18:01, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I fully agree with LeadSongDog. I also add that the accident report never uses the term as a reason for the accident. It is not up to us to second-guess the official report. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 19:31, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
Fully agree with User:LeadSongDog also. Martinevans123 (talk)

References

  1. ^ Risk Management Handbook FAA
  2. ^ Menno Sjoerd Kamminga. The Aircraft Commander in Commercial Air Transportation. p. 101.

Quotes

Per WP:OVERQUOTE, Wikipedia is not a collection of quotations. One section of this article is way overquoted. It needs to be trimmed down, and the quotes summarised. --John (talk) 15:18, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

The "See Also" section

Is there an issue with the content of the "See Also" section? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.137.31.68 (talk) 16:45, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

It's not needed here. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:51, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
Is there a specific reason?
12 is too many. They don't all need such a full summary, if any. Their relevance to this article has not been established. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:17, 1 December 2015 (UTC) p.s. why are you editing while logged out? can you please sign your posts? you're now at 3RR.
The section is ridiculously bloated. There are many accident that do not follow the pattern (modern plane - iced tubes - incorrect pilot response after disengaged autopilot - lost over sea). I would opt to remove all cases where these four conditions are not met and introduce the section with: "Other modern planes have been lost when pilots responded incorrectly after autopilot disengaged after frozen altimeter tubes." And then just list the (few) articles that fit that specific description without any further explanation (after all the wikilink allows readers to find the relevant details themselves and a see also list is not intended to give more context than a few words per entry at most). Arnoutf (talk) 20:36, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
Yes, a good idea. I could support that, although I suspect many purists might object. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:15, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
I think it would be an OR collection unless an RS makes such a connection to this specific flight. Plus as soon as we mention that "pilots responded incorrectly" it sounds as if we blame the pilots. Dr. K. 22:36, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
Hmm, that's true. Even interested editors with a eye on relevant policy might object. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:45, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

My own 2¢: This is better handled by having a "List of..." article or a category. If a list, the list could be in the See also section. TJRC (talk) 23:25, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

I think that's an excellent idea. Dr. K. 02:08, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

While 12 might be excessive, a see also section is not inappropriate. The purpose of the section is to link to tangentially-related articles that readers may be interested in navigating to. The linked accidents do not need to be identical (eg. "modern plane - iced tubes - incorrect pilot response after disengaged autopilot - lost over sea"). Per WP:SEEALSO: "Editors should provide a brief annotation when a link's relevance is not immediately apparent". Since the names of most commercial aircraft accident/incident articles use the flight number as the title, most such links would require a brief annotation about the relevance. Two lists that should be included are List of aircraft accidents and incidents resulting in at least 50 fatalities (a featured list) & Air France accidents and incidents. AHeneen (talk) 18:50, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Ok, now added. How many additional individual incidents would you think reasonable? Martinevans123 (talk) 19:07, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
There's no firm rule. In my opinion, 5-9 (see 7±2) is a good target for maximum length. It's really about topics that readers may be interested in. I think the defining characteristics of this event are: modern plane (and to a lesser extent, flown by a reputable airline), long underwater search, disappeared in mysterious circumstances (middle of ocean, middle of night, among thunderstorms), and high-altitude stall coupled with incorrect reaction by pilots (and to a lesser extent, a preoccupation with resolving multiple warnings). However, I don't think it would be necessary to match all those characteristics for inclusion. Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 is very similar. Given the lengthy ocean search and mysterious circumstances of its disappearance, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is also worth mentioning (lots of initial reports compared that incident to AF447). The lengthy underwater searches in these two incidents combined have prompted many safety recommendations by aviation authorities (improved flight tracking, extended battery life on flight recorder ULBs), brought to light limitations of flight recorders which has brought to light new technologies for black box streaming, and the lessons learned from the AF447 search have helped in the MH370 search (indeed, new measurements of satellite signals prompted by the AF447 search were the only way that the MH370 search could be narrowed by an order of magnitude). Finally, List of accidents and incidents involving high-altitude stalls would be useful (high-altitude being near cruise altitude or above 20,000ft). AHeneen (talk) 21:22, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
Are these See also sections meant to be consistent - looking at both Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 and Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 I see that they don't link to this one? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:35, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
Not necessarily, mainly due to the following guideline (emphasis appears in original): "As a general rule, the "See also" section should not repeat links that appear in the article's body or its navigation boxes." In the case of MH370, this article is linked twice (lead and then the aftermath section), so AF447 doesn't belong in the "see also" section of the MH370 article. Additionally, edits over time may affect whether articles are linked in both directions. It's not like navboxes where reciprocity is required. AHeneen (talk) 23:29, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
Many thanks for clarifying. Well those two seem fine to me. Martinevans123 (talk) 23:36, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

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AAIB, DGAC, and CENIPA press releases

This was posted back in 2009, but I am re-posting it with archives AAIB:

DGAC (French):

CENIPA (Portuguese):

RfC - What "Summary" should the Accident have?

Per a request at WP:ANRFC, this RfC is closed with no consensus. There seems to be fundamental differences between participants on the purpose of the summary field in the infobox that was not resolved in this discussion. -Nathan Johnson (talk) 18:11, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Introduction : An "Aircraft Accident" infobox appears at the top of this article. There has been a considerable amount of debate surrounding how to set the "Summary" (formerly "Type") parameter within the infobox. The debate has largely centered around whether to include the term "Pilot Error" in the "Summary" parameter. This has also resulted in a lot of edit-warring concerning the dispute.

Previous discussions on the subject
Proposals
  • Proposal A - Leave the "Summary" parameter blank.
  • Proposal B - Set the "Summary" to "Pitot tube obstruction followed by inappropriate control inputs".
  • Proposal C - Set the "Summary" to "Inappropriate crew response to error warnings".
  • Proposal D - Set the "Summary" to "Incorrect speed readings likely caused by obstruction of the pitot tubes by ice crystals, followed by inappropriate control inputs that destabilized the flight path".
  • Proposal E - Set the "Summary" to "Pitot tube failure; Stall".
  • Proposal F - Set the "Summary" to "Pitot tube failure; loss of control".
  • Proposal G - Set the "Summary" to "Pilot Error".
  • Proposal H - Set the "Summary" to "Pitot tube obstruction followed by pilot error".
  • Proposal I - Set the "Summary" to "Pitot tube obstruction followed by loss of airspeed information and pilot error".
  • Proposal J - Set the "Summary" to "Aircraft stalled in cruise, impacted ocean".

--HeyMid (contribs) 08:21, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

When responding, please use the following format -

  • Support proposal A - Let's not talk about it. ISupportStuff (talk) 20:35, 18 February 2252 (UTC)
  • Support proposal F or G or H - Pilot error to blame! ISupportStuffToo (talk) 21:35, 18 February 2252 (UTC)
  • Support proposal B - The most elegant solution. ISupportStuffThree (talk) 21:35, 19 February 2252 (UTC)

Standard RfC Disclaimer - This RfC should not be construed as a vote rather than an attempt to measure consensus. As always, let's keep the conversations civil. HeyMid (contribs) 08:21, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Comments

A. No
B. OK
C. poor. "inappropriate" is too general. Many inappropriate responses don't crash the plane.
D. Too long
E. Inadequate; these are recoverable
F. Fair
G. OK, borderline too simplified, begging "what error"
H. OK
I. OK
J. I don't think the plane was really "in cruise" when it stalled.

Preference: Failure to recover from stall.

Pitot tube blocks didn't cause the stall. The stall didn't cause the crash. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:04, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't think the plane was really "in cruise" when it stalled. Cruise here is synonymous to en route. The plane wasn't in climb or descent or approach or any other stage of flight we might identify.
The plane stalled because the PF climbed it too fast for too long a period of time. It is unclear why the PF did that, or even whether he realized that he was doing it. But it seems likely that the motivation to climb a bit was to get on top of the turbulence and bad weather. Which was not necessarily a bad idea and resulted in clearing of the ice on the Pitot Tubes. Once it was stalled, it started descending, but the pilots didn't realize that and so didn't take any corrective action. The FD told the PF to pull back on stick, so maybe that confused him and motivated him to keep giving nose up inputs. But the FD wasn't reliable, because the flight control mode had changed, but the PF probably didn't realize that the TD wasn't reliable.--Gautier lebon (talk) 11:17, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
As stated repeatedly, the most reliable source, the offical report, does not use the term "pilot error". So no matter how much we editors think that that is the cause, I don't see how we can use that term.--Gautier lebon (talk) 11:17, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
The stall didn't cause the crash. Must've been them unicorns then. Again, we'rejsdfsfjdsÿdfsod it I'm just gonna sit back and relax and watch this go nowhere. — Lfdder (talk) 09:16, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
Don't we all love a non-cryptic response. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:37, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
You know I don't beat about the crypt....or something. I'm not good with these. — Lfdder (talk) 10:38, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
watch out for those phantom unicorns, down there.. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:57, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
So long as my phantom unicorn alarm isn't intermittent. — Lfdder (talk) 11:08, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
Lfdder. If "cruise" is synonymous with "en route", then it is subject to creative interpretations and doesn't belong in a few-word summary. Usually, cruise means moving steadily at high speed.

Planes can stall without crashing. Failure to recover from a stall makes for a crash, as in this case. Agree with Gautier lebon that if the best sources refrain from stating "pilot error", then so should we. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:54, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I also agree with Gautier that "pilot error" should not be included in any summary because it is not supported by the expert sources. Although I thought that the huge section just above had unequivocally established that particular point so I'm not sure why it is even considered. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 16:56, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
Well, it's quasi-synonymous. No, it's not subject to creative interpretation; this is what that phase of flight is called. If you think it's difficult for a layperson to understand, then yes, maybe we should change it. They quite obviously did not recover from the stall. What do we gain from rewording? — Lfdder (talk) 15:05, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
No, I don't think "cruise" is readily interpreted the way you do. I would not expect a plane rapidly climbing in heavy turbulence to be called "cruising". None of Wikt:cruise appear to support your definition. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 15:37, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
[1] — Lfdder (talk) 15:41, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
That document defines cruise mentioning level flight. This plane wasn't in level flight. I think the word "cruise" needs to be dropped from the summary. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 15:55, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
Goes without saying that it wasn't in level flight afterwards. It'd be just like saying it stalled on approach; no, it wasn't maintaining a 3 degree glidepath when it crashed. Stop wasting my time 'cos you can't come to terms with being wrong about a tiny little thing. Like I said, if its meaning is not apparent to a layperson, we can change it. — Lfdder (talk) 16:02, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
It wasn't in level flight before. What tiny thing am I wrong about? I think you are wrong about "cruise" being equivalent to "en route", neither dictionary nor your link supporting that. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:04, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
Didn't they deliberately ascend to avoid weather, regardless of the later stall? They were en-route, but not in a conventional straight and level cruise. Very sorry if we are "wasting your time". Martinevans123 (talk) 17:58, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
Whether they 'deliberately' ascended is not clear, but unlikely. This is from the report (p. 173):
There remain a number of possible explanations:ˆ The crew’s attention being focused on roll, speed or on the ECAM;ˆ The initiation, more or less consciously due to the effects of surprise and stress, of the action plan (climb) desired by the PF prior to the autopilot disconnection;ˆ The attraction of “clear sky”, since the aeroplane was flying at the edge of the cloud layer;ˆ A saturation of the mental resources needed to make sense of the situation, to the detriment of aeroplane handling;ˆ The presence of turbulence that may have altered perception of aeroplane movements in response to his inputs.
That's correct, but we're not about to outline the entire chain in the infobox. I've explained my rationale several times now in 3 or 4 different ways. Don't take what I say out of context, kindly. I did not mean that I'm not open to discussion, but this whole thing about 'in cruise' is an exercise in pedantry. — Lfdder (talk) 18:16, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
I see no pedantry at all in trying to agree what terms mean. But the more (and more) the discussion unfolds the more I think that all that can safely be put in the box is "see below" etc. (I think the context of what you say is this thread, isn't it?) Martinevans123 (talk) 18:30, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
I think what we've got now is all right. "See below" in summary doesn't even make sense. Are either of 'stalled' or 'impacted ocean' disputable? Is that not the gist of what's happened with the aircraft? Entered stall, didn't leave stall, crashed. I mean, we're always gonna have to abstract away. This seem to me like the least controversial abstraction and most to the point of what actually happened (i.e. contributing factors aside). — Lfdder (talk) 19:20, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
I'm worried that such a short summary, especially with that phrase "in cruise", makes it sound far simpler than it was. In fact it almost sounds benign, as if the aircraft was gently cruising along, until, whoops, it stalled and fell into the sea? Probably why I was earlier leaning towards single word "stall" as the type, not a cause or a summary. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:35, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
The only way anyone could misunderstand like that is if they didn't know what a stall is, I think. Avherald's got "aircraft entered high altitude stall and impacted ocean"—maybe that's better? — Lfdder (talk) 19:42, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support H or I - My sense of this incident is that it was a combination of instrument failure and bad piloting. Seems fair to include the term "pilot error" even if the official report on the thing did not. There are plenty of secondary sources that explicitly use the term "pilot error". NickCT (talk) 16:25, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support proposal B - Can't be "loss of control" because the pilots were in control the entire time. As others said, "stall" is insufficient because it's easily recoverable at altitude. "Pilot error" is too general... of course this was pilot error since an airworthy craft flew into the ocean, but it's not specific enough to be useful, since the "error" stemmed from lack of training and confusing feedback (stall warning sounding only when pushing forward, etc). That pretty much leaves B as the least bad option, IMHO. --Sam (talk) 17:10, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
    • Surely the pilots were "in control" only in the theoretical, mechanical sense? They may have thought they were in control (debatable), but could not understand what the instruments seemed to be telling them? They did not even realize what the aircraft was doing, until it was too late? Martinevans123 (talk) 18:03, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
      • The plane was fully responsive to all control inputs all the way down. Not knowing what is going on is called being "disoriented". "Loss of control" means either mechanical failure or entering an aerodynamic state such that the control surfaces are ineffective. --Sam (talk) 18:32, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
        • Thanks, that's useful clarification. I guess "loss of control" has many common connotations for a lay person that cloud the meaning of loss of control. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:43, 10 May 2013 (UTC)


  • "Pilot error" should be not used, per sources. I suggest "failure to recover from", or "unrecovered" stall is a suitable nod to pilot failures, making the point implicitly that there was no aircraft structural failure or technical control failure, etc
  • "Cruise" should not be used as it means or implies normal steadiness. The stall and crash did not happen in standard cruise conditions.
  • "Pitot tubes" is getting into too much detail. Pitot tube failure should not ever cause a plane to crash within minutesclumsy statement here. Pitot tube failure *alone*, for a plane at altitude with speed, was meant. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:05, 12 May 2013 (UTC).
  • "high altitude stall". Yes. (was actually above maximum allowed altitude stall)
  • "Impacted ocean". Yes. A typical, casual reader, should expect to read in the summary that the plane crashed in the Atlantic ocean.
  • High vertical speed belly impact on ocean. Maybe? Probably too much detail.
  • Suggest: "Unrecovered high altitude stall; rapid fall impacting ocean." --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:25, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe, Your comments re pitot tubes are wide of the mark. Blocked pitot heads can indeed cause aircraft to crash as google would show you. Better still, check out our article Birgenair Flight 301.

In this accident we are discussing here, it was pitot blocklage which triggered the events. See the BEA (Bureau d’Enquetes et d’Analyses) report into this accident. It says the following - "The obstruction of the Pitot probes by ice crystals was identified as the first in a series of events leading to the accident." Moriori (talk) 02:39, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

In both cases, pitot tube failure was a trigger, even the critical trigger. In both cases, it is not correct to name the pitot tubes as a cause without then mentioning subsequent pilot error. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:44, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
Irrelevant to my point, which you haven't addressed. You said "Pitot tubes is getting into too much detail. Pitot tube failure should not ever cause a plane to crash within minutes." I said you were wide of the mark, and gave rational reason for saying so. Pitot failure can cause an aircraft to crash and did so in this case by disorienting the pilots. It is reasonable to assume that this aircraft would never have crashed had the pitot/s not iced up. (I guess I need to say I know there were other contributing factors, to head off your next comment).
I don't dispute your point as put.
My point is that if the pitot tube details are included, then so must subsequent details in the chain.
I can debate terminology of triggers, factors, causes and the final mistake of no return if you like. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:26, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Outdent. I think that SmokeyJoe has outlined a way forward, but I'd like to apply KISS (or less is more, if you prefer) even more agressively, so I suggest "unrecovered high-altitude stall". That hints at the pilots doing something wrong, and in the summary there is no need to say that the airplane hit the water, everybody knows that (or will as soon as they glance at the article). They can read the article to find out why the stall happened in the first place.--Gautier lebon (talk) 12:00, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Seems like poor application of KISS. Not all readers are going to be familiar with flight terms. Some may have difficulty understanding what an "unrecovered stall" is. NickCT (talk) 12:05, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
Leave the summary blank. The crash was due to a complex series of events, and trying to reduce it to a few words is inappropriate and liable to mislead the reader. If an incident cannot be put down to a single event, we shouldn't imply otherwise. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:24, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
Totally agree. There were numerous factors, so it's pointless trying to include only one or a couple or every single factor in the intro. Removing info from summary. Moriori (talk) 09:01, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm not unhappy with the current version, but I see clumsiness in having three competing summaries:

Lede summaries:

(1) crashed into the Atlantic Ocean
(2) crashed after temporary inconsistencies between the airspeed measurements—likely due to the aircraft's pitot tubes being obstructed by ice crystals—caused the autopilot to disconnect, after which the crew reacted incorrectly and ultimately led the aircraft to an aerodynamic stall which they did not recover from.

Infobox:

(3) "Accident summary": "Summary": Entered high altitude stall, impacted ocean.

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:49, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

These are not competing. First instance just says the occurrence is a crash, not a summary by Ny measure. Summary in infobox shorter than in body. — Lfdder (talk) 09:12, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
"Entered high altitude stall, impacted ocean" doesn't even make sense. You can't impact the ocean at high altitude. 'Entered stall at high altitude' might make more sense - but it still implies that the stall was the sole cause of the accident, which it clearly wasn't. A misleading summary is worse than no summary at all. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:42, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
Are you being obtuse on purpose now? 'Entered stall at high altitude' is the same as 'entered high altitude stall'. There's nothing misleading about the summary; it's not meant to outline the entire chain of events. It is given not any one thing is ever the cause of an aircraft accident. What we've done is we identified the last big thing to happen that led to the crash (and it's also the exact same wording AVHerald uses). If this accident summary is not suitable, no accident summary on Wikipedia is—but I don't see anyone complaining about any other summary? — Lfdder (talk) 16:36, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
If you can't comprehend the difference between 'Entered stall at high altitude' and 'entered high altitude stall' it is your problem not mine. As for other accident summaries, they are irrelevant to this discussion. This summary is misleading, and shouldn't be used. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:06, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
Explain to me, what is the difference? You did not address anything I said, you just keep reiterating, it's misleading. — Lfdder (talk) 17:08, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
To be in a 'high altitude stall' one must necessarily be (a) stalled, and (b) at high altitude. The aircraft wasn't at high altitude when it hit the water. It wasn't in a high altitude stall. It was in a stall that started at high altitude. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:35, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
I tend to agree with Andy here. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:50, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
I would too if there were no gravity. It's obvious what it means (to me), but if Andy finds it confusing, then ok, we can reword it. — Lfdder (talk) 18:05, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
you mean, there's gravity?! shucks, that explains a lot... Martinevans123 (talk) 18:13, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Outdent. Have we run out of energy to further discuss this? Do we leave it as it is now?--Gautier lebon (talk) 14:25, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

"Entered high altitude stall, impacted ocean" is good enough. It's true. I can't be reasonably confused. All readers should know that there are no high altitude oceans, and so it must be read as implied that the plane fell a long way during or after the stall. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:32, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Just a short Post Script to the long discussion above:-

A temporary loss of Air Speed data resulted in an Auto Pilot and Auto Thruster disconnection leading to inexplicable pilot handling that resulted in the aircraft crashing into the Atlantic after being stalled at 38,000 feet with no meaningful attempt made to regain a stable flight path.

You've got to remember these pilots didn't realize they were stalled - even after hearing the synthesized voice stall warning 50+ times! Failure to follow Standard Operating Procedures and no identified application of Crew Resource Management procedures are aggravating features.

The BEA's Final Report is well written and deals with the facts. The Aviation Industry is quite capable of "understanding" those facts, so dressing up the actions/inactions of these pilots in order not to apportion blame is being counter-productive. The French justice system will ultimately come up with its own judgement, but whatever that is, it will never change the laws of physics nor the aerodynamics of flight.Kiwi Kousin (talk) 08:06, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

"Ye cannae change the laws of physics, Captain!" I'm not sure anyone here is seekings to "dress up the actions/inactions of these pilots in order not to apportion blame". In fact, once we start using that very convenient b-word, I think important HMI issues are likely to be lost or diminished. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:58, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

*Comment You guys gotta be joking! What a mess. I just looked in on the RFC call, but I don't see this RFC doing a bit of good in this climate. FWIW I support what I have read of Smokey Joe's remarks; they seem practical and neutral. I'm outta here and hope not to be hit in the backside by the door. Good luck! JonRichfield (talk) 13:30, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

that's a failing in the door-backside interface. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:08, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment I also support Smokey Joe's approach. And don't worry Jon. I'll hold the door on your way out. Lol. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 03:43, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
but that's successful crew resource management. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:08, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Comment There are several factors that are making the determination of the summary difficult here:

  • As usual, there was a chain of events that led to the accident. Which one was the root cause then if any of these could have changed the outcome? (Weather, pitot tubes, flight controls, flight computer, pilot error, captain absent, training, stall...)
  • The official report is cloaked in euphemisms like "inappropriate control inputs". As far as I'm aware, WP tries to avoid these, so we have an inherent problem as this report is supposed to be our most reliable source.
  • Even if we assume that the cause was "pilot error", was it their fault that they didn't receive any flight training for this scenario? i.e. Pilot error implies that the airline or industry is at fault, which is possibly why the official report is using the padded wording that it is.

So rather inconveniently, it's difficult to come up with a summary, but if we must have one, then I'd suggest that the aircraft crashed because it "stalled" (even if the underlying reasons for that remain unclear or disputed). Socrates2008 (Talk) 10:01, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Socrates' comments. Indeed the root cause of the crash is an unrecovered stall. Many factors contributed to the unrecoved stall. For what it is worth (not much, because it does not affect the discussion above), as far as I can tell, the factors that contributed decisively to the crash were: weather, inadequate de-iceing of pitot tube, confusing cockpit ergonomics, insufficient pilot training for such a situation (which is extremely rare), inadequate actions by the PF and the PNF. --Gautier lebon (talk) 15:19, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
A good summary, with which I wholly concur. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:39, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

How do we go forward?

This discussion has been open for three weeks, and appears to have calmed down. As the initiator of this RfC, I believe it's time to end this discussion. I have read through all comments and have come to the following conclusions:

  • "Pilot error" should not be mentioned, because the official BEA report as well as several reports from experts don't claim "pilot error"
  • The plane was stalling
  • "Cruise" should not be mentioned regarding the stall (if we should mention the stall)
  • The pitot tube failure (causing loss of air-speed data) started the chain of events leading to the crash

The current summary in the infobox states: "Entered high altitude stall, impacted ocean". Personally I still stand by what I've said earlier – that I think the summary should be something along the lines of "Pitot tube failure, followed by inappropriate control inputs" or "Pitot tube failure, causing spatial disorientation". Also, the current summary does not address anything in regards to the causes of the crash.

The important question is: How should we go forward from here? I'm prepared to ask for a non-involved admin to make a determination and close this RfC. Another option is to request a third opinion. Or, can we all agree to the current summary ("Entered high altitude stall, impacted ocean")?

After this RfC has been closed, I will make a very clear hidden note in the article that any future changes to the summary in the infobox need talk page discussion, given the extensive amount of time we've already put into reaching a consensus (over a month). I do not wish to see another edit-war story concerning the summary in the infobox.

HeyMid (contribs) 18:08, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

The two initial questions for a layperson: Why? and how?. I agreed with HeyMid. ("Pitot failure, causing .... etc"). And inserting a note: "See Summary Report ref x Sec.4.

PauloMSimoes (talk) 19:59, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps "leading to spatial disorientation" would be better than "causing spatial disorientation". I've submitted a request to close this RfC. Cheers, HeyMid (contribs) 08:09, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
"...inappropriate control inputs" is also important. PauloMSimoes (talk) 15:28, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
A simple summary of such a complex event is going to be difficult, and writing one for people who don't understand how airplanes fly may not be possible. "Flight did not recover from apparent coffin corner stall" is how I'd write it. Attributing blame in the summary is inappropriate, in my opinion, there are too many factors involved. htom (talk) 03:14, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
The request to close this RfC was declined. We need to find consensus for a good summary. While I understand your point OtterSmith, my impression is that several users are making the issue more complex than it is. The official BEA report states that the failure of the pitot tubes caused the chain of events leading to the crash, most notably leading to the crew's spatial disorientation. You can easily find out that the plane stalled and crashed in the Atlantic Ocean by reading through the lead prose (which is just half as long as it was before). And if something's unclear for the readers, we can wikilink relevant words/terms. Our job, I believe, is to state the basic causes in the summary, not the obvious events (such as the plane stalling and the plane crashing in the ocean) which don't address the causes of the crash. HeyMid (contribs) 07:50, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Outdent. We seem to be going around and around on this. As I said above, as far as I can tell, the factors that contributed decisively to the crash were: weather, inadequate de-iceing of pitot tube, confusing cockpit ergonomics, insufficient pilot training for such a situation (which is extremely rare), inadequate actions by the PF and the PNF. Various editors would prefer to summarize that complex set of causes by picking out some, but most editors think that that would be (1) inappropriate and (2) OR. So either we say nothing at all, or we leave the bland factual statement that is there now.Gautier lebon (talk) 09:54, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

The point with my suggestion is to mention the causes that were significant for the accident - i.e., the pitot tube failure which triggered the entire chain of events, as well as the crew being disoriented (spatial disorientation) as a result. I do agree, however, that "Entered high altitude stall, impacted ocean" is better than leaving the "Summary" field empty. HeyMid (contribs) 11:30, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
I agree with HeyMid: just about everything can be explained with internal links for Pitot tube, Spatial disorientation and this external link, with some simple descriptions in the summary, the primordial and the most comprehensive causes. PauloMSimoes (talk) 13:01, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Others have stated that "pilot error" is not mentioned in the official report. While that specific phrase is not mentioned, I don't think it's correct that the final report does not cite major errors by the pilots. Here is their synopsis, taken from page 1 of the report: 

At 2 h 10 min 05, likely following the obstruction of the Pitot probes by ice crystals, 
the speed indications were incorrect and some automatic systems disconnected. The 
aeroplane’s flight path was not controlled by the two copilots. They were rejoined 1 
minute 30 later by the Captain, while the aeroplane was in a stall situation that lasted 
until the impact with the sea at 2 h 14 min 28.
The accident resulted from the following succession of events:
ˆ* Temporary inconsistency between the measured airspeeds, likely following the obstruction of the Pitot probes by ice crystals that led in particular to autopilot disconnection and a reconfiguration to alternate law,
ˆ* Inappropriate control inputs that destabilized the flight path, 
ˆ* The crew not making the connection between the loss of indicated airspeeds and the appropriate procedure,
ˆ* The PNF’s late identification of the deviation in the flight path and insufficient correction by the PF,
ˆ* The crew not identifying the approach to stall, the lack of an immediate reaction on its part and exit from the flight envelope,
ˆ* The crew’s failure to diagnose the stall situation and, consequently, the lack of any actions that would have made recovery possible.

That is also the shortest "summary" that is supported by official sources. I would support "Pitot tube failure, followed by failure of pilots to control flight path" as the most accurate summary of the single primary source. --Sam (talk) 15:48, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

How about "Apparent pitot tube failure followed by failure to control flight path."? We don't know (as I read the reports) that it was actually pitot tube failure, it was a data stream failure. Both the airframe's fly-by-wire computer controls and the pilots appear to have made errors. I'd prefer "Apparent pitot tube failure followed by failure to recover from stall" to references to flight path, which sounds like they headed in the wrong direction (which they did, but the airframe's attitude was more wrong.)htom (talk) 21:37, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
Htom (OtterSmith) does raise an interesting issue here. We don't know for sure that the pitot tubes did cause the incorrect speed measurements; the official BEA report does not confirm that. In fact, the report also states that "The destabilisation that resulted from the climbing flight path and changes in pitch attitude and vertical speed therefore added to the incorrect airspeed indications and ECAM messages that did not help any diagnosis." In other words, while the pitot tubes may have significantly contributed to the incorrect speed measurements, it was not the only cause. I'd support "Incorrect speed measurements, leading to spatial disorientation" as the summary. HeyMid (contribs) 14:08, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
Points 2-5 in the investigation summary above lead a layman to infer "pilot error". But the industry's approach to investigating accidents has evolved, so investigators following ICAO's "Reason model" are smart enough to realize that "human error may indicate where in the system a breakdown occurs, but it provides no guidance as to why it occurs.". It's time we caught up, and stopped trying to synthesize convenient summaries or apportion blame for the sake of an infobox. Following the Reason model, surely it's "pitot tube failure, and organizational factors"? Socrates2008 (Talk) 14:01, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
We're not doing safety management here. That summary would be completely uninformative as to what actually happened. — Lfdder (talk) 14:20, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
"What actually happened" ... we don't know that, really, we're trying to read technical reports and make sense of them. "We're not really sure; a confusing unrecovered high altitude stall and crash into ocean." would be a one sentence summary. Sometimes we do not know, and pretending we do is not helpful. htom (talk) 19:44, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
Goes without saying. — Lfdder (talk) 20:18, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
I suspect that such a summary would be a first at Wikipedia. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:21, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
We're not really sure; a confusing, unrecovered high altitude stall, and crash into ocean. Someone go for it! htom (talk) 20:58, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
Let's not. — Lfdder (talk) 21:01, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
Sadly, I have to agree. Wouldn't be encyclopedic. htom (talk) 22:26, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, I've probably been misunderstood. If anyone has the time, take a look at Chapter 3, which gives an interesting insight into accident investigation philosophy and best practice. Perhaps this will help understand why the report uses the wording it does, and why it's specifically avoiding the very thing we're trying to do here, i.e. over-simplify a very complex series of events. Socrates2008 (Talk) 10:52, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
"See text" (with internal wl). No infobox summary (even if we were not bound by wp:SYN) could possibly do the job well. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:58, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
I agree with LeadSongDog. We are bound not to do OR or SYN. So, even though I think it should be described as "pitot tube failure, followed by incorrect pilot actions", that is not what the reliable sources say, so it is not what we should say in Wikipedia.--Gautier lebon (talk) 09:53, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
  • My reading leads me to conclude that the single biggest failure contributing to the crash was the captain leaving the more junior co-pilot in charge, over the more senior fresh-to-the-cockpit co-pilot, creating line of command confusion between the co-pilots. I don't think the brief period pitot tube failure was critical. I do think the junior co-pilot didn't realise that he had put or left the plane in continuous nose-up instruction until very (too) late. A competing major factor for biggest contributing factor for the crash was that the senior co-pilot did not know that the junior co-pilot was continuously causing nose-up input. Pulling out anything specific, like pitot tube failure, is to draw unreasonable focus on one single thing in a multi-factor failure. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:22, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Removed summary

There's nothing that remotely resembles consensus on this so I went ahead and removed the summary. It's probably time to close this discussion I think. — Lfdder (talk) 22:52, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

@SmokeyJoe: No, actually, people have called it "OR" several times. — Lfdder (talk) 00:38, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Really? That there was a stall? That it was at high altitude? That the plane was destroyed on crashing into the ocean. WP:NOR? Who said that where? And what section of WP:NOR did they think they were referring to. The ultra-brief summary is the consensus-compromise that I read above, and there is no WP:NOR issue. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:10, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
It is grossly misleading to 'summarise' the accident while leaving out significant factors. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:14, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
That's actually my summary. I think I've argued quite enough about it. - Lfdder (talk) 01:22, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Under what scenario would what reader be misled by the current summary? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:12, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Outdent. Folks, we have repeatedly failed to reach consensus on this. So either we leave it as it stands now, or we remove the summary entirely. I think that there is a majority in favor of leaving it as it stands now, and I can live with that.--Gautier lebon (talk) 06:54, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and requested an uninvolved user to close and summarize the discussion. HeyMid (contribs) 19:19, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Hmmmmm... Is a bit of cage-rattling in order?

I actually looked in here because I got pinged for another reason, and what I have to say probably is stale news to aeronauticians (of which I am not one, so forgive my innocence).

However, I recently discovered something new to me in the following article in New Scientist: [2]. It seems to address the same topic as: [3] which then took me a bit of finding, so I thought it worth mentioning. It is not clear to me that there is sufficient linking to such material in this Air_France_Flight_447 article, and I am wondering either whether WP needs a separate article on the topic of High Level Ice Crystal Icing, or, if there already is sufficient material in WP, whether there shouldn't be more obvious links and disambiguation. It might be pretty old news to the experts, but I guarantee that most users have never heard if it.

So: I am not the right person to write on such a topic and its appropriate links, but if it has not yet been done, I would be happy to know that someone properly equipped is having a look at it. JonRichfield (talk) 05:22, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

We already have icing conditions and atmospheric icing, both in need of work. Perhaps improving them would be a good place to start? LeadSongDog come howl! 21:40, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

In popular culture section

Sorry I changed from In Popular Culture to Dramtisation. I just got a bit confused. My bad. MattChatt18 (talk) 10:15, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

@MattChatt18: ok. WP:GF, as I wrote in summary. PauloMSimoes (talk) 11:30, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

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Laws

The article has:


At 02:10:05 UTC the autopilot disengaged because the blocked pitot tubes were no longer providing valid airspeed information, and the airplane transitioned from normal law to alternate law 2.


Because of the importance of this event, some inline explanation of what these laws are is in order.


(The clumsiness of 'the airplane transitioned' is another topic entirely)

109.145.107.35 (talk) 16:45, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Consolidating references for clarity

There are a large number of uncombined, duplicate references in the article. The references to Palmer 2013 are now done, and those references now link through the footnote to the source, which streamlines verifiability. There are also a lot of duplicate refs to the various BEA reports, and I'm starting to consolidate these with short footnotes per WP:CITATION using the {{sfn}} template.

There are at least three different BEA reports mentioned in references: the first and second interim reports, and the final report. These references use a wide variety of different citation styles, some with minimal information. First, I'll be consolidating only the ones that are non-templated, in-line references, which mention "first", "second", or "final" and have a section or page number (or both), namely these:

list of refs citing BEA reports to be consolidated in this step
  • <ref>BEA first interim report, section 1.17.2.3 "Air France procedures"</ref>
  • <ref>BEA first interim report, section 1.17.2.2</ref>
  • <ref>BEA final report, section 2.1.1.3.1 "Choice of time period"</ref>
  • <ref>BEA final report, section 2.1.2.3 "The excessive amplitude of these [nose-up] inputs made them unsuitable and incompatible with the recommended aeroplane handling practices for high altitude flight."</ref>
  • <ref>BEA final report, p. 198 "The speed displayed on the left PFD was incorrect for 29 seconds, that of the speed on the ISIS for 54 seconds and the speed displayed on the right PFD for 61 seconds at most."</ref>
  • <ref>BEA final report, section 1.7.1, page 46</ref>
  • <ref>BEA final report, section 1.11.2, Figure 24 – page 58</ref>
  • <ref>BEA final report, section 2.1.1.1, page 167</ref>
  • <ref>BEA second interim report, section 1.13, page 32 (PDF page 33 of 104) "The autopsies made it possible to identify fifty persons: 45 passengers, 4 flight attendants, and the captain"</ref>
  • <ref>BEA first interim report, appendix A "Chronology of recovery of bodies and airplane parts" (pages 101–107)</ref>
  • <ref>BEA first interim report, section 1.12.1, page 37 (PDF page 38 of 128)</ref>
  • <ref>BEA first interim report, page 46</ref>
  • <ref>BEA final report, page 20.</ref>
  • <ref>BEA Final Report – Section 1.5.1 – Pages 24–29</ref>
  • <ref>BEA Final report, p.122 (1.17.1.5.3)</ref>
  • <ref>BEA Final report, p.216 (5.3.1)</ref>
  • <ref>BEA final report, section 1.18.1.1, page 137</ref>
  • <ref>BEA final report page 200</ref>
  • <ref>BEA Final Report (Section 4.2.2 – page 205)</ref>
  • <ref>BEA final report, section 1.5, page 24 (PDF page 26 of 224): "The crew had left Paris on Thursday 28 May 2009 in the morning and arrived in Rio de Janeiro in the evening of the same day"</ref>

Some of these have quotations as well, which if unique to that report and page, can use the ps= param to represent them, otherwise they need to be rendered using {{ref}} with a hyperlinked identifier using CITEREF in the same way as some of the Palmer refs were done, e.g. this one. Mathglot (talk) 03:53, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

CITEREF looks cool. If I'd known about it when I added the Palmer refs, I'd have done it that way in the first place. Sorry to cause you all that work! 80.2.106.75 (talk) 10:24, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
Mathglot While the short footnotes are helpful (and don't seem to be a problem if you're willing to change all the references to SFN), I think it would have been a lot easier to just use Template:Rp after the footnotes for the reports. Plus, per WP:CITESTYLE , the citation style of the article shouldn't be changed for with the existing citation style. For comparison, see Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which uses Template:Rp for the reports. AHeneen (talk) 03:25, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
Hi AHeneen: I'm fine with using {{rp}} but perhaps I wasn't clear about the problem I am attacking. The problem with the references currently is the number of uncombined, duplicated references throughout the article in many different styles, a fraction of which are shown above in the hide/show click section. {{rp}} is about showing page numbers, and page numbering (or lack thereof) is about 3% of the problem in the BEA report references, with the other 97% of the problem being the uncombined, duplicate references—that's what I am trying to fix. I have no objection at all to using {{rp}} anywhere or everywhere where it would be helpful. It might, however, be worthwhile to hold off on adding {{rp}}'s until the duplicate consolidation is finished. (I'll leave a message here about that, when it is.) Thanks for your comment, I'll keep it in mind when the first effort is completed. Mathglot (talk) 03:40, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
Also, just to be clear about your other point, there is no change to citation style going on with these changes; the text still renders with bracketed numeric footnotes, as before. A change in citation style would mean, for example, that where formerly you had a bracketed numeric in the text, like this: "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.[27]", you would instead see the ref displayed in Harvardnb style, thus: "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.(Palmer 2013), p.25."; but this is not the case, no such change is happening. The change strictly involves improving usability by making the footnotes link to the source citation, while retaining the original style.
Putting it another way, whereas formerly if you went to the #References section and searched for 'Palmer 2013', they would all be plain, black text, now when you do that, they are all blue and linked to the underlying {{Citation}}. That is the only difference. The difference in substance involves consolidating duplicate references, so the numeric count of footnotes will go down by the number of duplicates, and those little letters you see after a reused footnote (e.g., 99. ^ a b c d e f ) will go up by the same amount. Removing duplicate citations is identified as a best practice on Wikipedia, and this is what this whole effort is about. Mathglot (talk) 23:24, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Fleshed out the four official BEA reports with full {{Citation}} params; many, but not all, refs now link to them through {{sfn}} or CITEREFs. Some de-duping; more to come.

One of the interesting things I discovered in applying full Citation params, is that of the four reports, #1 has a validly formatted isbn listed in the report, but it doesn't work, #2 has a working isbn, the other two have none; the first three all have an OCLC number, the final does not. Mathglot (talk) 07:16, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

AHeneen So, most of it is done now. It should be a lot easier for people to navigate the references. The most visible change, is the centralization of the Citations for the four BEA reports in one place (i.e., in section #Works cited) and avoiding clutter by using short citations. Using {{rp}} could be a way to go for page numbers, but as there were so many duplicated references, especially to the 4 BEA reports, that had to be taken care of first, and now it has been, which made the de-dupeing of the multiple references for the same reports much easier. Since I used {{sfn}} for the most part to do it, which has param p= for page number, and even a loc= param, which came in very handy for the report section numbers, it wasn't necessary to use {{rp}}. Plus, using p= or loc= will get you automatic consolidation of references grouped by page number, which is a nice freebie. Turns out there were plenty of references that don't have page numbers that need them, and I haven't looked into that, because that involves going back to the sources and trying to locate the page, so I just tagged them with {{page needed}}. But if you're up for that, feel free to use {{rp}} if you find it easier, or the p/loc params as the other references do. Mathglot (talk) 06:16, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
@Mathglot: OK. I was confused by what the original post meant, but I now understand for the most part. This is an article that I am considering to improve to GA status, so my earlier comment was just to clarify what you were doing. However, I still have a couple of questions about what you did:
  • why are there sections for both English and French official sources? They are all duplicates of the same reports, just in different languages. I don't think there is any need to list the French-language reports.
  • I understand that you used shortened footnotes, but I am very confused by what style of citations did you use for this article? I see that some sources are included in the "Works cited" section and some are not.
Again, I am considering improving this article to GA status and having properly-formatted references is one of the GA criteria and the citation style should not be arbitrarily changed (WP:CITEVAR), so I want to understand what citation format you used. AHeneen (talk) 02:49, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
Hi, to clarify about the en/fr sources: you're right, they are duplicates, but I included them for two reasons: 1) a couple of references already linked to the French reports for some reason; perhaps this was a carry-over from translation of the original French article. But more importantly, 2) There's a statement on every one of the English reports by BEA that the English versions are a courtesy of the BEA for English-speaking audiences, but that only the French versions are official, in case of disagreement (I forget the exact wording). So for that reason only, I thought it worth including the French versions, in case any investigation-wonks wanted to more easily find the original French versions.
Having said that, if you object to having the French versions listed there, I've already linked them from the English versions, so you can jump from one to the other. If you think it detracts from the article to have both language versions listed, we can keep the English versions only, and then change the links in the English versions to point to the French versions online, instead of pointing to the citation of the French version of the report in the article itself, so it would still be a one-click operation. I think the current setup is marginally better, as you get to see the citation without waiting for a huge pdf to lad, but the difference isn't that great, and if you much prefer the other, I wouldn't fight over it.
There's no arbitrary change to references; the rendering of the article itself has not essentially changed (except where I standardized all sorts of different ways of reporting sections, page numbers and so on, so they all do it the same way, and in the same order). The main change is, that where before you would have something like, "BEA final report, p. 27" in black, unliked typeface, now you have "BEA final report", in blue, followed by ", p. 27" in black, where the blue part is a link to the actual citation of the BEA final report. It's true that there's a mix of a very few Bibliographic citations as "Sources" followed by hundreds of footnotes, and if you want to call that "mixed" you can, but that existed before I got started; the only thing I wanted to do was standardize all those dozens of "black type" references to the "Final report BEA" that phrased it in so many different ways to make them all look the same, to make it clear exactly which citation the unlinked footnote was referencing, and to turn the black font blue and make it into a link. To that end, I did add the four BEA reports in English, the four in French and a couple of report appendies to that section which were not there before, so it's longer than it was, but the "mix" of citations existed already.
The overriding purpose behind each change I made was to get some sort of order out of the chaos of the footnote formattig, especially (but not exclusively) wrt the ones referencing the BEA reports before that series of changes. If you don't like having the BEA reports listed as they are now, I'm open to suggestions on how to improve it. I assume you're in favor of having the BEA reports cited in long form somewhere or other, how would you prefer to do it? Mathglot (talk) 22:50, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
Also, if you want to get it to GA status, this formatting stuff, niggly as it is, seems like the easy part to me. Seems like it will be a lot harder to take on the overall structure, make sure there's a clear and complete narrative, and that everything's properly sourced and has proper weight. Even more so, with so many of the references in French (or Portuguese) due to the nature of the event. Maybe this is O/T in this discussion about references, but I'd urge you to open a Talk section just about an effort to get to GA, and how you propose to do that. That seems like it will take a real collaborative effort. If you want to lead it and need me for something, especially if you need someone to check out or verify existing foreign language references or find new ones (or make sure the English ones don't contradict foreign ones) I'm game. Mathglot (talk) 22:57, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
Oh, if by "different style" you meant any of those little bold headings I put in like "Official sources (in English)", and so on, feel free to remove them. I put those in because I thought it would be helpful to someone scanning the sources. It's true this doesn't strictly follow the models used at WP:CITE, but that page doesn't dwell on the headings and it's not contrary to anything there either, and is in the spirit of improving the article. But like I say, if you find it unhelpful, just remove them. Mathglot (talk) 18:50, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
It will probably be a couple of months. I can read French fairly well and have improved two articles to GA-status that rely on almost all French-language references Eckwersheim derailment & Saverne Tunnel. I'm currently competing in the WP:WikiCup and this is an article that I have a decent knowledge of, which is why I'd like to get it to GA. I've written and improved all of the MH370-related articles except for the unofficial disappearance theories page and worked on a couple of other recent aircraft crash articles. I don't see any potentially controversial changes except for changes to the content of the "Independent analyses" section. The "Investigation and safety improvements" section needs improvements so it is more coherent. The accident section can be modeled after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370#Disappearance and mostly rely on the official BEA report. The rest of the article should not be much trouble to clean up. AHeneen (talk) 03:51, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

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Aircraft altitude

I don't see any mention of the aircraft's assigned/cruising altitude before the incident; I would think that would be good to know. This is my first Wikipedia comment; my apologies if I'm not doing this right...

From this YouTube video, it looks like the aircraft was at FL350: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-hbWO0gL6g — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jhonmason (talk • contribs) 20:08, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

@Jhonmason: The article has the following comment, is this what you were looking for?

At 02:11:10 UTC, the aircraft had climbed to its maximum altitude of around 38,000 feet (12,000 m).

And congratulations on your first Wikipedia comment, and welcome! There is one thing you can read up on, to "do it right", which is that all talk pages comments should be signed using four tildes, like this: ~~~~. Beyond that, you might want to read up a little on Talk page guidelines, the use of indentation in follow-up replies, and the use of the {{reply}} template to alert other user(s) that you have replied to them, like I just did.
Once again, welcome! Mathglot (talk) 06:48, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
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