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Lede verbosity

Is it just me, or has this lede section gotten seriously out of control? LeadSongDog come howl! 18:39, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Interview with Woods Hole about AF 447

I found:

WhisperToMe (talk) 03:00, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Fascinating article in its own right. Thanks for that. JRPG (talk) 00:09, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
You are welcome :) WhisperToMe (talk) 08:27, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Brazilian Air Force stuff

Archiving... WhisperToMe (talk) 08:08, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

FAB Videos

Videos:

WhisperToMe (talk) 08:27, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

FAB Audio

WhisperToMe (talk) 08:16, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

FAB Infográficos

WhisperToMe (talk) 23:00, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Documentary

Here's a transcript of a documentary by Journeyman TV WhisperToMe (talk) 17:08, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Final report

Now linked. Note the pdf "properties" incorrectly shows it as Interim report no. 3. Someone at the BEA missed that edit. So, time to get to work folks :-) LeadSongDog come howl! 15:49, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Leaked CVR Transcript

Currently, the article displays the leaked transcript from the CVR from Popular Mechanics, which itself comes from the book of J.P. Otelli "Erreurs de Pilotage #5". There are two questions that come to my mind.

- Isn't this a dreaded case of copyright violation ? Most of the transcript comes straight from the book.

- Even if I read the book and I consider it to be a good source, shouldn't the BEA report be considered as a more reliable source ? Shouldn't we display the transcript from the BEA report instead ? Cochonfou (talk) 14:28, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

The BEA furthermore has not published the transcript (yet) - as soon as it did, that would become the preferred source. Socrates2008 (Talk) 01:57, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
Yes, it is a copyright violation if any annotation to the spoken words is given. Also, if there are alternate versions of the transcription, or the transcript is a translation. At least two of those apply, here. Material removed. 76.102.1.193 (talk) 15:31, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
What's your basis for these assertions? Perhaps you are correct, but I'm restoring the material unless/until someone can point to specific Wikipedia policies that support what you're claiming. Terence7 (talk) 18:52, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Outdent. The key parts of the conversations in the cockpit are presented in the BEA Final Report. I don't see any value-added in including the raw transcript in the Wikipedia article, but I think that a link to where to find them can be added, maybe under external links.--Gautier lebon (talk) 10:35, 9 July 2012 (UTC)


The raw transcript should be made available on Wikipedia, that's fairly common on here to put the full unadulterated facts and the transcript represents the facts. The issue that I see with the way we have it now is that the overlay analysis is directly from Popular Mechanics which itself presents a couple of issues:

  1. It's copyrighted and the overlay commentary is substantial so it falls outside the fair use license
  2. The overlay commentary is POV laden inflicting too much blame on the pilots and almost none on the technology systems

Recommend we strip the overlay commentary and keep the transcript only/with translation. The situation is too technical for one POV to be given to the readers when everyone from Airbus to Air France to professional pilots will be debating and discussing this for years. When the official transcript is released, we should put that here as the full transcript.--Justanonymous (talk) 01:50, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you 213.121.205.71. I have read the official transcript and the leaked transcript is materially different (shorter, summarized, verbiage left out, etc) so I've gone ahead and removed the leaked transcript from the page and made reference to the official transcript in the section. Feel free to discuss.--Justanonymous (talk) 17:54, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Oudent. We now have access to the official transcript so discussions about adding details from the leaked transcript are moot. We're closing this discussion and opening a new topic to discuss what, if any, content from the official cvr transcript should go on the wiki.Justanonymous (talk) 13:31, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Add LexInst?

http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/2009-air-france-crash-due-partly-to-airbus-design-decisions?a=1&c=1171 design features of the Airbus plane may have contributed to a loss of situational awareness in the cockpit

Add this? Warning, LBT is paid by Boeing to write such things. Hcobb (talk) 15:04, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
The Lexington Institute article is a pretty accurate summary of the BEA Final Report. If anything, it understates the ergonomical issues mentioned in the BEA report, for example that the Flight Director was not automatically disconnected and that the PF (pilot flying) may have been confused by its indications.--Gautier lebon (talk) 06:30, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

"Pilot error"

The phrase appears nowhere in the final report, but editors somehow can't resist adding it to the infobox. Please don't. It is a gross oversimplification of what happened. The actions of the crew were the product of the situation, the aircraft, the intended response to such failures, the communication protocols, the training delivered, and many more factors. It is clear from the report that improvements in all these areas are needed, but a simple attribution of "pilot error" would undermine them. Let's stick to what the source actually says.LeadSongDog come howl! 21:22, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

  • Well said; the above paragraph, altered suitably, to fit the article page be used in addition to the content presented as the final report; the complexity and limitations of machine human interaction rules.

Patelurology2 (talk) 14:48, 8 July 2012 (UTC) Patelurology2 (talk) 12:08, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Another piece about the relative merits of side-stick/ centre-stick [1] Martinevans123 (talk) 14:44, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Which co-pilot swapped with the captain?

Which co-pilot was resting before swapping with the captain? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:53, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

I believe it was David Robert, the 37 year old second most experienced pilot on duty if I'm interpretting the Official CVR Transcript correctly.Justanonymous (talk) 21:06, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Which seat? Hours and minutes? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:20, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Outdent. I'm reconstructing here and making a couple of assumptions.

  1. Since this was international flight, I assume all 3 pilots got max crewrest before their flight
  2. 2203 (10:03pm), flight took off Captain was likely flying from left chair (not sure) with Officer Bonin on right chair
  3. 0155, Captain calls Officer Robert to come relieve him and take his place
  4. 0159, Sounds of chairs adjusting and we hear Officer Robert speaking (left chair), Officer Bonin is still in right chair
  5. 0201, Captain exits flight deck

Based on this, I would say that Officer Robert was resting from 2203 to 0155 (3hrs 51 minutes? of inflight rest) He said he dozed on cvr. He likely had a full crew rest period before the flight (but not sure).

So, Officer Robert was sitting in the left chair (Captain's chair) about 10 minutes before the disaster and he had 3hours 51 minutes of in flight crew rest before he took his post. Hope this helps.Justanonymous (talk) 14:10, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

What's the copyright status of the BEA report (it doesn't claim any, and I can't see anything on the website). I'm interested to know if any of the photos can be used... Socrates2008 (Talk) 23:06, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Socrates2008, I did a bit of research (I looked at other air disaster investigations, specifically the Concorde disaster page 2) and the entire report falls under French Law No 78-753 of 17 July 1978 which is classified as "Administrative public sector information." This means we can reuse the work under the following conditions, "This information may be re-used, provided it is not altered, its meaning is not distorted, and mention is made of its sources and the date of its last update. Rights to the administrative public sector information are not transferred to the re-user. The re-user benefits from a personal and non-exclusive right to re-use the administrative public sector information." Based on that, I think we're free to reuse the pictures here and any content provided that we don't take the information out of context and credit BEA as the source. I hope this helps.Justanonymous (talk) 12:27, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

See Also section

I'm noticing that people are just adding unrelated air accidents to the see also section. There are a lot of aviation accidents and the See alsos seem random. It could become unmanageable. also I don't think the intent is to list out all accidents here but to refer the reader truly related articles.

Shouldn't the see also section be narrowed to more relevant information and maybe even grouped? Like

  1. Pitot tube failures
  2. Stall accidents
  3. Type accidents (a320)
  4. list of most catastrophic air accidents ( if it ranks)
  5. pitot tube
  6. aerodynamic stall

Etc

Thoughts?--Justanonymous (talk) 01:35, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Leaked Cockpit Voice Recorder edits July 2012

I removed the "color commentary" on the leaked cockpit voice recorder for several reasons:

  1. it's copyrighted by popular mechanics or a book so it doesn't belong to Wikipedia. It's a WP:CP violation
  2. the color commentary represents a POV of one author and not necessarily the findings of the investigation. It's a WP:NPOV violation
  3. the actual voice recorder data and recordings are not artistically created works and are not subject to copyright, as I best understand, so I left the actual transcript there in a hidden table requiring explicit open before reading - out of respect.

Please discuss here AND read WP:CP and WP:NPOV before reverting or changing. Let's make it better. Thank you. --Justanonymous (talk) 14:16, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

I think you are correct, although it makes it far less useful. A lot of the reported speech is, of course, quite meaningless without an interpretative commentary. But since the archived version of the original PM article is accessible, the infomation in it can be easily found. But some of the items removed may be borderline, e.g. pressing the control which calls the captain - that's just a recorded flightdeck event, like the voice history, and its timing may have been critical. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:36, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Yes but even the mundane interpretations like, pushing a button to call the captain, was an interpretation of a sound on the transcript that only a professional pilot would know how to interpret - Wikipedia shouldn't just get that for free, it's a copyright violation if not a NPOV violation because Popular Mechanics expects to profit from that interpretation. The other color comments were a clear violation of NPOV so I think between NPOV and CP, we wind up with just the guts of the transcript. Justanonymous (talk) 14:58, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Is the rest area call an audio or a visual, or both? Presumably the control press is logged by the FDR? Incidentally the STALL warning in an A330 is "CRICKET + “STALL” message (synthetic voice)", it is permanent (as long as condition persists) and it cannot be silenced. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:20, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
There's also the problem that the PM translation is not very good, e.g. they translate ".. le, le, le ..." literally as "... the, the, the ..." rather than as "... the, uhm, ..." which better conveys the sense of the words. Even omitting the "la" when translating to "I don't know" vice "That, I don't know" is a significant loss of the speaker's intent. Surely there must be a better translation available somewhere?LeadSongDog come howl! 17:56, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Outdent. Why has a new section been opened for this? In particular, see my comment above at Talk:Air France Flight 447#Leaked_CVR_Transcript--Gautier lebon (talk) 07:55, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I created this new section after removing 3,000 characters of WP:CP and WP:NPOV content. I was bold. I suspected that my edit would generate a healthy amount of discussion and I wanted to explicitly make a section for us to discuss that large edit. No disrespect intended and I apologize for any confusion.Justanonymous (talk) 13:27, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Well, I disagree with the NPOV assertion. The fact is that someone has written a well-publicised and notable book containing analysis that is based on a leaked transcript. It's not POV to report on that, whether or not we personally think that the analysis is "correct". The point is that we as editors are not in a position to judge, and to do so would be WP:SYNTH; indeed, to not say what this important source is saying, would be highly POV in my view. This scenario is no different from, say, reporting that the official findings of flight SA-295 are disputed (whether we agree with that or not), as the fact is that this is what's going on in the real world. We know that the official report will trump what we have today, but until then, Popular Mechanics is the only (English) source with respect to analysis of the transcript.
Socrates2008 - One person's analysis however expert is both POV content and in this case CP. If we're to include, we need to do it in a very special fashion by quotations or other mechanism that explicitly calls out to the reader that we are stating somebody else's opinions. The way the commentary was interjected into the transcript its both a WP:CP and WP:NPOV violation because we're presenting it as fact, when in reality it's opinion. We also cannot deprive Popular Mechanics' and a book author's rights to economically benefit from their copyright.Justanonymous (talk) 13:33, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
As far as the translation is concerned, this is the one put forward by the source, so we are not in a position to "tweak" it.
Socrates2008, agree and the french translation is there for French native speakers.Justanonymous (talk) 13:33, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Lastly, on the subject of WP:CP, these issues can be fixed - please be more specific and we'll get to work. Socrates2008 (Talk) 08:48, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
PS: Please don't take this the wrong way, but I note that you've come in with a very assertive tone, despite being a new editor; I hope you'll let some of the experienced editors here guide you through the relevant policies at play. Socrates2008 (Talk) 09:11, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Let's discuss the topic material and not my number of edits on here. A senior editor would know to give a newbie advice on his talk page rather than to try to marginalize his contributions and boldness on an article page. Way to welcome me btw.Justanonymous (talk) 12:20, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Justanonymous - you don't edit like a newbie, so maybe you were here before? I think Socrates is being fair, so please don't take any offence. I think we need to address Gautier's point about the earlier thread. Maybe we should combine the two? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:31, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
I have about 10,000 edits over 10 years on here under anon IPs. Adept at contorting Wikipedia. only recently created formal pseudonym for the social and other technical benefits :-).Justanonymous (talk) 13:27, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Regarding Gautier's question, I went ahead and explained why I broke it off into another section. In my experience, sometimes these things go for arbitration when editors disagree and it's more convenient if all the discussion regarding that edit is in one place. If we all wind up being Kosher on this, we can combine the talk sections but I do have to stand firm that we can't violate WP:NPOV nor WP:CP.Justanonymous (talk) 13:52, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
User 213.121.205.71 pointed us to the official transcript. I have read the official cvr transcript and the leaked transcript is materially different (shorter, summarized, verbiage left out, etc) so I've gone ahead and removed the leaked transcript from the page (based on my analysis its a POV laden summary) and I made reference to the official transcript in the section. Feel free to discuss.Justanonymous (talk) 17:28, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Are the findings of the Final Report protected by copyright? or have they been paraphrased to avoid this? Martinevans123 (talk) 18:06, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
No, they're not artistic works of any kind and the BEA does not hope to profit from them. They just become part of the public record. The "full cvr tape data" does fall under the BEA and they can choose what to divulge to the public which they did in part with their release of their final report. So I think we can make use of the data provided that we give credit to the source and that we don't take anything out of context. I would say that it's likely very easy to misinterpret or take out of context something as incomplete and technical as a CVR. The CVR is quite long, 32 pages (10pages from them going to alternate law to the end of the recording) so it's somewhat unmanageable to put on the page.Justanonymous (talk) 18:30, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
I would agree that a CVR transcript on its own is not very useful, even for an accident investigation team. It only really has value alongside an FDR record, which enables it to be interpreted (and vice versa). But would be surprised if there is no place here even for edited highlights. Maybe there is a way around the copyright problem for a series of smaller excerpts? Martinevans123 (talk) 20:12, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Oh, I think we can definitely put as much or as little of the CVR transcript from BEA on the page as we want to, it's public record. It's free for us to use but we should be careful given the complexity of the situation. I did look at flight 1549 Wiki Page and it has excerpts of the CVR on the page but it's not a transcript.Justanonymous (talk) 20:36, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
As another plus, the official transcript has quite a few annotations to stall and other alerts, communications which should be helpful.Justanonymous (talk) 21:14, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Would the annotations mean using a ""colour commentary"? Perhaps you could re-add what you think is appropriate? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:26, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Outdent. The annotations on the official transcript should be fine to use because they are what BEA determined the various sounds and clicks mean and as such would not be colour commentary because they are the official record (not the interpretations of a single individual with a possible agenda). The challenge in re-adding is in how to do it fairly. There are 10 pages of official transcript from the point alternate law kicked in to the end of the recording and these are words from the grave, in a very technical setting, that were part of a systemic fault that caused the loss of over 200 souls. I think the only fair thing to do, if we're to include the cvr at all, is to make available the whole transcript in a collapsing page like it was before but that's going to take me a bit to do. thoughts?Justanonymous (talk) 00:49, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Based on the explanations above, I have no problems with moving the discussion to this web page. But I still have the same objection to including the transcript in the article, even as a collapsing page. Wikipedia is supposed to be based preferably on tertiary sources, if not availalbe on secondary, and only in the last resort on primary. In this case, the BEA report is the definitive summary of various investigations of the accident so we can consider it a secondary source. The transcript is obviously a primary source. The transcript has been analysed and summarized by BEA and we should report that (which we do, since we include the key elements of the BEA report). In my view, there is no value-added for Wikipedia to publish the transcript in the article. There is value-added to provide a reference to the transcript, but this has been done, because the BEA report includes the transcript. In my veiw, there is no value added at this time in publishing a summary of a leaked (and possibly inaccurate) version of the transcript, because we now have the authoritative BEA report on the matter. I would not object to mentioning/summarizing criticisms of the BEA report, but I haven't seen any, at least not yet.--Gautier lebon (talk) 09:49, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Disagree with your comments above, Justanonymous, however since the official report is apparently released now, this discussion has just become moot so let's close it. Socrates2008 (Talk) 12:00, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Agreed Socrates2008, since we have access to the official transcript, it's moot to discuss adding the leaked transcript. I'll open up a new section to talk about whether we add the official transcript.Thank you everyone. Justanonymous (talk) 13:29, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

I just happened by this article and had some difficulty understanding some things so stopped by the talk page. When I saw that this leaked transcript conversation, I was curious, and dug it up out of the archives. I have to say that it made things way way more clear to me.. far more clear than the confusing official transcript. I reccommend a timeline of some sort with commentary, similar to what was deleted. Cshay (talk) 21:15, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I disagree with the July 2012 removal (here) of the coloured, annotated leaked cockpit voice record. It provided a clear picture of the circumstances of the accident, and without it the article is far more difficult to understand.
It was not a copyright violation. The transcript is not copyrightable. The commentary was brief, not creative, and a summary of the published source, found at http://www.webcitation.org/63mlsUX81 This reliable, secondary source in fact provides the justification for the inclusion of an annotated transcript.
While it contained very brief POV instances, they were sourced POVs, non-extraordinary and quite defendable, and in any case fixable.
The official transcript is relatively impenetrable on a first reading. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:00, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

What content from the official cvr transcript, if any, should be in the wiki?

Recently, the BEA released the official cvr transcript from AF447. I'm opening this discussion to talk about what portion of the content, if any, we should add to the Wiki. Please add your vote and discuss your rationale if you want.

Official CVR Transcript


YES, WE SHOULD INCLUDE OFFICIAL CVR TRANSCRIPT

Yes votes here

NO, WE SHOULD NOT INCLUDE OFFICIAL CVR TRANSCRIPT

  1. Gautier lebon - expressed opinion in different thread (hope it's ok that I list you here Gautier). Yes, that is fine, confirms Gautier.
  2. Justanonymous - too much content in official transcript, very difficult to cherry pick from such difficult content.Justanonymous (talk) 13:39, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
  3. Socrates2008 - It's too long, and needs a narrative anyway to walk people through it - suggest that it's linked, and that relevant sections of interest are highlighted in the article, as the official report does in places. Socrates2008 (Talk) 07:16, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
  4. Askedonty - It is too long and would need a narrative. It is publicized and can be accessed on the Internet as a primary source. Askedonty (talk) 19:26, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Comment here

  1. Patelurology2 (talk) 14:16, 12 July 2012 (UTC) Can this transcript be posted here in a hide and seek mode for others to view?- an unofficial copy was posted in talk page before.
I've added the CVR Transcript link to the top of this section. It's in PDF format and 32 pages so very long to reformat readily. I hope linking to it is ok. It's also here. Justanonymous (talk) 14:53, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
  1. I have received a comment at my own Talk Page, from an anon ip editor at it.wiki, who says that the it. article uses a transcript: [2]. But I'm not sure that a three step translation would be a good idea. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:33, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
I can read a bit of italian, it looks like the Italian wiki is using the same leaked transcript as Popular Mechanics translated from French to Italian. As an aside I love their table of the 24 ACARS messages.Justanonymous (talk) 12:46, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
I would also add that the Popular Mechanics summary is fairly good and concise but there are issues that arise (I think because it's a very complex document), like a) they condemn Bonin for calling out TO/GA but some experienced pilots say there's a windshear TO/GA like protocol (all a family of protocols to reduce strain on the airframe and engines which in this case might have meant that the Bonin understood the throttles were at the full position but that the aircraft's computers were regulating the amount of thrust needed) and Bonin might have been talking about that (note that Robert doesn't jump on Bonin after that comment - he either ignored or they were in sync on that - analogy - if I tell my passenger I'm about to put my car on park while doing 200 on the autobahn, my passenger would object right away), they condemn Bonin for pulling up but at the very end of the official transcript (not really covered in the leak), we can hear the Captain saying Pull up along with Robert and the Stall warnings - everyone including the computer is saying Pull Up in the last minute of the transcript (but there might have been confusion over how to pull up - we don't know). Net net, the Popular Mechanics summary while good, goes go out of its way to paint only one picture and almost fix blame on one co-pilot and I'm not sure the Wiki should be a party to that given the very significant complexities of Airbus flight deck arrangement (this type of arrangement calls for a very pro-active and structured cockpit communication because one pilot cannot see what the other is doing and there is no direct immediate feedback on the condition of the aircraft - nose up/down, thrust, etc) , Air France training, Air France certification process (what was a 32yo doing at the controls of an aircraft with 200+ souls at night in the middle of a strong storm in the middle of the atlantic?? - If you give your 5yo child a gun would you then blame your 5 year old for shooting your neighbor??). Why was the captain taking a rest during the most complex part of the flight (overwater, over intertropical, strong storms, at night - is this standard procedure? That's when we'd expect the most seasoned pilot at the helm, no?)....Issues like this make it very difficult to just put one leaked transcript out because it's extremely easy for us to rewrite the narrative to fit one narrow view when in reality, Sullenberger is probably right - if we look at only the CVR (which is what lay people will do if we put the leaked summary up because the rest is too technical) then they're going to miss 2/3 of the very broad systems fault that occurred between the technology (Airbus), the pilots, Air France procedures, the special training for airbus cockpits, conflicting message, and indeed even the philosophy of the entire career path of pilots in the EU.Justanonymous (talk) 13:05, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

I just happened by this article and had some difficulty understanding some things so stopped by the talk page. When I saw that there was a leaked transcript conversation, I was curious, and dug it up out of the archives. I have to say that it made things way way more clear to me.. far more clear than the confusing official transcript. I reccommend a timeline of some sort with commentary, similar to what was deleted. Now I understand that Bonin was pulling back the whole time and that the other pilot didn't know what because the sticks were not physically linked. Cshay (talk) 21:17, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

The leaked transcript was exactly the same transcript that was released in the end by french authorities. The leaked transcript was cleaned up and commentary was added by the author of a book and then reprinted by Popular Mechanics. The issue is that the cleaned up leaked transcript is POV laden. For example, there is a comment by second officer Bonin (pilot flying) verifying from his copilot Robert whether they were in TOGA. The Popular Mechanics writeup almost crucifies Bonin as incompetent for such statement. However, Bonin might just have been talking about whether "autothrust was set" which would empower him to just pull back on the stick and that the autothrust TOGA setting would automatically adjust the thrust because you can't tell in airbus because the thrust levers don't move. Bonin's comment might have been routine verification and first Officer Robert didn't jump on him right away for such a glaring mistake which leads us to conjecture that Bonin meant the latter and not the former in the cockpit.....but in the end, we as laypeople don't really know. What I'm saying is that any timeline that is drawn up, needs to be very careful that we don't jump to conclusions or unduly blames one party unduly. This was a supremely complex situation in the cockpit and represents a significant "system" failure between aircraft, people, processes etc. I think we should try to be fair here in describing the accident but we need to be careful that we don't delve into details that are irrelevant or that unduly colors the glasses of the average Wikipedia reader. The aviation student/expert is going to go look at the official documentation which we link to anyway.Justanonymous (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:42, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
You are absolutely right, Justanonymous. Different nations, different airlines and even different flight deck teams will have their own shorthand for different modes. If "TOGA" is easier for a French pilot to say (and remember) than "auto-thrust mode set", then that is the term that will be used. It is, in my view, utterly inconceiveable that Bonin could think the aircraft was in a classic "TOGA" situation. But the question itself speaks volumes about the the lack of clarity of FCS/ autopilot modes at this critical moment. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:06, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

This article is overly technical, vague, confusing, and doesn't get to the point early enough

I am a total layperson (non-pilot) and I was very frustrated by this article. I knew that the pitot tubes froze making airspeed unknown. This has been publicized extensively by the press. So what about the details of the pilot error? This article is no help for that. The transcript is essentially useless. I had to dig deep and finally find that popular mechanics transcript with commentary before I could make sense of anything. In the end it seems to boil down to this: "Bonin was pulling back the whole time and that the other pilot didn't know that because the sticks were not physically linked. When the other pilot realized this they were only seconds from crashing and it was too late." If this preceding statement is a true statement, I feel it should be in the very first section. If it is not completely true some variant should be used. The point is that the other pilot didn't know Bonin was doing that. The way the article reads, it sounds like both pilots deliberately chose to pull back, when that was not true at all. It was the one guy, Bonin. It took me an hour of researching other sources to get to the point where I understood why one pilot would be nosing up and the other pilot would not notice. The next question to be answered is "Aside from the sticks being physically linked, was there another error made - eg a verbal error - where one pilot told the other he was not pulling back when he was?" This I do not know the answer to but it should also be addressed in the first section since people want a summary of what the heck happened without digging through reams of docs. And finally has there been speculation as to why Bonin was pulling back that we can reference? Someone in another part of this talk page mentioned something about "auto thrust mode" automatically making the appropriate inputs and he may have assumed that would happen. If this (or any other hypothesis) has been published as a possible reason, we should include it. It should be in the first part of the article before the reader gets bogged down in the mass of details. Cshay (talk) 00:56, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

  • Agree. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:17, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Agree. For whatever it is worth, I feel the Daily Telegraph nails what happened here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447#Daily_Telegraph, especially Note 7. Darrell_Greenwood (talk) 02:42, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Disagree. The reality is more complex than that, please read the official final report. It may well be the case that one of the main causes was the fact that the flight director does not automatically disconnect and the pilot flying was concentrating on that and so thought that he should pull up. But this cannot be said definitely. I do agree that the article should be rewritten to remove the chronological information (which is no longer of interest) and simplified so that it comes to the point sooner, the point being that, as in most disasters, a series of errors which taken individually would not necessarily be catastrophic, combine to create the catastrophe. But I cannot undertake this any time soon.--Gautier lebon (talk) 10:50, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
The final report is too technical. There must be analysis elsewhere we can reference and cite that provides a more clear and concise summary. Telling people to read a report written for people who already know how to fly an airplane is not suffient. 50.0.136.137 (talk) 14:23, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
No, it is sufficiently technical. One cannot discuss complex subjects without precise technical language. The challenge for us as editors is to interpret that technical language for nontechnical readers without altering its meaning. That does not change the fact that the final report is the definitive document. The correct way to use interpretive sources is to first verify that they were able to interpret the definitive source accurately. A track record of prior such work in wp:RS publications is helpful. Much newspaper coverage of aviation subjects gets them wrong, so we don't trust them very much. Specialist publications such as Flight (magazine) and Aviation Week can be more helpful. For major events such as this, there are usually full-length books published which discuss the events in more accessible language. Meanwhile, there are many editors here who can read such reports and understand them. Nothing in wp:V says that all sources cited must be as easily accessible or comprehensible as a WP article. LeadSongDog come howl! 16:55, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
Are you in the industry? If so, you may not be able to see how the report is too technical. I have never even flown a flight simimulator. That did not stop me from wanting to read this article to understand what happened. And I'm telling you the report is not for novice readers. That is the point of this - we need to reference other content. Cshay (talk) 21:48, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
I have to agree with LeadSongDog. It would be a big mistake to try and say in the first para "this accident was caused by x and y". Even the extreme summary under "Type" in info box looks a little too dense to be very useful. Aviation accidents rarely happen just for one solirary reason at one moment in time, and it is misguided to try and find one. They develop over time, usually with several contributory causes, and cannot be understood without a narrative. There are still many questions in this accident that can never be fully answered. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:08, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
I agree with LeadSongDog and Marinevans.--Gautier lebon (talk) 10:05, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Cshay, I'm sad that the article didn't convey the information you were looking for in a succinct enough fashion for you. From reading the article, I can see that a ton of very hard work has gone into it by some great editors on here (myself excluded, I've made a few minor edits). In the defense of the editors of the article, the first sentence of the second paragraph very clearly denotes what the investigators thought was the reason for the crash. Unfortunately, you do need to understand terms like 'stall', 'nose-up inputs' and terms like that to make sense of the sentence....that is what the official investigators thought happened, I cross verified. We will perhaps never know the full extent of what went wrong onboard AF447 but that hasn't stopped interested parties from trying to sell books and inject their own meaning into what happened. That is not the job of Wikipedia. Your analysis that starts the thread is but only ONE interpretation of what happened. The official investigation is much more complex and it is by its very nature extremely technical. I urge you to exercise care if you go to the voice recorder transcripts, they are technical in the extreme. For example, the pilot flying, Officer Bonin asked at one point of his copilot whether they were in TOGA, potentially out of extreme confusion or simply to verify that autothrust was engaged, and with autothrust engaged, it's perfectly safe and reasonable to pull back on the stick to gain altitude but in alternate law it can be catastrophic. When autopilot disengaged, maybe officer Bonin didn't know they went to alternate law - it's a very little computer readout the size of an SMS message in small font and it just scrolls like text messages on one of their 15 or so screens and they had to digest all of these inputs (as they are trained to do) while being tossed about in the middle of a storm at 35,000 feet at night over the atlantic in what perhaps is one of the most complex workstations environments ever devised by humanity! These brave souls were being tossed about up there and they went from all calm to instant crisis and from initial crisis to everybody being dead in under 4 minutes - what can you do in 4 minutes? The only window we have are some electronic messages, wreckage at the bottom of the ocean, and a couple of tape recorders.....and a lot of conjecture over a report that took 3 years to complete and which mind you did not place direct blame on Officer Bonin. It's easy and cheap to simply blame and put this whole monumental tragedy on the shoulders of one poor young inexperienced officer and to simply address him by his last name on here but that would be callous and show extreme disregard for the monumental complexity of what was going on up there that caused the loss of all souls on that flight. I have to agree with my esteemed editors Martinevans, Gautier lebon and LeadSongDog. I applaud their hard work here to provide a fact based article that is based on the investigation and not subjective points-point-of-view laden interpretations swirling around in the media. To their credit, they also provide numerous media sources for readers to go read points of view on tragedy. I'll also try to show some respect towards the flight crew, Officer Bonin's first name was Cedric, he had a loving family, and his tormented bones are laying at the bottom of the atlantic along with his crewmates and the innocent passengers....from the tapes, they fought very hard to the very end. A lot of mistakes were made that night and a lot of mistakes were made years before at manufacturing plants, pilot training designers, cockpit design tables etc. There is a ton to learn from this and it's going to take us decades to do that learning and most of it is going to be done by guys like Sullenberger and not the likes of me.Justanonymous (talk) 13:00, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
    Just to note, I am quite a way down the list of contributors: [3] But I'm sure we have all had much the same aim. And I wholly concur with Justanon, that we would never expect to see the word "blame" in an article such as this, unless (as here) in reporting an external source. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:30, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
It does seem that the fear and hypersensitivity to place blame on anyone, along with an obsession with technical accuracy has completely ruined this article. I am not a particularly sensitive person, so I guess I really don't care if Bonin is dead nor that you spent a lot of hard work on this article. I'm just providing you some feedback - which is that the article needs a lot of tightening up. (Perhaps fear of blame is a Euro thing? I noticed they called out a Euro regulation in the Final report that basically said that "blame is not allowed". We don't roll that way here in America of course. Blame is perfectly acceptable here.) Cshay (talk) 07:40, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
Apportioning blame can be very convenient. The nebulous and all-encompasiing term of "Pilot errro" can be used to justify the claim that no system or HMI improvements are warranted to make the system safer. And, of course, the one who has been blamed can't really speak up in his own defence. Speaking personally blame is abouit as useful in accident investigation as the concepts of "divine intervention" or "heresy". But yes, there may well be cultrual differences at work. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:49, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
I think that's a great point! There are likely systems & HMI opportunities here.Justanonymous (talk) 16:05, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for your feedback Cshay. I disagree with Cshay's assessment, the article is fact based and very balanced given the enormity and complexity of the tragedy. This is one of Wikipedia's best articles. The investigation found several contributing factors and the article reflects these in as clear and concise a fashion as it can in a very neutral manner. If there is a criminal trial, and I'm sure there will be, I'm certain that we'll cover the findings of that here with WP:NPOV firmly in mind. I am also not a very sentimental person but I do care that Officer Cedric Bonin and 229 others died that night. My heart goes to the families of crew, passengers, and to the people who work our touch these planes because they will forever wonder if they should've double or triple checked something. And, I think a lot of people care out there care as evidenced by a three year investigation and time freely given by editors here to chronicle this tragedy. And, I think many of us find it paramount that the findings from the investigation are incorporated into future training and airplane design so that it can be safer.174.49.84.214 (talk) 14:11, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
Respectfully Cshay, I think you're looking for an easy answer that bundles up this tragedy into one neat tidy little package. Sadly, in this situation there is no straightforward answer here - plenty of conjecture but no easy answers. Blame will be apportioned by the courts at some point, maybe. I think the article is good enough that it should be nominated for featured article - it's that good. I side with Sullenberger that we have to look at this from a whole systems approach and that's what I think the investigators concluded and what the editors on here modtly think. It's going to take a long time to digest the entirety of this. I do care about the lives lost - all of them.Justanonymous (talk) 16:07, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't disagree with any of the esteemed editors above, however there's always room for improvement around readbility, without loosing any of the facts. In particular, the all important "Final report" section does not flow with all its bullet points; "Inappropriate control inputs" is a highly suggestive statement that offers no explanation of what the pilots actually did wrong. Is it time for some fresh eyes? Socrates2008 (Talk) 12:10, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Fine by me. A very good idea. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:37, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
Worldwide, accident investigators such as the BEA or the NTSB deliberately avoid assigning blame for one reason: it interferes with their primary mission of improving safety. Investigations are about finding and recommending potential safety improvements. If involved parties have to fear the legal consequences of being blamed by the investigation their participation might be, shall we say, less than enthusiastic. Further, in most jurisdictions, imposing the evidentiary standards for a criminal investigation will slow the handling of evidence or even deliver the investigation into the control of a police agency with entirely different goals, potentially delaying or even preventing an important safety finding. It used to be fairly common for investigations to assign a single cause, but more recent investigations look for all factors that can be improved. The old dismissive "pilot error" now looks more like a list of implementable improvements to documentation, training, certification practicies, human-machine interface design, crew resource management standards, etc. LeadSongDog come howl! 14:17, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
Agree and I think that's also a great point to take into consideration Cshay. The factual investigation quoted on here deals with safety and where things might have broken: people, process, technology. There are pending court cases. When those cases are resolved, I think it would be appropriate to document the outcomes and findings of the courts without Wikipedia making any value judgement on those. Maybe that will provide some of the clarity you seek. At this point though the court cases are pending as fas as I am aware.Justanonymous (talk) 17:01, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Outdent. Many thanks to Justanonymous for the kind words and good analysis. I fully agree with that analysis. As stated by Martinevans and others, there is no single cause for this kind of tragedy. There are a series of errors (each of which would not cause a disaster) that cumulate in an unforeseen way to cause the disaster. As implied by LeadSongDog, it is counter-productive to assign blame to one or two of the errors. What has improved airline safety is precisely the recognition that it is important to identify each of the component errors that lead to the disaster and to correct each and every one of them. Having said that, I do agree with Socrates that the article should be streamlined. It is on my to-do list, but not until January at the earliest. And I do agree that fresh eyes would be most welcome.--Gautier lebon (talk) 10:18, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

You can start by calling out specific pilot errors that contributed to the crash. Put them all in one place, near the top of the article instead of being so vague. Just like the pitot probes are mentioned early on as a mechanical failure, people want to know the specific human errors that were made. From my reading elsewhere I can suggest a few: The captain not giving the proper pilot command, Bonin pulling up when he should not have been, the other pilot not listening to what Bonin said and not noticing that he was pulling up, the captain not sitting down and taking the controls when he returned. My opinion stands that a pervasive fear to place any blame is the reason these specifics are not being called out prominantly in this article, and that is a shame. The fact is, I learned everything I know from outside reading, not from this article and that is damning to this article. Cshay (talk) 19:24, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
No "pervasive fear" as far as I know, just a reluctance to lump together all the (supposed) "pilot errors" without any explanation of their individual significance, order or context. With all due respect, if you have now built up a very clear picture of what you personally think was "to blame" for this accident, using whatever sources you personally find most accessible, that does not necessarily make that picture any more accurate a representation of "the truth" than the less clear picture here. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:33, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
Fine, lump them in one place with an explanation if you want. Just don't bury them like is currently the case. People should not have to do external reading to figure out what they were, nor should they have to find them piecemeal scattered across the article. Cshay (talk) 19:57, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
No, not fine. I'm suggesting that lumping them all together is likely to produce a "clearer" but very unbalanced picture. Tabloid newspaper headlines are generally pretty clear, aren't they? But that doesn't really make them more accurate than a fine narrative analysis, does it? Martinevans123 (talk) 20:06, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
Not fine by me either. I agree with you Martinevans123. We're going to wind up generating original research and we're going to wind up jumping to conclusions and make the article biased towards potentially an erroneous point of view. This is not about blame or "hesitation to blame," we just don't have the reliable source ascertaining blame and the only reliable sources for that are convictions by the court systems. Absent the courts, convictions are mob convictions and we should avoid that here. Regardless of how much we're tempted or muscled. Justanonymous (talk) 00:21, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
I fully agr3ee with Martinevans and Justanonymous. If you list the pilot errors in sequence, you miss the context and you exaggerate them. For example, the captain did not take over the controls when he came back because he didn't have time to do so: the plane crashed before the captain had any idea of what was going on. Only a chronological recounting of the various events (mechanical failures, ergonomic issues, pilot actions, etc.) can faithfully represent what happened. Individuals are then free to conclude that it was mostly "bad ergonimic design" or mostly "mechanical failure" or mostly "pilot error" or whatever, but, as the official report points out, in reality all those contributed to the disaster.--Gautier lebon (talk) 11:07, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Why should only the pilot errors be listed? Why not pitot tube failures, flight director issues? The cabin layout? Why the laser focus on pilot errors and only pilot errors? I strongly urge us from succumbing here to sensationalism. We are in no position to be judges, juries, and executioners here. No courts have placed blame nor convicted anyone. There are already plenty of links to outside points of view in the article. If the courts find the crew at fault of something, then I think we document that here. That has not happened. Cshay wants us to convict the crew on here prematurely but hat is not what Wikipedia is for. I say, let the courts do their work and we reflect their findings here with verifiable sources when he courts release their findings.Justanonymous (talk) 22:08, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
I fully concurr with Justanonymous.--Gautier lebon (talk) 11:07, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Hmmm, I don't see any reason to change the emphasis on pilot errors vs other contributory factors, but that does not mean that where pilot error is mentioned, that it should be implied rather than simply stated. Back to the example of "inappropriate control inputs" - unless you've really done your homework, you'd have no idea what that statement actually meant. Socrates2008 (Talk) 13:36, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Fair point. As I said before, I do agree that the article should be rewritten, but I won't have time to work on that until January at the earliest.--Gautier lebon (talk) 14:19, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
Exactly. When I read "inappropriate control inputs" and realized that this was all the article was going to say on the matter, I groaned audibly and then started a one hour google search before I found the Popular Mechanics article. Using those three words only makes a mockery of the reader. Cshay (talk) 09:09, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
If court cases are in progress, or even pending, to what extent should the content of Wikipedia articles be considered sub judice? Or is this a quaint old-fashioned British concept that's of no relevance to the law courts of USA or (especially) France? Martinevans123 (talk) 14:34, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
Whatever is in the official report is fair game, surely? What's your specific concern, and how does it relate to this discussion? Socrates2008 (Talk) 11:35, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
My concern was that a jury member, who felt out of their depth in jury discussions, might be tempted to read the summary at the top of this article to help them decide who or what was to blame. If it was perfectly well balanced and accurate, then I suppose it would make no difference? All source material is, of course, in the public domain anyway. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:06, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
That's ridiculous. Lets just focus on creating a clear and easy to read article and let lawyers and police worry about laws. We are not breaking any laws by referencing other materials that happen to describe pilot mistakes. Cshay (talk) 09:03, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
It's not ridiculous. It's perfectly feasible. Judges often have to tell juries to "try to put from their minds" any speculation they may have seen or read in the press about a case. Often new material facts come to light only during the course of legal proceedings. If you have ever been part of a jury in a criminal case you will know that jury members, who are not technical experts (and may even be incredibly dim - there's no intelligence check!), say things like "I don't know anyting about this sort of thing" and "I'll need to try and find out what that means". But I am not suggesting that we are doing anything illegal. I am suggesting that a summary which gave undue weight to "pilot mistakes" might give an unbalanced view of why this accident happened. That would be wrong regardless of any on-going legal process. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:27, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, it IS ridculous because you are apparently allowing a court case to control what is published in a wikipedia document. That's insane. Cshay (talk) 20:48, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
I have to agree. The issues involved are highly technical and very nuanced. If we simplify matters we run the risk of shifting the blame, even ever so slightly, toward living people. This would be unfair and would also violate WP:BLP. And "Inappropriate Control inputs" may not necessarily be equivalent to "pilot error". Not by a country mile. Not if those pilots were not properly trained to account for alternate law operation. These pilots would then be victims of bad or incomplete training. There is a good reason the report is being cautious with its terminology and does not start painting the pilots as responsible. We should not be doing this either. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 15:39, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
Dr. K makes a very important point. It is an objective fact that the accident was caused by inappropriate control inputs. What is less obvious is whether those were due to "pilot error" or "poor ergonomics" or "inadequate training" or whatever. That is why the offical report is nuanced and why the Wikipedia article has to be nuanced. Of course any reader is free to draw their own conclusions, but Wikipedia should provide unbiased information, not a particular conclusion.--Gautier lebon (talk) 09:56, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
You write: "There is a good reason the report is being cautious with its terminology and does not start painting the pilots as responsible. We should not be doing this either." Actually, if you read the report they specifically call out a European law in place that says they are not allowed to place blame in this report. So this report is, by law, stifled from pointing any fingers. We here are not stifled by any such law. If we find a reference that blames Bonin, there is no reason why it cannot be in the first section of the article. Cshay (talk) 20:43, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Court or no court directive makes no difference. As I have already explained in my reply that "Inappropriate control inputs" cannot fairly be attributed to pilots because these "Inappropriate control inputs" may be a direct consequence of poor training or software glitches. Per WP:BLP controversial or ambiguous statements of that kind should never be attempted. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 21:03, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
The people being written about are dead. And your comments sound like original research. Theres been articles by Popular Mechanics and the Daily Telegraph that we can reference in the introductory section. Cshay (talk) 21:17, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
No they are not original research, but thanks for trying. Recently deceased people have living relatives who could be affected by WP:BLP. Check this out. Finally, non-specialist publications like PM and newspaper articles do not overrule official investigations, especially in highly technical investigations with great BLP implications. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 22:28, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
You're wrong of course, but you have about 3 or 4 other editors who agree with you, that we should pander to the pilots families and the Euro courts, so this article is doomed to be content-free on the subject of pilot errors. And anyone who balks about this will simply be told to read a massive, highly techincal report inaccessable to lay people which is, by the way, forbidden to place blame by Euro law, even if they privately came to the conclusion that blame should be placed. Disgusting. Cshay (talk) 04:38, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

The purpose of a WP article is not to right wp:GREATWRONGS. We do not read between the lines of sources. We do not base content on low-quality sources overriding high quality sources. Long established editors should realize this. When or if an expert author publishes a source which contradicts the official BEA report, we will have something to discuss here. In the meanwhile, it is by far the best source we have. LeadSongDog come howl! 05:49, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Round and round we go. Now back to the original point - very simply, the findings in the article are poorly written and presented, and therefore ineffective at communicating what happened. How do we address this problem using the information available in the official report, as I don't accept that it's not possible to convey the findings in a more readable form without changing or distorting the underlying facts? I have difficulty with vague terminology like "inappropriate control inputs", that doesn't even make it clear if it was a human or the autopilot that made these inputs!
PS: The French WP article lists the actions of the PF and PNF Socrates2008 (Talk) 10:24, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Para 2 of the lede clearly says who made the inputs. Not everything goes into infoboxen. LeadSongDog come howl! 13:30, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
I was refering to the Final report section.Socrates2008 (Talk) 09:22, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
LeadSongdog, the report itself states that it is not allowed by Euro law to assign blame (even if it came to such conclusion). Therefore it is not an authority on the matter of pilot error. We necesarily need to look at other (less official) sources for analysis of pilot errors, for example Popular Mechanics. Cshay (talk) 19:10, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
I said earlier that investigation agencies should not assign blame, because it is counterproductive. Their job is to find out how to improve safety, and assigning blame gets in the way of that. The article asserts that the pilots made inappropriate control inputs, which is supported by the final report. Pop Mechanics has no way of knowing why they did that, which would be essential to assigning responsibility (let alone blame). It could have been because of improper or incomplete training, it could have been because they were properly trained to follow an improper procedure, or many other things beyond their control. If you can't bother to devote the necessary effort to understand the final report, that's your prerogative, but that does not mean that we should substitute an inferior source. If we believed Pop Mechanics, we'd all have had flying cars in our garages decades ago. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:31, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
I've got my private pilot ticket, and this article is very clear to me because I'm familiar with the terminology. (It reads like a horror movie where you want to shout things to the pilots.) But without pilot training, a lot of the implications are lost, and I agree some explanatory phrases and sentences could clarify things. As a small example, the article points out that at one point the pilot stopped pulling back on the control, and because that caused the flight information to become valid, the stall warning began to sound... then was silenced again when the pilot pulled back again (because the flight data became invalid again). A non-pilot might not realize what a warped situation that pilot was in trying to understand what's going on in a dark, stormy night with unreliable instruments and a stall warning that turns off when you pull back! (And of course the Captain is not going to immediately take control-- his first officer is an experienced pilot who is appraised of the full situation, while he just came in.) Anyway, further editing should try to take into account that readers might not be familiar with pilot terms, lingo, or equipment and make a better attempt to explain the situation instead of regurgitating the facts. --Sam (talk) 19:52, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
I agree with LeadSongDog. With so many technical, pilot-training-related and software-related things gone wrong it would be unjustified, unjustifiable, unjust and simplistic to assign blame exclusively to the pilots for "inappropriate control inputs". Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 20:53, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
I agree with LeadSongDog. I do find merit with Socrates2008 and Samkassl, with respect to always trying to improve the article and at some point rewriting it. However, I don't agree that we should just start slathering blame. I think the points the numerous editors make are extremely strong on why fixing blame is improper here.. I don't understand why Cshay is so focused on blaming pilot error. Cshay, the popular mechanics and telegraph articles paint a compelling narrative, I agree but it's only one interpretation of the facts as others have noted on here. I don't want you to think we're some cabal on here resisting. It's just that the known facts don't support one compelling narrative. Unlike you, i read the popular mechanics and telegraph articles first and felt the same way you do.....but after reading the Wikipedia article, i came to appreciate the complexity of the multitude of things that caused this calamity. Many things went wrong that night. It's the broad view presented in the article that makes the article so strong.. I again applaud the editors. Let not dilute this fine article. Cshay I encourage you to invest yourself in the article for a bit. A heart surgeon can't explain what happened during a critical surgery without being a bit technical. Same thing here, if you truly seek to understand you need to invest yourself. If you don't have time to invest, the article presents the actual view into the complexity. -Justanonymous (talk) 03:08, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
I agree with your well-made points Justanonymous. By the way, the only cabal I think I belong to is the cabal of logical and fair analysis of the available facts. In that sense, welcome to the cabal. :) Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 03:33, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Review of this thread

Having looked back at this, I think that the second paragraph "The aircraft crashed following" does a sufficient job of simply and directly stating the reasons for the crash. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:41, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Very good point. Indeed that paragraph provides a clear, concise, and non-technical explanation of what happened.--Gautier lebon (talk) 11:32, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Bermuda Triangle

It's quite possible that there was a narrow supergravity force (circa 2g) which the aircraft had flown into and continued along it's path of influence. This would explain why the pilots didn't talk about the "bumpy ride" which an analyst says would have alerted the passengers to their impending doom. This is why Bonin was continually pulling back on the stick and the plane not responding. The airpocket and aircraft together would be similarly affected by the 2g force and so all instruments including the pilots would be fooled. They would have thought that the aircraft was flying normally and that it was *just* the instruments that had failed. The South Atlantic Anomaly is a likely contender which isn't even mentioned in the article. 195.59.118.104 (talk) 10:08, 20 October 2012 (UTC) Alan Lowey

If the "airpocket and aircraft together would be similarly affected by the 2g force" why was there a "bumpy ride"? Looking at the South Atlantic Anomaly it looks like the plane was flying directly away from it? And, in any case, there is not one single report there of any effects on commercial airline flights. And, by the way, it's many miles from Bermuda. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:25, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

There *wasn't* a bumpy ride though. The TV programme I saw had an expert who said that the aircraft would have been "screaming!" in this envisioned decent given by the black box data. This doesn't fit with the voices recorded in the cockpit, they are much too serene! 195.59.118.105 (talk) 11:04, 13 November 2012 (UTC) Alan Lowey

I don't know if 195.59.118.104 is serious, if he's just joking, or if s/he's just vandalizing the talk page. 195.59.118.104 can you point to a peer reviewed scientific paper that has observed a variation in the laws of physics affecting gravity on the surface of the earth? I don't mean to be difficult, it's just that I've just never heard of the force of gravity varying on the surface of the earth in any reputable mainstream scientific journals like Nature? 1G is the accepted standard with very minute imperceptible to human variations that can only be measured by satellites.Justanonymous (talk) 19:01, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I am serious and I've just defeated a so-called mainstream expert in the process, see here [url=http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=233669&hl=]Mathematicians Offer Unified Theory of Dark M[/url]. 195.59.118.105 (talk) 11:04, 13 November 2012 (UTC) Alan Lowey.

In the best case this is original research; in the worst it's trolling. Socrates2008 (Talk) 12:05, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
Alan L - I don't think the site you offer would be regarded as a WP:RS. Why not create an account if you want to contribute regularly to Wikipedia? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:01, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I'll take that as a compliment, so thanks. If I get time, I'll open an account. Thanks for the offer. 195.59.118.105 (talk) 12:46, 14 November 2012 (UTC) Alan L

I appreciate the zeal Alan. I read the paper and it seems intriguing but it's not talking about gravity on earth, it's talking about cosmology and unified field theory applications. It's also far from mainstream, it's going to take decades, if ever, to figure out whether this set of mathematics is truly better than the standard models that physicists are using. From what I can tell there isn't much traction at the moment regarding this thinking and there is no evidence this theory would manifest to fluctuate gravity on earth. Something that has never been observed on earth to my knowledge. I recommend you continue your battle in the publications of theoretical physics rather than in a lone airplane accident that where there were no observers and no controlled conditions. Feel free to conduct some experiments in controlled conditions to observe these phenomena you allude to and if you start gaining traction, maybe one day you'll revolutionize things. I'll be frank though, a lot of people lost their lives in this tragic AF447 accident and what you propose can be seen as loony by many. Don't get me wrong, I want to believe. But that's a far cry from actually believing. Good luck to you. Justanonymous (talk) 01:50, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

I'll take your advice on board and thank you for the words of encouragement. When you say "..there is no evidence this theory would manifest to fluctuate gravity on earth. Something that has never been observed on earth to my knowledge" I winced, because there *is* very accessible evidence. If a reader can get through the opening exchanges of the Unexplained-Mysteries thread I gave a link to, I continually give references and quotes as well as an overall personal hypothesis. I change my ideas from the initial one incidentally, which proves to bear fruit. 195.59.118.105 (talk) 10:35, 15 November 2012 (UTC) Alan L

Meanwhile, we'd need a very good wp:RS to even mention this idea. See wp:REDFLAG. A blog isn't it. LeadSongDog come howl! 14:29, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
I suspect that some editors might see this as a fringe theory. But I wonder in which Wikipedia article one might expect to see it mentioned or discussed? Martinevans123 (talk) 20:14, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

The latest TV programme on UK Channel 5, 'Mysteries Of The Bermuda Triangle' (aired 5 Dec) confirms the validity of a circa 1.6-2g localised gravity field imo, especially due to the Phantom Landmass seen on radar which corresponds with pilot eye-witness accounts of giant ocean bubbles given in Berlitz's Book 'Without A Trace'. 195.59.118.105 (talk) 12:57, 7 December 2012 (UTC) AlanL.

And what exactly does UK Channel 5's 'Mysteries Of The Bermuda Triangle' tell us about Air France Flight 477? Martinevans123 (talk) 13:18, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

It tells us from a female pilot's account of an inexplicable event which left her "in a whiteout and unable to tell which way was up" and the "aircraft out of control" for a length of time which was near identical to the re-enactment of the Flight 447 programme I saw a few weeks earlier. 195.59.118.105 (talk) 13:39, 7 December 2012 (UTC) AlanL

ah-ha, so "near identical, as best as I can recall" = "AF477 crash was caused by a circa 1.6-2g localised gravity field"? No, I meant "did that Channel 5 programme actually mention AF477 in any way?" Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:59, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Alas, no it didn't. It *did* mention the famous Flight 19 and PBM incident though and a team has already found two other WWII planes in the area on the first and second day of looking. They have vowed to find the Mariner seaplane and solve the mystery. I guess I have to rest my case with them, it seems. Thanks for your interest anyway Martin. 195.59.118.105 (talk) 16:51, 10 December 2012 (UTC) AlanL

Overemphasis on the side stick controls ?

The potential issue with side stick controls (namely that is not easy to see the other pilot inputs) has been discussed in the news, and has its place on the "Media speculation and independent analysis" section. However, isn't a picture of the sidestick itself too much ? The sidestick is just briefly noted in the final BEA report among a lot of other factors (page 175 of the english translation):

It would also seem unlikely that the PNF could have determined the PF’s flight path stabilisation targets. It is worth noting that the inputs applied to a sidestick by one pilot cannot be observed easily by the other one and that the conditions of a night flight in IMC make it more difficult to monitor aeroplane attitudes (pitch attitude in particular). In addition, a short time after the autopilot disconnection, the PF’s statement that he had the controls and his reaction to the initial deviations observed (in particular in roll) may have led the PNF to change his action priorities. Identification of the failure appeared to become a priority over control and flight path monitoring. Consequently, he was unaware of the climb.

Wouldn't it better to have a picture of the flight directors, which are thought to have played a much more significant role in the crash, and have been the subject of two safety recommendations ? (page 211 of the english translation)

Consequently, the BEA recommends that: EASA require a review of the re-display and reconnection logic of the flight directors after their disappearance, in particular to review the conditions in which an action by the crew would be necessary to re-engage them; [Recommendation FRAN‑2012‑047]

Consequently, the BEA recommends that: €€EASA require a review of the functional or display logic of the flight director so that it disappears or presents appropriate orders when the stall warning is triggered. [Recommendation FRAN‑2012‑048]

Cochonfou (talk) 10:10, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

The article probably reflects that there has been a lot of media discussion and speculation regarding the flight controls of an Airbus vs Boeing and whether the captain could've more quickly ascertained the condition of the aircraft upon entering the cockpit and provided immediate corrective direction to the pilot flying. As it stands it seems from the audio that the captain and first officer recognized the condition they were in at the very last moments. Flight directors were another area that is noted but hasn't been reported as much, probably because the initial conjecture focused on the philosophical differences between Airbus and Boeing flight design. I'm not sure that Wikipedia is here to correct the history but just to put a factual representation of the Accident, the investigation, and also the popular debate. Because so much popular debate has centered on the flight instrument and layout, it's fair to cover that here - I think. But we should just report the facts vs getting into making judgements on whether Boeing vs Airbus flight deck layout is better or attempting to weigh Flight director faults. It seems to me that the aircraft degraded as designed and whether that design is the right way for the systems to degrade is beyond our capability to judge on Wikipedia - that's for guys like Sullenberger and seasoned pilots of the A330 to lock themselves in a room and figure that one out. I think we're ok the way we are and that the article is balanced based on the reporting. But, I'm just one voice. Justanonymous (talk) 22:31, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
    • Apropose as above by Justanonymous : "whether the captain could've more quickly ascertained the condition of the aircraft upon entering the cockpit and provided immediate corrective direction to the pilot flying. As it stands it seems from the audio that the captain and first officer recognized the condition"..

.. It seems that the Captain, indeed, must have had seat-of-pants, in this case seat of back and then on walking seat of the feet feel for attitude and also if applicable descent/ascent and rightly said on entering cockpit to have nose down attitude; instruments and such take a while to ascertain. Patelurology2 (talk) 18:10, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

For whatever it is worth, I appreciated the photo of a sidestick in this article and do not feel it is overemphasis to include it. Over the years I have flown in several small aircraft (SeaBee, Goose, Beaver, Citation, MU2) cockpits' right hand seat as a passenger, and am familiar with control yokes but I did not have any idea what a sidestick looked like. Darrell_Greenwood (talk) 02:23, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree not over-emphasis, especially in the location it is - far down in "The Telegraph" section (although not exclusively a "Telegraph issue"!) I have corrected the caption to make it clear that it's the right-hand control (that red button faces in for thumb operation, for both pilots). My only unease is that the image, with no scale, gives a slightly misleading idea of size. You'd need a hand next to it to show that it's only hand-sized! And, of course, the fact that its position is largely hidden by a hand is the issue here. Tracing back to the original Flickr image gives a better idea. But I also agree that, if possible, an illustration of the Flight Director symbols would be useful. But it's much more difficult to clearly show flight mode indications, and any accompanying audio(s), which are a vital part of any flight desk/ cockpit design. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:23, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
The other item here regards how the joystick on an airbus works. My understanding is that it is used to "enter" commands. Ie a pilot can issue a left turn command and can then let go of the joystick and multitask to do something else while the aircraft settles into a left turn. It's an extremely sophisticated system that's designed to minimize pilot fatigue. I don't think it's the place of the article to educate the reader on how these things work/or don't work just that we describe correctly. Flying an airbus requires different communication processes between the pilot flying and pilot not flying. Just more canon fodder.Justanonymous (talk) 02:04, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
My understanding is that this is indeed the way the aircraft is typically flown, although it does depend on what FCS mode is selected. As with all fly-by-wire, the pilot is not really making the inputs to the control surfaces - he's just requesting that the FCS makes the required inputs. It's no good pushing harder, faster or further on the stick - the FCS will still limit the inputs to what it can cope with and how it "thinks" the aircraft should safely fly. Another factor with the airbus A330 is that pilot inputs from the two sticks are "averaged", so it's important for the pilots to be clear who is in control at any one time. This discipine may have broken down in the panic that this situation caused. But it may be difficult to determine, just from the FDR, whether the two pilots were ever unwittigly fighting against each other. You'd expect to see inputs coming from the left and right always at different times. I'm not sure that we know definitely if inputs were ever recorded coming from both left and right sticks simultaneously. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:13, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
"...pilot inputs from the two sticks are "averaged"..."
This is not correct. The inputs of both sidesticks are arithmetically added.
--Wikitanian (talk) 14:17, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
One note of caution. Ross's article says: "The case against the pilots looked even worse when a transcript of the voice recorder was leaked. It confirmed that one of the pilots had pulled the stick back and kept it there for almost the entirety of the emergency." But this is not an entirely valid statement. What the transcript revealed was: "02:13:40 (Bonin) But I’ve had the stick back the whole time!" - which may or not be an accurate report of what he had done. It's not entirely clear what Bonin meant by "the whole time". Only the FDR data would show categorically what outputs had been made from the controllers, if recorded. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:16, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
    • Apropose as above by Justanonymous : "whether the captain could've more quickly ascertained the condition of the aircraft upon entering the cockpit and provided immediate corrective direction to the pilot flying. As it stands it seems from the audio that the captain and first officer recognized the condition"..

.. It seems that the Captain, indeed, must have had seat-of-pants, in this case seat of back and then on walking seat of the feet feel for attitude and also if applicable descent/ascent and rightly said on entering cockpit to have nose down attitude; instruments and such take a while to ascertain. Patelurology2 (talk) 18:10, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Quite possibly. But all we have (second hand) are the FDR data. We can't second guess "seat-of-the-anything". Martinevans123 (talk) 18:49, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

New Section to replace the "Media speculation and independent analysis" section

I recommend the entire section of "Media speculation and independent analysis" be deleted and replaced with more relevant and notable information. That section might have served a temporary purpose in the article, before the final accident report, with conclusions, was finally published. But now, it looks more like an inserted gossip column, which contains precious little specific, relevant and notable information.

I can understand wanting to include something about Capt Sullenberger's opinion on this accident. But he is no longer recommending all cockpits be retrofitted with AOA indicators. Instead, he gives a very astute and relevant analysis of how the un-linked, no-feedback stick controllers in the A-330, prevented the two pilots from knowing what the other was doing. He demonstrates that quite effectively,in a U-Tube video inside of an Airbus simulator. That video should be a sourced link in the new discussion I am recommending.

I agree with Sully's view, that if it had been a Boeing Pilot yoke arrangement, which would have been bussed together with the resulting feed back to BOTH pilots, the more experienced FO would have immediately understood the other, less experienced FO was pulling the nose up to and continually holding it in the stalled position. Undoubtedly, the other pilot would have countermanded that nose up position, and the plane would have been flown out of that stall, as soon as the nose was forced down to regain the necessary flying speed.

That deficiency alone, in the Airbus cockpit design, was ultimately responsible for the accident, in spite of all the other problems which acted as preliminary setup factors, to the eventual stall and falling out of the sky, all the way down to the ocean. It was the action of that least experienced pilot -- of continually holding the nose in the full-up position -- (in spite of 75 aural "stall" warnings) that finally led to the crash.

So I recommend the current "Media speculation and independent analysis" section be deleted and replaced with a more relevant and comprehensive discussion of why that accident did not have to happen.

The lack of adequate pilot training for that kind of emergency situation, in modern-day "glass" cockpit airplanes, would certainly merit sourced comments from a variety of experts.

But, most of all, a detailed analysis of the lack of pilot feedback in the Airbus stick controller system, vs the Boeing pilot control yoke system, which is bussed together and makes it very obvious to both pilots, what control inputs are being made by one pilot, at any moment in time. That is probably the most valuable information to be gained from the entire investigation:

That the accident would likely not have happened at all, if the Boeing type control yoke system had been in that cockpit, instead of the Airbus stick controllers, which were not linked together and which gave little or no feedback to the pilots. 71.93.90.163 (talk) 09:07, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
This is the CBS Interview and demonstration with Captain Sullenberger that the editors are referring to. It certainly supports the theory that there is a systems issue here and not just pilot error, where either communication protocols need to be rewritten for Airbus pilots to work more closely or a design change might be in order. I agree with the need with a rewrite of the section but we need to base it on facts, I don't know if we still have enough to effect an NPOV rewrite, there are a lot of politics on the BOEING / EADS which are really American / European politics and big money involved. We should be careful in a rewrite, my two cents. --Justanonymous (talk) 15:00, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
I wholly agree with Justanonymous above. I think that a link to that clear, well-balanced and well-constructed CBS interview is essential. Any fall-out, in terms of cockpit design changes (e.g. visual augmentation of which pilot is in control), is way beyond the scope of one Wikipedia article. And Wikipedia does have to be very careful about what it seems to be saying about the possible design implications of this one accident. Enormously vast amounts of corporate design integrity are at stake. I seem to remember that an editor here tried to produce an article a few years ago about the relative merits of side-stick versus centre-stick control. But for some reason it got binned. Capt Sullenberger's final comment in that clip is about the clearest and most sensible thing that anyone has said about this whole tragic event, and could well be included verbatim in this article. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:33, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
I also agree with your points. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 00:51, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

The Southern Atlantic Anomaly and Flight 447

Hatted per wp:OR and wp:FORUM
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.


I don't have time to improve this article and cite everything I'm about to say to conform to Wiki standards but I simply want to point some other, more dedicated and intrepid Wiki editors in the right direction as I'm shocked that this has not been brought up before on this talk page.

There is a hole in the Earth's magnetosphere that stretches roughly from the near-entirety of the Southern American land mass over the Southern Atlantic Ocean and then tapers to a narrow end over South Africa. Image here: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_O2JHv7M-9RE/Sj1p3yna7yI/AAAAAAAAAHU/GmfLlXWzwfw/s1600-h/South+Atlantic+Anomaly.gif

This is the Southern Atlantic Anomaly (yes, there is a Wiki page on it); as defined by NASA: The South Atlantic Anomaly is a dip in the Earth's magnetic field which allows cosmic rays, and charged particles to reach lower into the atmosphere. This interferes with communication with satellites, aircraft, and the Space Shuttle. While there are theories as to why this occurs, the geologic origin is not yet known. http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/rosat/gallery/misc_saad.html This is also the point where the Earth's inner radiation belt is also closest to its surface (roughly 200km from the Earth's surface).

This combination of factors makes it highly dangerous to communications satellites, electronics and aircraft. For instance when the Hubble Telescope flies over this region NASA has to shut it down to protect its electronics. http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1996/25/text/

Another link on SAA interference on satellites and aircraft (this article explicitly defines the center of the SSA as being the Brazilian coastline): https://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/05/science/dip-on-earth-is-big-trouble-in-space.html

Now ordinarily, this wouldn't warrant inclusion into this article if it were not for the fact that there was a massive Coronal Ejection on the 31st of May, 2009 (that date should set off red flags if you're familiar with Flight 447): http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_O2JHv7M-9RE/Sj1K64LCLFI/AAAAAAAAAHM/foG40cIdbLI/s1600-h/Sunspot+1019.jpg

That photo was taken by an amateur astronomer with an infrared telescope and was first posted here: http://spaceweather.com/submissions/large_image_popup.php?image_name=Pete-Lawrence-2009-05-31_10-11-15_SF70ss_1243775699.jpg

Here are some more links on the burst of coronal activity from May 29th to the 6th of June, 2009, termed "Sunspot 1019":

This is an image taken by the SOHO Satellite (the area in the upper left of the Sun is Sunspot 1019): http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_O2JHv7M-9RE/Sj2v2VRcWNI/AAAAAAAAAHc/fYMXsvqzi1o/s1600-h/20090531_1300_eit171_512.jpg

As you can plainly see, this actually happened and was noted by experienced astronomers as being rather unprecedented (given that at the time the Sun was in the low point of the 11-year, Solar Cycle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle)

Keeping in mind the date of the Solar Flare and keeping in mind that it takes anywhere from less than an hour to several hours for a Solar Flare to hit Earth's magnetosphere (it takes 8 minutes just for the light from the sun to reach Earth; the high-energy particles associated with the Flare would presumably travel much slower).

Now even given this remarkable chain of coincidences; it still wouldn't mean much to most of the world given that we are protected by the Magnetosphere and even if the activity is intense, and some of the particles still get through, most are attracted to the Earth's poles. This of course results in a familiar phenomenon known as Aurora Borealis or Aurora Australis.

But within the geographic scope of the Southern Atlantic Anomaly (and keeping in mind the aircraft was at altitude; in the region of 35,000ft), there is less atmosphere and magnetosphere to shield things from damaging solar radiation (not so much the protons associated with Solar Flares, as they are deflected, but the radiation is only partially absorbed).

Planes can be made redundant and durable, and lighting strikes are experienced on a daily basis by commercial airliners but surviving the equivalent of an ERW (Enhanced Radiation Weapon or "Neutron Bomb") would be a Herculean task for even the most trained crew imaginable and a commercial plane with Close Air Support-style triple-redundant systems with hydraulic failsafes.

Solar Storms are no trifling matter, as the Earth's magnetic field weakens, our planet is only getting more susceptible to their effects. The following links are good food for thought to familiarize yourself with the very real consequences of coronal ejections:

A sample quote from a NAS report titled "Severe Space Weather Events--Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts": "Historically large [solar-geomagnetic] storms have a potential to cause power grid blackouts and transformer damage of unprecedented proportions, long-term blackouts, and lengthy restoration times, and chronic shortages for multiple years are possible. As Kappenman summed up, “An event that could incapacitate the network for a long time could be one of the largest natural disasters that we could face.”

The Dalton Minimum was a period of unusually low sun spot activity from 1790 to 1830. Global temperatures fell as a result. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_Minimum (I'm posting this to hammer home the drastic changes fluctuations in Solar activity can have for Earth)

Getting back to the connection with Flight 447; obviously no one can know for certain what kind of effect this would have on the weather and magnetosphere along Flight 447's flight path but it is well-established that there were multiple, powerful electrical storms within the vicinity. It really is a game of Clue as to which of these factors could have crippled crucial circuits on Flight 447: the radiation, the storms or various particles from the Sun. Particularly given that we now know that once the autopilot disengaged, massive system failures rapidly followed. One minute later an automated ACARS message reported multiple faults and then two minutes later flight control primary computer one failed, then flight control secondary computer one. Both those systems, however, have back-ups. Something far more drastic was happening and the plane was out of control. Four minutes after the autopilot disengaged, the cabin suddenly depressurized, perhaps with explosive force.

A stall-glide descent into the ocean would not have been anywhere near as catastrophic and sudden.

It's my contention that the BEA, EASA, FAA and all relevant investigative authorities involved are fully aware of what actually caused Flight 447 to crash but have chosen to instead formulate a much less alarming theory about icing and pilot incompetence so as to avoid sparking a global panic that would cause people to abandon flights that traverse the Southern Atlantic Anomaly and in all probability reduce commercial flying globally; because this would massively increase fuel costs and expenses to re-route air traffic around the SAA and also likely spark further safety and design changes for aircraft to minimize susceptibility to radiation exposure which again is a massive cost liability.

It's been established that passengers on long-haul commercial flights are at risk of very high radiation exposure (particularly flight paths of high latitude that go near the Magnetic Poles and those that travel above 30,000ft): https://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/24/news/24iht-radiate_ed3__0.html

Indeed in 1994 the FAA classed all flight crew as radiation workers and similar measures have been enacted by EU legislation that requires all EU airlines to provide radiation exposure and dose assessment training for their crews (since May 2000).

A link between electronic pacemaker patients and sudden deaths or cardiac rhythm disturbances due to changes in environmental geomagnetic activity has been demonstrated as well:

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Gamer112 (talk • contribs) 15:46 31 December 2012

Cant see the relevance of any of this to the article or to the flight so not really worth a mention per WP:FRINGE, WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. MilborneOne (talk) 16:34, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
All quite fascinating. Perhaps. Can you show us one single reliable source that connects any of this with Flight 447? Thanks. Oh, and you are saying categorically that there has been an official conspiracy to cover up the truth (the truth that only you seem to know about....) Martinevans123 (talk) 20:47, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
I'm familiar with the South Atlantic Anomaly. A few points. The South Atlantic Anomaly covers a significant portion of Brazil and Argentina. On the day in question, there were thousands of scheduled commercial flights in that very big geographic area. Logic would dicate that if a Coronal Mass Ejection was responsible for AF447 on that day, that it would've interfered with the normal operations of at least a significant percentage of flights in that area? no? I haven't heard of any other crashes that day or any other type of impacts to aviation or to the commercial electrical grids which are also supposedly susceptible to CME's, that kind of news would be on every newspaper across South America. I'm going to rely on the official investigator's report and assume that they looked at all of this and would've mentioned it in their reports if it had merit (we likely would've been talking of dozens of air catastrophe's that day) and the investigation would've been very different. At the moment, the reconstruction by the french authorities appears to be quite comprehensive and their findings align well with the recovered evidence. We pretty much know what led to this tragedy. I recommend against us doing any kind of first hand research / analysis on this page. I think it's excellent article the way it is.-Justanonymous (talk) 22:59, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

I think that the main point of the South Atlantic Anomaly having a *geological unknown* origin is worth a tentative mention. Justanonymous seems to miss this vital fact and has only countered the rather weak Coronal Mass Ejection hypothesis. 195.59.118.105 (talk) 14:48, 14 January 2013 (UTC) Alan L

And you seem to miss the vital fact that there are no reliable sources which have made even the slightest suggestion that any of this is relevant to this accident. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:58, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Here is a reliable source worth reading [url=http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13938-gravity-probe-b-scores-f-in-nasa-review.html]Gravity Probe B scores 'F' in NASA review[/url]. The experiment is fundamentally flawed imo and has been challenged by a professor at Beijing University, Hao Shi: [quote]A Question on Gravity Probe B Experiment Results

Abstract

The final results of the Gravity Probe B (GP-B) experiment for testing general relativity (GR) theory published on May 4, 2011 by NASA is somewhat controversial. Since GP-B scientific sensors have symmetric property about the satellite spin axis, we thus believe the measurement errors of both the geodetic effect and the frame-dragging effect should be close to each other. However, in the published results, the former is 2.5 times of the latter, which has not been explained by GP-B final report and thus shows that some physics is probably still missing or inadequately addressed in processing experimental data. Quoted from J. of Beijing University of Technology 2011-10 [/quote] 195.59.118.106 (talk) 12:27, 15 January 2013 (UTC) Alan L

Where exactly does that source mention flight AF477? This extensive discussion you have added on this page does not really belong here Martinevans123 (talk) 12:34, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I understand the extreme pressure you must be under not to consider a new-science explanation. Of course there isn't a new-science paper which specifically mentions AF447, otherwise we would all know about it. But is it really *heresy* to speculate that NASA's experiment to *confirm* Einstein's predictions might be fundamentally flawed as a Beijing Professor believes? 195.59.118.106 (talk) 16:37, 16 January 2013 (UTC) Alan L

Big BEA archive list

This is done so all BEA documents that were posted online remain online forever, so Wikipedia can use these materials as sources.

WhisperToMe (talk) 02:03, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

WhisperToMe (talk) 07:33, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Departure time is different of Final Report

Final Report, Section 1.1 (page 21): "At around 22:10, the crew was cleared to start up engines and leave the stand. Takeoff took place at 22:29" My suggestion is to conduct a fine check in the section "Accident".

PauloMSimoes (talk) 12:49, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

In this revision the times were rectified. A further checking must be done, mainly about citations of intermediate reports.

PauloMSimoes (talk) 21:23, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Vittorio Missoni's Disappearance Gives Rise To New Fears Of Bermuda Triangles Worldwide

The [url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/18/bermuda-triangle-vittoria-missoni_n_2576384.html]latest missing plane[/url] (4 January 2013) was headed for Caracas, Venezuela, and so was in the vacinity of Flight 447. The current article states "On 6 September 2011, the French media reported that the BEA was investigating a similar incident on an Air France flight from Caracas to Paris.[clarification needed] The aircraft in question was an Airbus A340.[207]". There is a direct link here that needs to be investigated imo. The Coronal Mass Ejection phenomenon could be acting as a trigger for a rare geological effect for example. 195.59.118.106 (talk) 12:00, 25 February 2013 (UTC) Alan Lowey

This is not an article on people's irrational fears, it is an article on a specific aircraft accident. Unless you have a reliable source that explicitly ties this accident to this irrational fear, please drop the stick.LeadSongDog come howl! 17:30, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
I Agree with LeadSongDog
PauloMSimoes (talk) 22:32, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

The latest [url=http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/2013/04/13/18/34/plane-crashes-in-bali]Bali plane crash on the 14th April 2013[/url] and [url=http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=308864]Florida plane crash at Port St. Lucie[/url] both fit the mystery element AND the Sun's [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=q-MWduHtAXw]magnitude M6.8 x-ray flare with coronal mass ejection (CME) 2013-APR-11[/url]. The evidence is mounting.. 195.59.118.106 (talk) 12:29, 23 April 2013 (UTC) Alan Lowey

Post report findings

The issue of pilot fatigue "hidden" by the BEA has been widely reported in the press, and has been included in our the article as "BEA did not include the fatigue issue in the final report to preserve privacy". But it seems quite inaccurate. There is a whole chapter named "Aspects related to fatigue" in the final report (page 100), in which the following is written:

The investigation was not able to determine exactly the activities of the flight crew members during the stopover in Rio, where the crew had arrived three days earlier. It was not possible to obtain data on their sleep during this stopover.
This lack of precise information on their activity during the stopover, in particular in relation to sleep, makes it impossible to evaluate the level of fatigue associated to the flight crew’s duty time.
The CVR recording does, however, make it possible to show that the crew showed no signs of objective fatigue, as the following elements indicate (...)

The conclusion is that the BEA did indeed investigate the fatigue issue, but that they did not drew the same conclusions from the CVR recordings. What was not included in the final report to preserve privacy was the line in which the captain said he only slept one hour.

So, I think this section should be at least be re-worked, and even maybe get the axe. Cochonfou (talk) 07:32, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi Cochonfou, you're right. BEA mentions that the captain said "Try maybe to sleep twenty minutes when he comes back or before if you want" to one of the co-pilots, but not the revealing "'I didn’t sleep enough last night. One hour – it’s not enough". However the BEA concludes : "The CVR recording does, however, make it possible to show that the crew showed no signs of objective fatigue, as the following elements indicate" (page 100). So they neglected the captain's "confession".
How about "BEA did not include the CAPTAIN'S fatigue COMMENT in the final report to preserve privacy"? --Regards, Necessary Evil (talk) 14:08, 21 March 2013 (UTC)


Ah! It wasn't my intention to jump the gun, but I've only just spotted this thread: in case you hadn't noticed, I've moved the "post-report findings" to a sub-heading of "Speculation" which is where it belongs. I deleted one uncited sentence, but I think more needs to be done, e.g. a summary of what the BEA concluded. 86.5.176.168 (talk) 15:39, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

And why do the papers make a fuss about the co-pilots being up all night? If it had been a morning flight, that would have been shocking behaviour. But AF447 departed at 7pm. Staying up all night and sleeping all day would have been the ideal way to keep their body clocks in sync with their planned duty hours. 86.5.176.168 (talk) 15:39, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi 86.5.176.168 I'm afraid I have to revert your good faith edits.
You deleted one uncited sentence This is not in the source, but that's not correct:
"As the Airbus A330 rolled from side to side in a tropical thunderstorm, 32-year-old Pierre-Cedric Bonin and David Robert, 37, were unable to bring it under control." i.e. unable to fly the Airbus safely!
"Even when Marc Dubois, the 58-year-old captain, returned from a rest break, his deputies were panicking too much to tell him what the problem was." i.e. unable to convey their distress properly!
Wikipedia rules doesn't permit copy-and-paste of the sources (except quotes), so paraphrasing is necessary. For that reason the meaning of the sentence is cited, but not the wording.
The relocation to the Media speculation and independent analysis section was incorrect too, since it's about 'Pre-report findings' "Prior to the publication of the final report by the BEA in July 2012".
Good point. Fortunately, it's easily remedied [4]. 86.5.176.168 (talk) 11:26, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia should never do sensationalist reporting so "The co-pilots had spent the night before in Rio de Janeiro" didn't include "...with their wives and girlfriends" as the source did. On the other hand Wikipedia should not conceal information on grounds of not speaking ill of the dead. --Regards, Necessary Evil (talk) 18:36, 21 March 2013 (UTC)


Except that combining three unrelated sentences (the night out, the inability to control the airplane, and the co-pilots' distress), in a way that the source article does not, gives the unsupportable impression that the co-pilots' distress was a result of fatigue rather than because their airplane was going down and they didn't know why. That's a conclusion not reached by the report's author, and it's one that is contradicted by the BEA report. 86.5.176.168 (talk) 11:01, 22 March 2013 (UTC)


In any case, the Le Point article fails WP:RS. A reliable source ("with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" - WP:RS) would not publish a statement like "BEA overlooked the fatigue issue" when such a statement is (a) diametrically opposed to the truth, and (b) so very easy to check. 86.5.176.168 (talk) 11:01, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, we can probably find a middle ground. Le Point, as most newspapers, are blowing things out of proportion. However, from the source, I believe it is factual to say that the current judicial inquiry is putting more emphasis on the pilot fatigue issue than the BEA. Cochonfou (talk) 17:56, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Yes, it'll be interesting to find out what relevance the courts eventually place on the fatigue issue. But on past performance (e.g. Air France Flight 4590) we're not likely to find out for another decade. 86.5.176.168 (talk) 14:31, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
There's wp:NODEADLINE. LeadSongDog come howl! 03:46, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Cause

Is

really the best we can come up with? --John (talk) 19:36, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

My first reaction would be to say yes, since this was a complex problem which, imo, should not be reduced to just a simple description. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 20:07, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
Should we try and agree what the difference is between type and cause. This might inform the outcome of extensive discussion that has ensued below. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:48, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
I gave my reply below. I think the type is covered by the ICAO event category classifications. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 03:02, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

"Pilot error" redux

I'm opening this section because there has been a new spate of edit-warring over adding the simplistic conclusion "pilot error" in the infobox. Before anyone goes any further in this discussion please consult the long discussions in archive 6: This article is overly technical, vague, confusing, and doesn't get to the point early enough and "Pilot error" both of which resulted in clear consensus against including "pilot error" in the infobox. There may well be more discussions on this topic but these are the two most recent ones. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 19:44, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Quite agree that "pilot error" is unhelpful and overly-simplistic. It might be very difficult to prove those pitot tubes stopped working - but pitot tubes don't leave voice cockpit recordings, do they. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:56, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
I agree. In addition there is the added problem, as we discussed before, of lack of training regarding flying under "alternate law". Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 20:04, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing to the previous discussion. Frankly, looking at the current wording (i.e. "Incorrect speed readings likely caused by obstruction of the pitot tubes by ice crystals, followed by inappropriate control inputs that destabilized the flight path"), I can't help but feel that the solution which was apparently reached is a little untenable.
Often times when folks get into long conversations like the previous discussion, an unpleasant and unwieldy compromise is arrived at. That seems to be what's happened here.
The fact that this is getting frequently changed is an indication that it's not a good solution.
Could we possible simplify this slightly to just read "Pilot Error and Pitot Tube Failure"? NickCT (talk) 20:22, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
For whose benefit exactly? Does the fact that it would fit more neatly into a wikipedia article info-box make it that much more valid? I'd prefer a note saying "complex cause set of causes- see explanation below". Martinevans123 (talk) 20:45, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) @Nick. Thank you for your comments. Now the problem lies that in addition to all the instrument-based factors, the pilots were not trained properly to know how the controls switched from "normal law" to "alternate law" so they made unsound assumptions/inputs due to lack of training. As I pointed previously in the other discussion it would be unfair to blame it completely on them as that would not account for the lack of proper training which was partly to blame for any errors on their part. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 20:53, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
I too would disagree that the pilots were the main fault of the crash. While it is justifiable to blame the pilots, they were not trained to handle these unusual circumstances, and they were obviously confused by the incorrect instrument readings. Perhaps it would be worth mentioning "improper training" or something like that in the infobox? (as well as the instrument readings).HeyMid (contribs) 21:22, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
If "improper training" is mentioned in the final report, I would agree to mention it. If not, then there is no direct support from RS and that would be problematic. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 21:31, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
Right now, I think the explanation in the infobox is way too long. It's supposed to be a much simpler summary of the cause of the crash. Just look at all other articles that use this infobox. Also, imagine a very non-knowledgeable person reading this article; if they want to find out the basic cause(s) of the crash, they look at the "Type" row in the infobox. If you want a more thorough explanation of the events, then you should bother to read the article in my opinion. HeyMid (contribs) 21:42, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
It is ok to simplify the infobox description. What is not ok is to simplify it at the expense of accuracy and at the expense of the pilots. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 22:50, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Pitot tubes don't leave voice cockpit recordings, but leave registers in the FDR. Please, see these registers (lines red and green) and evaluate if is physically possible that...

PauloMSimoes (talk) 21:52, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

People hear voices, understand them more easily, and thus attribute "blame" more readily? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:59, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
@λόγος Thanks for your comments. re "it would be unfair to blame it completely" - I don't think we have any disagreement here. If you read my suggestion (i.e. "Pilot Error and Pitot Tube Failure"), you'll note that it calls out that BOTH the pitot tubes and pilot error were to blame! So it doesn't lay all the blame on the pilots. It explains that a combination of the two caused the plane to crash.
Regardless; this whole conversation is sorta moot. The BEA report, which presumably is the most reliable source we have, specifically cites "pilot error" as being partially responsible for the crash. The info box should really reflect that. NickCT (talk) 23:43, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
There is no mention of "pilot error" in the final report that I could find. BTW my username is not λόγος; that links to my talkpage. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 23:58, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
@Hey - re "way too long" - Couldn't agree more! NickCT (talk) 23:44, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
A phrase in the report (ref 1), section 4 is conclusive: "The crew, whose becoming work was disrupted, likely never realised they were facing a 'simple' loss all three sources of airspeed". It is not just set the causes, but to create a common consensus (perhaps by vote) with a final conclusion, emphasized on this talk and which can not be changed in neither hypothesis in the future, unless it occur a change in the report.PauloMSimoes (talk) 02:23, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
"The crew, whose becoming work was disrupted, likely never realised they were facing a 'simple' loss all three sources of airspeed." – presumably this actually means: "The crew, whose work was becoming disrupted, likely never realised they were facing a 'simple' loss all three sources of airspeed." But this also rather begs the question – if workload demands become so great, because of inadequate design, how far can crew failures be fairly regarded as "pilot error". Martinevans123 (talk) 10:53, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
Certainly, changes are being made in the project (including those recommended by BEA at the end of the report summary- ref 1) resulting from lessons learned from this accident. Unfortunately, this is what normally happens in aeronautics.PauloMSimoes (talk) 12:42, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
Well, that's very important. My point is that, regardless of any resulting changes to design or training, labelling (even one contributory) cause as "pilot error" may be overly simplistic and misleading. Having said that, we should certianly follow whatever the investigation report says, as closely as possible. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:58, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
Who has worked in aeronautics knows that the investigation into an accident did not seek to blame nor guilty punish, but solutions to avoid the causes in the future.PauloMSimoes (talk) 14:53, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Outdent. How about "Pitot tube obstruction followed by inappropriate control inputs", which is faithful to the BEA final report but shorter? --Gautier lebon (talk) 09:28, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

@Gautier lebon re "Pitot tube obstruction followed by inappropriate control inputs" - I think you're getting close to something there. I dislike the term "control inputs" though. Won't make much sense to the laymen. How about, "Pitot tube failure followed by inappropriate crew response to error warnings"? NickCT (talk) 12:07, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
This is my suggestion: "Pitot tubes failure, erratic air speed indications, followed by loss of aircraft control". And keeping the reference(1) for more details. Lets put more four suggestions to votePauloMSimoes (talk) 12:42, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
Paulo I think your formulation is fair. I also think that the alternative formulation: "inappropriate crew response to error warnings" is not accurate and shifts the blame to the crew and does not address the underlying reason which was lack of training by the company. Another reason perhaps was the decoupled, non-proportional design of the control sticks. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 13:19, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
@Δρ.Κ. - I find your "lack of training" point somewhat baffling. If one makes an error because they were not trained how to do something well, they have still made an error. I guess you could talk about the training point in the article. NickCT (talk) 13:59, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
There is nothing baffling about lack of training. Error means you have done something wrong to depart from what you have been taught or trained to do. If the training did not prepare you for that, then you did not make an error because your training did not show you the correct path in the first place. So you did not divert from the prescribed path when you were acting, i.e. you did not make an error, because there was no prescribed correct action by your training. You may have put inappropriate control inputs into the system but that was not your fault because it was your lack of training in the complex system which caused them. So "inappropriate control inputs" is not automatically equal to pilot error. Far from that. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 16:55, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
This seems reasonable. I think the fact remains that in the end the crew flew an airworthy aircraft into the sea. Any first-year pilot knows when the stall warning goes off you push the stick forward, but the planes have gotten so complex, and non-autopilot handling of situations so rare, that they didn't have training to fall back on in this case... which is appropriate discussion in the article for the cause of the pilot error. In addition (and I'm speaking as an amateur pilot and not from sources here), the fact that the right-hand pilot is the only one who knew he was giving nose-up input to the control stick was a contributing problem. If he'd said "I'm pulling back as hard as I can" a minute earlier, the other two would probably have said something like "You're doing WHAT??" and fixed it. In the older cockpits the two pilots' controls would have had a physical linkage between them and been located directly in front of them (visible by the third guy)-- now they're all electronic and they're off to the side. Anyway, short answer is I think "Invalid instrument readings followed by inappropriate control inputs" with a link to "Pilot Error" seems appropriate. --Sam (talk) 15:27, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
@Δρ.Κ. - re "Error means you have done something wrong to depart from what you have been taught or trained to do" - I'm not sure that is what error means. I checked several dictionaries and I can't find any that say an error is departing from what you've been taught to do. What almost all dictionaries do say is that an error is the state of being wrong in conduct. I think we all agree that crew didn't conduct themselves the "right" way. The fact that they weren't trained well might be a mitigating factor. It doesn't however mean that they made an error. NickCT (talk) 17:19, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) What almost all dictionaries do say is that an error is the state of being wrong in conduct. I agree. Because the dictionary definition is the absolute definition of error. But in this case we have a complex man-machine interface which needs training for the human operators to be able to navigate error-free. The training is supposed to set the correct papameters for error-free operation on behalf of the human operators. If the training failed to define all the papameters of error-free operation by not training the human operators then we cannot accuse the humans that they were in the state of being wrong in conduct because "wrong conduct" was not defined by their training. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 17:44, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Let´s choose the accident type description (short description):

  • Pitot tube obstruction followed by inappropriate control inputs

User: Gautier lebon

Agree Equally good choice as Paulo's formulation. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 13:39, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
Agree This is the best summary I've seen of the immmediate proximate causes of an otherwise airworthy aircraft being flown into the ocean. --Sam (talk) 18:38, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
So are you now striking out the one below attributed to yourself? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:45, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Pitot tube failure followed by inappropriate crew response to error warnings

User: NickCT

  • Pitot tubes failure, erratic air speed indications, followed by loss of aircraft control

User:PauloMSimoes

AgreePauloMSimoes (talk) 17:42, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
AgreeHeyMid (contribs) 09:34, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
Agree Although not ideal, I think this is an improvement and an acceptable compromise. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:33, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Agree Agreed as I explained before. Acceptable compromise per all the arguments above. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 12:30, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

  • Invalid instrument readings followed by inappropriate control inputs

User talk:Samkass

More one or two, please. And vote by an Agree. The first ten votes (with signature) will solve this discussion.PauloMSimoes (talk) 17:42, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

@Δρ.Κ. - re "If the training failed to define all the papameters of error-free operation by not training the human operators then we cannot accuse the humans that they were in the state of being wrong in conduct because "wrong conduct" was not defined by their training." - That seems like slightly contorted logic. It appears that you simply don't like the word "error" regardless of how apt it might be.
It appears that you simply don't like the word "error" regardless of how apt it might be. This is according to your own logic and preconceived notions of what is right and wrong but that may very well be a view not shared by other people. You seem to want to apply an absolute definition of what is right and wrong without due care for the complexity of the matter at hand. There is a considerable grey area involved here which your black and white logic does not address at the detriment of fundamental fairness. Please also understand that the only thing I am trying here is to have a conversation based on logic. Descending to the level of "like" and "don't like" really doesn't help your position or the discussion. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 19:21, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
Δρ.Κ. - I appreciate you're trying to be sensitive here. But the fact is, I'm using the more straight forward and basic definition of the word "error". You're adding some additional interpretation to the word. Now, I may agree with you that the "lack of training" issue may have been a mitigating factor for this "error", but that doesn't take away from the fact that it was an error.
re "like and don't like" - You seem smart enough to understand that folks like to play with language to push a certain POV. Sometimes that's a conscience effort and sometimes it born out of a certain perception of a situation. For instance, if I was sympathetic with the pilots of 744 because I felt they were under trained, I might not want to associate their actions with the word "error", even if in fact they'd made an error. I don't think that sympathy is necessarily misplaced, but at the same time, I don't think we should resort to obfuscating language to avoid the use of an apt term that we think might be perceived unfairly. NickCT (talk) 12:07, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Unfortunately you keep insisting on judging my analysis using your own subjective value judgements and now you use even worse derogatory terms like ...to push a certain POV and obfuscating. And I don't need to be patronised by being called smart enough. I think these are sure indicators that we have reached the end of a quality discussion between us. But I will repeat one more time: If the "error" was complex and not taught to them by the system through their training, then obviously they did not know that they were doing anything wrong. In a complex man-machime system, all the eventualities must be taught ahead of time. We cannot expect the crew to discover the answers while they are falling from the sky if no one told them so during their training. It was an error by the company not to tell them the correct procedure ahead of the accident. It was a system error, not pilot error. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 12:29, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
So I take it you think there is no chance you might be playing with words here out of sympathy for the pilots? I don't think "obfuscating language" is necessarily derogatory. I'm guilty of using obfuscating language from time to time! Additionally, I took pains to try to explain that I didn't think you were consciencely trying to "push a certain POV". If you feel any of the comments I've made above are intended to be unkind, please let me know, and I'll strike them.
If you feel there's no chance for a quality discussion, then, alas, I must cease to discuss. NickCT (talk) 12:43, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
Frankly no. There is no chance at all that I was playing with words. I have clearly enunciated my arguments above and I am sure that "playing wirh words" is not one of their attributes. Regardless, thank you for your kind offer of retracting some of your comments, which I may find as you put it "unkind", but it won't be necessary. I think they were made in good faith and I will not dwell on our disagreement any further. As far as consciously or subconsciously trying to push a certain POV, the matter is so subjective I think we should just agree to disagree. Also there is no problem discussing further points with you on my part as long as we discuss something new. I think we have covered enough of the "error" subject and we just ended on that with a respectful disagreement. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 13:35, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
Ended. NickCT (talk) 15:51, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
Thank you Nick. Take care. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 16:42, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
@PauloMSimoes - Really appreciate your attempt to demonstrate consensus. Do you think we might do this in the form of an RfC? NickCT (talk) 19:08, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
Nick, what do you think we should do then? PauloMSimoes has taken the right step, otherwise this discussion will fade away with no solution. We don't want that to happen. If no other votes are made within a few days, I will change the "Type" text in the infobox to the current consensus. HeyMid (contribs) 09:34, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
Hey - "will fade away with no solution" - Absolutely agree. We don't want that to happen. An RfC is just a slightly more formal way to do what PauloMSimoes is already doing. RfCs are pretty clearly called for in WP:DR. NickCT (talk) 12:07, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
Sorry for misinterpreting your comment. I now realize you are actually supporting PauloMSimoes' approach, not against it. Starting an RfC is really easy, just use the {{Rfc}} template put it in this thread/section. But yeah, I think it would be a good idea to start an RfC, we can get several votes and opinions and from uninvolved users as well. HeyMid (contribs) 12:21, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) IMO, there is no need for DRN or RFC because a strong consenus seems to be forming. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 12:31, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
@Hey - re " I now realize you are actually supporting PauloMSimoes' approach" - Cool beans! I think I'd like to try and draft something a bit more formal. Something that looks a more like this. When RfCs are clearly laid out it makes assessing consensus much easier. Let me know what you think! NickCT (talk) 12:34, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Outdent. I don't like the formulation by PauloMSimoes because it omits the key element: the pilot inputs were wrong and resulted in the crash. As stated above, "wrong input" is not necessarily "pilot error", because the wrong input could have been (and indeed was, in this case) caused in part by bad ergonomics. Also, there never really was "loss of control" until the very end: the crew could have taken control and saved the aircraft for some minutes before the crash. And the Pitot tubes did not "fail", they were temporarily obstructed. They cleared fairly quicky, but by then the pilots were confused and didn't pay attention to the airspeed readings. So how about a modified version of Paulo's formulation, namely "Pitot tubes obstruction, erratic air speed indications, followed by inappropriate crew response".--Gautier lebon (talk) 17:10, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

...inappropriate crew response sounds like error attributed solely to the crew. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 17:30, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
"Loss of control"? - yes, physically control was still possible until near the very end. But I had interpreted that phrase to mean "loss of aircrew control", i.e. they didn't know what they were doing and thus had no control of the aircraft. Maybe that's just mis/over-interpretation on my part. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:40, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
Imo, loss of aircraft control is the genius of this compromise. It is vague enough to include both the crew and the airplane and it doesn't point any fingers unduly toward the crew. In any case how about loss of aircraft control by the crew. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 18:16, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
For the ICAO definition of "loss of control" see:
http://www.cast-safety.org/pdf/cictt_occurrence-category0804.pdf (search for "LOC-I"), or
http://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/LOC-I
AF447 falls perfectly into that definition. And David Learmount has explicitly described AF447 as a "loss of control":
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/learmount/2011/08/af447-and-the-loss-of-control.html
86.5.176.168 (talk) 20:30, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
An excellent commentary by Learmount. I see the usage notes in that cast report say "Stalls are considered loss of control and are included here". Martinevans123 (talk) 20:45, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
This is an excellent technical point. Thank you anon. If control of the aircraft is lost (induced by crew, weather or equipment failure), do not use this category; use Loss of Control – Inflight (LOC-I) instead. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 02:53, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

There's a lot of beating around the bush here, see "inappropriate crew response" or "inappropriate control inputs" or "... followed by loss of aircraft control". This can be more aptly summarised as, temporary instrument failure, subsequent pilot error. Obstruction of the pitot tubes meant that the speed reading was incorrect—this is instrument failure. The crew then crashed an aircraft that did not suffer mechanical malfunction—this is pilot error. If people take offence at that, then that's just too bad. This isn't a place where people meet to pick the most PC term; it's an encyclopedia (of sorts). — Lfdder (talk) 18:31, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

@Lfdder - Couldn't agree more mate. This isn't a place where people meet to pick the most PC term; it's an encyclopedia. NickCT (talk) 18:36, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
But let's not confuse "PC" terms with "ICAO" terms. Martinevans123 (talk)
There's a fundamental reason why the term "pilot error" is no longer commonly used by investigators: its gross oversimplification undermines the identification and correction of root causes. Pilots do err, but they do so for any number of reasons. These may include incorrect, inappropriate or inadequate training, insufficient experience, deficiencies in design of instruments, displays, control software, cockpit layout, etc. Glossing over these things with "pilot error" undermines necessary actions by regulators, manufacturers, and operators that correct the underlying problems that lead to errors. Investigations are not intended to assign blame, they are intended to improve safety. Because the investigators' reports are by far our best sources, we use the terms they use. LeadSongDog come howl! 21:31, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
I couldn't have said it better myself, i.e. I fully agree. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 21:42, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
(ditto) Martinevans123 (talk) 23:06, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not meant to be some kind of complex accident case study. I'm a little frustrated, b/c I absolutely agree with the "oversimplification" point both Δρ.Κ. and LeadSongDog are making, but there's a bigger point here which is being ignored.
Is it not evident from the the literally hundreds of mainstream RS that refer to this as "Pilot Error" (see 1,2,3,4 to link a few) that WP should do the same. Find me some RSs that talk about "inappropriate control inputs"! NickCT (talk) 22:07, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
Yeah sure, it'll all blow over? Martinevans123 (talk) 22:53, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) In terms of reliability of sources the expert BEA report trumps any non-expert third-party source. The BEA terminology is the industry standard. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 22:57, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
However, there are only slightly less RS that also quote that finding of "inappropriate control inputs that destabilised the flight path", such as Aviation Week and Flight Global.LeadSongDog come howl! 06:11, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
@Δρ.Κ. re "In terms ...... industry standard." - Again, not disputed. Again, misses the larger point. WP is not meant to rely on primary sources like the BEA report. Additionally the BEA report uses a number of terms and phrases to describe the different mistakes and errors made during the incident.
@LeadSongDog - re "only slightly less RS that also quote that finding of "inappropriate control inputs that destabilised the flight path"" - I dispute that. Doing a simple search engine test looking at terms like "Air france 447", "pilot error" & "innappropriate control inputs" suggests "pilot error" is roughly 25 times more likely to be associated with this incident than is "innappropriate control inputs" . NickCT (talk) 12:02, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

From WP:NEWSORG:

For information about academic topics, scholarly sources and high-quality non-scholarly sources are generally better than news reports. News reports may be acceptable depending on the context. Articles which deal in depth with specific studies, as a specialized article on science, are apt to be of more value than general articles which only tangentially deal with a topic. Frequently, although not always, such articles are written by specialist writers who may be cited by name.

It is rather clear that this is a highly technical topic. As such the specialist BEA report written by experts on the subject has to be followed, not the news publications written by non-experts and who try to sell newspapers and be sensationalist. This is not about WP:COMMONNAME where the most common name is adopted. It is about assigning blame on a complex man-machine system where the experts have decided it is not clear that the crew is to blame due to many technically complex factors inaccessible to the newspaper laymen. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 12:24, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

A plane crash doesn't seem like an academic topic to me. But I'm guessing your point is really to say that secondary sources aren't going to use the most accurate terminology because they are not "experts" in the field? (correct me if I'm interpreting your point wrong). The counter point is addressed by Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth. If the huge majority of RS says the word "error", even if you can point to "higher quality" sources that provide a more truthful and nuanced wording, it sorta doesn't matter. NickCT (talk) 17:03, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
It isn't an "academic topic" in the theoretical sense, it's a very "practical" one. But it's also a very technically specialised one. Your point about Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth is perfectly fair, but I'm not sure that simply surveying Google hits and using the resulting percentage ratios is very useful. With a big media story such as this, there will be a few big "media leaders" which will simply get mirrored and copied to countless less discerning lower-order media outlets, with no editorial intervention of any kind. And it's not surprising that many of the media leaders will want to choose short, easily-understood banner headlines that catch the reader's eye. There is simply no reason why Wikipedia should "join in" with such a tabloid approach simply because it's the trend across the internet. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:50, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
Yes Nick, thank you. You have captured my point exactly and even the nuanced approach I am attempting to follow. So thanks again for that. The term "academic topic" which I used above is just a surrogate for a "topic of a high technical complexity". What I am trying to explain is this: The BEA report is the original source for most of this accident analysis on the Internet. Everyone has tried to analyse it in terms of their own understanding and many news media leaders have tried to dumb it down to make it understandable for their non-technical readers. In the process, the accident analysis has come down to the lowest possible common denominator. That is not a good way to add highly technical information to this encyclopaedia, especially since we have access to the expert report. There is no reason why we should use WP:COMMONNAME for a highly technically specialised and nuanced term. Encyclopaedias should have higher standards for their complex technical content and they should never aim at the lowest common denominator. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 18:30, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
It's not quite about apportioning blame. We can't just have 'loss of control' in the infobox because it's misleading; control was lost as a direct result of the crew's actions (no matter the varied nuances of HCI). The report also very explicitly says so (p. 200). — Lfdder (talk) 18:59, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for pointing to that page. Quote:

Despite these persistent symptoms, the crew never understood that they were stalling and consequently never applied a recovery manoeuvre. The combination of the ergonomics of the warning design, the conditions in which airline pilots are trained and exposed to stalls during their professional training and the process of recurrent training does not generate the expected behaviour in any acceptable reliable way.

and

The crew not taking into account the stall warning, which could have been due to: A failure to identify the aural warning, due to low exposure time in training to stall phenomena, stall warnings and buffet, The appearance at the beginning of the event of transient warnings that could be considered as spurious, The absence of any visual information to confirm the approach-to-stall after the loss of the limit speeds, The possible confusion with an overspeed situation in which buffet is also considered as a symptom, Flight Director indications that may led the crew to believe that their actions were appropriate, even though they were not, The difficulty in recognizing and understanding the implications of a reconfiguration in alternate law with no angle of attack protection.

That's what I was talking about all along, including the "alternate law" conundrum which the crew faced and they thought, wrongly, as it turned out, that the computer would correct any actions they took and make them avoid stall. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 19:20, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
There's a lot to be learnt from this accident, and I don't doubt the validity of these contributing factors, but this is about how to best summarise what's happened in the infobox. Very simply (or simplistically, if you may), the crew reacted wrongly and this was pivotal to the outcome. Wording like 'loss of control' completely obscures that facet of it. — Lfdder (talk) 20:57, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
Frankly, I think this field ought to be removed. It's not for us to somehow classify an accident. Instead we should have a brief summary that's solidly based on fact, e.g. 'aircraft stalled at high altitude, impacted ocean'. — Lfdder (talk) 21:09, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
Excellent point. I quite agree. I was preparing a few points to consider based on your previous comment when an edit conflict occurred with your new proposal. I will not include my edit-conflicted reply now because I completely agree with your new idea which I find eminently sensible. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 21:36, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
hmm, you usually gotta trim bits off-a them butterfly wings, or fold 'em right in half, to get them critters snug in the matchbox, ya know... Martinevans123 (talk) 21:42, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
Lol. I think this may be a better idea. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 21:55, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
re "It's not for us to somehow classify an accident." - Agreed. It's for a majority of reliable sources to decide, which I still think puts me in the right here. But hey, my POV doesn't seem to be gaining much traction. Perhaps I'll go try to clarify other parts of wikipedia.....
Deleting the field strikes me as a slightly less bad option than "inappropriate control inputs". NickCT (talk) 22:25, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
A possible compromise, which I suggested before, might be to keep the field but to put in it something like "(complex set of causes - see below)", etc. Another way round it might be to be very mechanistic - the actual basic type, which cannot really be disputed, was in-flight stall. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:38, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Outdent. Folks, thanks for the fascinating discussion above, but let's remember first principles. Wikipedia is not about OR or the editors' views of things, it is about summarizing what reliable sources say. As pointed out above, many news reports refer to "pilot error", but the most reliable source, the BEA report, does not. I agree with Martinevans above: the best compromise might well be "complex set of causes". Indeed, the text that is there now is nothing more than a summary of that complex set of causes. So either we leave it as it is, or simplify it down a bit more, or do what Martinevans suggests. Any "one-liner" such as "mechanical failure" or "pilot error" is a drastic over-simplification that does not correctly reflect what really happened as reported by the most reliable source, the BEA report.--Gautier lebon (talk) 06:03, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree that we should go after the final report by the BEA, which does not state "pilot error". What about just writing "Incorrect speed readings followed by inappropriate control inputs"? Just remove the unnecessary clarifications. The "Type" parameter is supposed to be a very short explanation of why the plane crashed. HeyMid (contribs) 12:11, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
This is not a good solution. It can very easily be argued that the majority of aircraft accidents have a 'complex set of causes'. Are we gonna fall back to that whenever there's disagreement? I stand by my earlier proposal. — Lfdder (talk) 12:17, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Or we might instead fall back to the position that the "type" infobox field, unless it is limited to an agreed very simlpe taxonomy is, in most cases, a waste of time. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:30, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Or that. :-) — Lfdder (talk) 12:32, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
I am ok with any of the suggestions just above. I also find Martin's idea about adding an explanatory note a good one. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 21:37, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, it's becoming obvious from this discussion that it's almost impossible to come up with a satisfactory infobox summary. The main reason for this is that the body of the article lacks any serious content relating to the human factors issues. The BEA summed up the accident as due to "technical and human factors": we have an entire section devoted to the airspeed inconsistencies, why is there no similar section devoted to the second half of the equation? (Presumably because the technical issues were known about two years before anyone even suspected there might be pilot error involved as well. But that's not a good reason).

The article badly needs such a section; at the very least it should

  • spell out exactly what the pilots did wrong;
  • explain why it was the wrong thing to do;
  • describe what actions they should have taken instead;
  • explain the extent to which training / instrumentation / cockpit ergonomics / etc contributed to those mistakes;
  • describe what steps the aviation industry is taking to prevent a repeat occurrence.

When the article itself contains a thorough coverage of the subject, only then do we have a hope of being able to summarize it in the infobox.

So here's my challenge:

Nick - you have "hundreds of RS that refer to it as pilot error" so you must have more than enough material to make a start on such a section.
DrK - you seem to have more sympathy with the pilots' predicament, perhaps you can source the mitigating factors?
Everyone - weigh in as you see fit.

This discussion thread has generated 5000 words in less than a week. If between us we can do only half as much in the next seven days, we could be well on our way to a massive improvement in the article. 86.5.176.168 (talk) 16:20, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Tell you what, I'll kick it off myself (let's go to work in a sandbox until the section is mature enough to go in the actual article):

Talk:Air_France_Flight_447/human_factors.

Over to you good folks. 86.5.176.168 (talk) 16:35, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

DrK - you seem to have more sympathy with the pilots' predicament, perhaps you can source the mitigating factors? I'm not sure how you know that I have "sympathy" for the pilots. All I did was to follow and expand on the logic of the BEA report. As far as sourcing the mitigating factors this talkpage contains the quotation rectangles which I added directly from the BEA report. But I will add another excerpt from page 201 of the BEA report:

These events can be explained by a combination of the following factors: The feedback mechanisms on the part of all those involved that made it impossible: To identify the repeated non-application of the loss of airspeed information procedure and to remedy this, To ensure that the risk model for crews in cruise included icing of the Pitot probes and its consequences; The absence of any training, at high altitude, in manual aeroplane handling and in the procedure for ”Vol avec IAS douteuse”; Task-sharing that was weakened by: Incomprehension of the situation when the autopilot disconnection occurred, Poor management of the startle effect that generated a highly charged emotional factor for the two copilots; The lack of a clear display in the cockpit of the airspeed inconsistencies identified by the computers;

Most of the factors identified concerned either improper flight training or equipment deficiencies. The crew had only a minor role to play in this disaster given the surrounding events concerning lack of training, inadequate ergonomics, misleading and confusing flight indicators, equipment failures, adverse weather conditions and no visual feedback. The majority shareholder for the loss of control in this disaster was the system not the human operators. And the BEA report, quite properly, reflects that. We should do the same. And there is no need to add new sections to the article before we decide on the infobox description. The BEA report has enunciated the reasons of the accident quite clearly. There is no reason for us to reinvent the wheel. Also I don't know how you reached your conclusion Indeed, it's becoming obvious from this discussion that it's almost impossible to come up with a satisfactory infobox summary.. To me it has become obvious that we have a clear consensus that we should go by the BEA report and no "pilot error" should be mentioned in the infobox. The only remaining question is to how to implement this in the infobox via removing the field altogether, retain the status quo or introduce a shortened description for the cause. But that's mere mechanics. I am fine with any of them. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 17:47, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I see that an editor has simplified the text in the infobox. That new version is OK with me.--Gautier lebon (talk) 08:56, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I partially agree: the primary cause (failure of pitots) was omitted PauloMSimoes (talk) 13:23, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm changing my concept about it. I agree with Martinevans: it seems that the root of the problem lies exactly in establishing the subtle difference between "Type" and "Cause". The description of the "Cause" is actually very complex. But the description of the "Type" would be relatively simple. "Type" could simply be "Loss of control". Suppose that the aircraft had fallen due to a fault in the fuel system, the type would simply "fuel system failure". Think about it ... PauloMSimoes (talk) 01:29, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Something like the ICAO AVIATION OCCURRENCE CATEGORIES DEFINITIONS AND USAGE NOTES as discussed above. This seems like a good idea. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 01:50, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
The correct link: Aviation Occurrence Categories Definitions and Usage Notes. PauloMSimoes (talk) 03:30, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
I was off by a space. Fixed now, Thanks. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 03:47, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
I'm learning about this subject. The type encoding of the AF447 accident is "LOC-I/SCF-PP" (Loss of Control-Inflight/ System Component Failure or malfunction-Power Plant). Is intrn'l convention. Additional sources EASA section 4.1.4; Skybrary|Occurrence Category Taxonomy; FAA. What about make it simple? PauloMSimoes (talk) 04:58, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
It's SCF-NP, not PP. Also, all this has very little encyclopaedic value. But we are talking about the infobox.... — Lfdder (talk) 08:56, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
Actually there was also TURB, and that may have been what prompted the PF to climb abruptly, initiating the sequence of events leading to the stall. And the cited taxonomy does not seem to have a category for "inappropriate control inputs" which were one of the main factors in the crash at hand. More importantly, we editors are not supposed to do OR, so I don't see how we can cite a category from the cited taxonomy when no reliable source cites such a category. So I still don't see how to make it simple.--Gautier lebon (talk) 09:39, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
There's still my proposal above. — Lfdder (talk) 11:14, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
Again I emphasize that we must analyze the summary of the event as a "type" rather than "cause" (which were many). There is an international standard for this and we should follow it. It's not what we think, there are guidelines to follow. PauloMSimoes (talk) 13:59, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

We must? Says who? I say stop trying to classify accidents on the basis of whatever international 'standard'. I agree with Gautier lebon, this is edging on OR. I'm not arguing that there should be some sort of list of causes; what I'm saying is that there should be a very brief recount of events, e.g. "aircraft stalled at altitude, impacted ocean", the end. — Lfdder (talk) 14:09, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Paoulo's userpage shows him as en-1. While this may be overly modest, I'd still suggest not jumping down his throat on the weight of a single word. That said, it is not our place to analyze - that is clearly wp:OR. Certainly it is not our place to assign ADREP or ECCAIRS coding, whether it be ICE or TURB or LOC-I or some other. If we have a citable wp:RS source for such coding, we can report it, and link to a definition. Otherwise, let's just show it in the infobox as "complex, see text". LeadSongDog come howl! 15:39, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
I didn't mean to 'jump down on his throat', sorry if it seemed that way. — Lfdder (talk) 16:03, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Outdent. I can live with "complex causes, see text". But we should decide something fairly quickly, because I see that other editors keep changing the box.--Gautier lebon (talk) 09:15, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I also agree with "complex causes, see text". Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 17:45, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Disagree for reasons previously stated. Terribly bad solution. — Lfdder (talk) 18:02, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
The funny part is I don't disagree with your proposal either. But let's just decide on something for stability reasons as Gautier mentioned. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 18:18, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Well, it doesn't look like my proposal garnered much support, and I'm just repeating myself at this point, really. If we can't agree on anything else, then fair enough, let's go with this (non-)solution. — Lfdder (talk) 18:29, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
At this stage I would settle for anything. :) Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 18:36, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

@Lfdder: "complex causes?": any aeronautical accident has complex causes. It seems this "type summary" is not consensual in this discussion... (only 15 minutes to decide?)PauloMSimoes (talk) 17:04, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

That's what I said further up. Not my edit summary. This was proposed two or three days ago. Not gonna waste more time here. — Lfdder (talk) 17:25, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
  • In my opinion, we've currently settled down to the worst case. "Complex causes, see text". If that's how we're gonna have it, why not just erase the "Type" parameter altogether for this article? I agree with PauloMSimones above: shortly summarizing the events is a minimum requirement. Something like "Pitot tube failure; Stall". Nobody should be disputing that the pitot tube failed to show correct information and that the plane stalled, or am I wrong? Right now, "Complex causes, see text" says nothing to the readers. I think a Request for Comment (RfC) is required to solve this dispute; I will not object if someone starts an RfC, I might do it myself if I have the time to draft something. HeyMid (contribs) 18:01, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

@Lfdder: I'm not here to discuss or encourage discussions, just to contribute in some way and reasonably. It is not correct to modify Template: Infobox aircraft occurrence.PauloMSimoes (talk) 21:14, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

That first sentence makes no sense. How is it not "correct"? The "type" field is very rarely used to specify a type; it's used to outline the causes. The taxonomy is something someone made up, so this is hardly surprising. — Lfdder (talk) 21:35, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Outdent. There seems to be a minor editing war going on. As I write this, there is no "type" field at all in the box. Maybe we should stick to the literal meaning of the word "type" and avoid saying anything about the causes. Indeed, all accidents have complex causes. If we stick to the literal meaning of "type", then I can support the proposal "Pitot tube failure; Stall" or "Pitot tube failure; loss of control" or something like that.--Gautier lebon (talk) 10:04, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Rv'ing nonsensical changes isn't edit warring. These are not "types". These are events, things that happened. A "type" should conform to some sort of classification scheme. There isn't one here. — Lfdder (talk) 10:16, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
That is one issue. Another issue is that there are many candidates for "type", for example mechanical failure, inappropriate cockpit design, inadequate pilot training, pilot error, etc. and we cannot pick one of them because the reliable sources don't identify any one as being predominant.--Gautier lebon (talk) 08:44, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Going round in circles. This has all been said before. — Lfdder (talk) 10:01, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Now we're again focusing on how we should define "Type". The "Type" parameter should just provide a very short summing of the events leading up to the crash. When you're talking about inappropriate cockpit design, inadequate pilot training etc, you're discussing the causes, not the actual events leading up to the crash. The BEA report does not mention the word "Pilot error", nor blame the pilots for one of the main causes of the crash. In my opinion, "Pitot tube failure; Stall" should summarize everything basically. HeyMid (contribs) 15:54, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Ok guys. I know I sorta dropped out of this debate for a while, but per a request from Hey I have drafted and RfC on this topic. I am hereby requesting comment on my RfC. If you want to add to the list of proposals, please be bold and do so. Unless there is significant objection, I plan to launch this RfC in 48 hrs. NickCT (talk) 14:33, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

You may also want to comment on my proposal to replace the type param here. — Lfdder (talk) 16:11, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
NickCT - did you want to vote here first, or do you want to keep us guessing?! I assume you support the suggestion that was attributed to you. We never quite got up to the heady heights of 10 votes, did we? Martinevans123 (talk) 16:21, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
I understand Lfdder's approach, but I still think it's reasonable to launch an RfC for the issue regarding this article. NickCT, your RfC is good, and I wouldn't object if you launched it now. I've added another proposal though, "Pitot tube failure; loss of control", which I have called "Proposal I". HeyMid (contribs) 16:57, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
@Martinevans123 - As I commented above, I wasn't super comfortable with how the vote here was being done so I abstained not wanting to lend it credibility.
@Hey - I'll give it a little while longer. Let others weight in. NickCT (talk) 18:42, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Lfdder has changed the Summary to "Aircraft stalled in cruise, impacted ocean", now that his edit request for the infobox template has been done. The RfC should still be launched, but until the RfC has reached a conclusion, I think we should leave the Summary as it is right now. HeyMid (contribs) 12:25, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
RfC in opposition with new summary field's purpose. Need new RfC if you want to change it. — Lfdder (talk) 12:34, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

The change from "Type" to "Summary" it seems solves this dissent. I agree with Lfdder change in infobox parameter and the brief description of the event. PauloMSimoes (talk) 12:32, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

The change to "Summary" is fine for me, but "stalled in cruise, impacted ocean" seems too reductionistic to me. Since it is a summary, we can now summarize the sequence of events, so I would propose "Pitot tube failure, followed by inappropriate control inputs, resulting in loss of control, stall, and impact with the ocean".--Gautier lebon (talk) 13:43, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
We're not about to summarise the entire chain of events. The deeper you go into the chain, the more complicated it gets, and the more difficult it is to do it justice in just a few words. Right, think of it this way: we only go back one degree into the chain, if need be. What was the outcome? The a/c crashed into the ocean. This bit of info has always got to be in the summary. But how? It stalled. This bit may be (usually is) in the summary. But how? Not so fast, you're gonna have to read the text. — Lfdder (talk) 14:07, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
I put a warning (hidden text)in parameter "Summary" in the infobox. If it does not solve, I suggest a temporary lock to not WP:AUTOCONFIRM. PauloMSimoes (talk) 21:47, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
Good thinking, thanks. — Lfdder (talk) 21:51, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
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