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Murder suicide debate

It would seem better to start this afresh now we have gone through the WP:ANI process and emerged renewed.--wintonian talk
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Are you serious? This is silly and a gross violation of WP:DICK.

What is "Deliberate flight into terrain" supposed to be anyway? This is clearly murder-suicide. And the source cannot be more clear.

Your reverts are nonsense and bullshit! "Oh, but he didn't INTENT to harm anybody except himself" Yeah. BULLSHIT!! "Oh, but you can intentionally fly into a terratin without intending to kill yourself, even if you googled for suicide the days before" Yeah, BULLSHIT!

Take back your revert. You are trying to prove your power here. The reverts have no rational basis. --rtc (talk) 17:55, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

@Rtc: It's not murder. German law states that murder is defined as intentional killing of another person. I still have yet to see any evidence or even a suggestion that the co-pilot had any malicious intent with regard to the passengers. ― Padenton|✉   18:02, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

BULLSHIT --rtc (talk) 18:04, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
@Rtc: I don't see how this discussion is going to go anywhere. I suggest you step back from this if you think you will have a difficult time viewing the incident objectively. ― Padenton|✉   18:06, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
Oh no, I AM viewing it objectively, in contrast to bullshitty editors like you. You are spreading nonsensical bullshit here, and those reverts are abusive. This simply has to be stated. The fact is that he murdered those people as a byproduct of his suicide. Whether "maliciously" (who cares, who claims that, why should it be relevant?) or non-maliciously intended, or hazarded as a consequence is completely irrelevant. The german law (how is the german law supposed to be relevant here?!!) makes no difference about that. He knew what he was doing. --rtc (talk) 18:08, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Reading above it seems that you alone are the source of this alleged lack of concensus. You make wild, bullshitty claims about reliable sources allegedly not being reliable ("even WP:RS sources are likely to have factual errors in their rush to cover the story as every little fact and rumor pops up. Over the past few days, I've seen countless articles from ordinarily reputable sources like the New York Times continuing the gossip without any basis in fact. They'll attribute it to some anonymous source"), using that bullshit argument to defend the bullshit notion of "Deliberate flight into terrain". Why should consensus be blocked by wild views, far from reality and wikipedia policy? Let's stop this bullshit now. This "Deliberate flight into terrain" has been controversial from the beginning. By now so many very reliable sources, not anonymous at all, so many facts have accumulated that it is completely untenable to retain this alleged "consensus". --rtc (talk) 18:25, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Can I remind editors to respect each other and not to make personal attacks on other editors please. MilborneOne (talk) 18:28, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

@Rtc: Have you read what I have said above? I am the person who originally took it back to deliberate flight into terrain. My name isnotdave (talk/contribs) 18:38, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I have read it, but understand it mostly as an expression of agreement with what Padenton had said in that discussion before. I disagree with everything in your statement. You claim "we do not have any qualms with regards to references and exact wording" That is clearly wrong. The "generalised description of 'Deliberate flight into terrain'" is backed even far less by references. In fact by no reference at all. This is a notion invented by some editors here, clearly OR. It is unclear what should be the difference between deliberate flight into terrain and "murder-suicide" other than not to use the latter term, for whatever reason. It's simply that same term in disguise. "we know what stage of flight the accident occurred"? I beg to differ. The phrase says nothing about that. One can deliberately fly into terrain during all stages of a flight. On the contrary, the term may suggest that the plane was descending as a matter of routine (rather than without authorization) when the co-pilot crashed it. And finally, of course the exact wording or "murder-suicide" is much less debatable than that of "Deliberate flight into terrain", the former being a idiomatic phrase and the latter being something invented by editors here. --rtc (talk) 18:50, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
I have warned User:Rtc for personal attacks. Now can be please have a WP:CIVIL debate here without the juvenile name-calling? - Ahunt (talk) 18:47, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
We don't make calls on what to describe this as based on our own judgement, we need references. At this point this case seems to be predominately one involving mental health issues. No refs yet have showed that it was a planned mass-murder. - Ahunt (talk) 18:49, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
Of course a reference has been given, by me. You reverted it. Other references have said the same thing for a long time, they were rejected by nitpicking ("even WP:RS sources are likely to have factual errors"). Whether the suicide was because of mental health issues or not makes no difference. Nobody has disputed that the co-pilot knew exactly what he was doing and what the consequences were and that he acted intentionally. Heck, even the version you defend yourself contains the adjective "Deliberate"! There is now evidence that the entire thing was planned for days, and was hence definitely NOT a matter of a co-pilot spontaneously gone crazy during flight. --rtc (talk) 18:59, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Along with what Ahunt says, we could go on for hours about what choice of words to use on how to describe a deliberate flight into terrain. I have better things to do on Wikipedia than that, heck, I have better things to with my life than argue about labels and wording in general, especially on how to describe the actions of somebody who took the life of himself and 150 others. I think we should let the investigation go ahead a little further and see what we can come up with. Patience, padawan :) My name isnotdave (talk/contribs) 19:01, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
(edit conflict)The ref you cited supports "suicide" but does not mention "murder". It is quite possible for a person to be so mentally ill that they don't consider the effects of their actions on anyone else around them. "Murder" requires forming an "intent" and if we are going to add that to the article we need a ref that says that. - Ahunt (talk) 19:04, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
@My name is not dave: There is no argument in what you say, other than you do not want to discuss. This seems not like an satisfactory response to what I said. @Ahunt: This is a German source, the term "murder-suicide" simply does not exist in German. Your claim that the pilot did not know or realize that everyone on board would be killed as the consequence of his actions, which he planned for days, is completely absurd. I already said such arguments are bullshit. It's not against you or anyone else! It's against this kind of argument. --rtc (talk) 19:13, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
(edit conflict)User:Rtc: you have been already warned for personal attacks, and now you have just made another one. The text of articles is decided by consensus here on the talk pages, as a result of rational and courteous debate. Yelling obscenities at anyone who disagrees with you will not make your case and will only get you blocked. I can see by your lack of rational rebuttal to my argument that you have no rational argument to make. By policy we require refs to support claims and no amount of insults abrogates that policy. - Ahunt (talk) 19:19, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
No, I did not make any personal attack. I said your argument is absurd bullshit. It is! Use ratio instead of bullshit and threats to block people who refute your claims. Your claim that "It is quite possible for a person to be so mentally ill that they don't consider the effects of their actions" is clearly wrong as far as this case is concerned; it is your personal opinion and against WP:OR. I, in contrast, have provided a source that clearly says that it has been confirmed that it was suicide. --rtc (talk) 19:27, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
Please stop your personal attacks here. You are not making any points, just attacking anyone who disagrees with you. - Ahunt (talk) 19:30, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
Please stop this attempt to detract from the fact that you ignore the arguments. Your arguments are absurd bullshit, I stand by that fact. Learn to distinguish between attacks on your person and attacks on your arguments. --rtc (talk) 19:37, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Excuse me for butting in but this accident just happened and the investigation is still ongoing. It seems like there is a great deal of wanting to rush to judgment and to use value-laden terms. Isn't it that hard to stick to reliable sources and not put our own spin and interpretation on events and people? Liz Read! Talk! 19:17, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

If the word "murder" is going to be included in this article, the word "murder" needs to be in the sources cited. There is no hurry; the investigation is pending. User:Rtc, you are welcome to contribute but we decide what goes into the article based on consensus and reliable sources; not by who curses the loudest. It's fine to argue strongly but it's not fine to behave with incivility towards others; your first and we hope only warning has been placed on your Talk page. Cheers, all. Prhartcom (talk) 19:22, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
User:Liz: I entirely agree. There seems to be far too great a rush to condemn this person with emotionally-loaded phrases before refs are available and before any official sources have made statements on the subject. It is not the role of Wikipedia to lead a lynching, even a postmortem lynching. Let's stick to the refs, please. - Ahunt (talk) 19:24, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
Right! If the phrase "Deliberate flight into terrain" is going to be included in this article, it needs to be in the sources cited! But there is no source. I, in contrast, have provided sources, others have provided sources for the fact that it was suicide. They were rejected by nitpicking ("even WP:RS sources are likely to have factual errors"), not by rational argument. --rtc (talk) 19:28, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 3)@Rtc: you are welcome to read about why WP:RS are not entirely reliable per wikipedia policy at WP:RSBREAKING as I sourced above. The difference between deliberate flight and 'mass murder' is because 'murder' has a specific definiton, requiring malicious intent towards the victims, which no source has even suggested here. Just because you want to call everything involving someone's wrongful death murder, doesn't mean it is murder. The term murder is defined in German law. Yes, it is in German, but it has the same meaning as the English 'murder'. You can read more about it here: Murder (German law) ― Padenton|✉   19:23, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I already replied to above what you now repeat once again. It is not sufficient to claim that reliable sources may not be reliable. Everyone can claim that. Your claim that "'murder' has a specific definiton, requiring malicious [my emphasis] intent towards the victims" is simply false. I do not know where you picked this up, it's not true. --rtc (talk) 19:34, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)@Rtc: It's not me claiming it, it's a wikipedia policy, and therefore consensus of many users. If you disagree with it strongly, you are welcome to propose changes to it and attempt to reach a new consensus (I think that would be at the Village Pump...not sure), though I advise you to do so calmly. The rationale for it is that many of the sources report rumors. For example, I removed a line from either this or the Lubitz article the other day where the New York Times was used as a source for "According to an acquaintance of [Andreas Lubitz], blahblahblah" Murder does have a specific definition, not sure what you're talking about there. ― Padenton|✉   19:45, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I do agree with that policy! I disagree with your claim that it allows you to keep information out of the article that you personally (for whatever reason) disagree with, even though the information is sourced by reliable sources. The policy does not say that reliable sources can be ignored at will, as you seem to assume. It says, in doubt, where the source is particularly speculative, wait a few days. The few days are long over. It has been confirmed again and again and again over many days by official sources (far from being mere rumors) that it was suicide. Again: Your claim that "'murder' has a specific definiton, requiring malicious [my emphasis] intent towards the victims" is simply false. Murder requires malice aforethought, which is already given if there was "intent to kill". It is not necessary that this intent was "malicious". That's simply something you invented. It cannot be more clear; if it were otherwise, every murderer could claim, yes, he killed those people intentionally, but he didn't mean it in a malicious sense... He wanted them to go to heaven, didn't he! "But I did not wish them ill, I only wanted to KILL them" Yeah, right! --rtc (talk) 19:57, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
Let us please stop arguing with this formerly blocked editor; who clearly wishes the argument will continue for as long as possible. Let him have the last word and do not reply, until perhaps 24 hours from now. Cheers, all. Prhartcom (talk) 20:02, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
How about simply admitting that you are wrong? ---rtc (talk)
(edit conflict)@Rtc:It's a WP:BDP, we don't put prejudicial claims in the article that are not factual and reliably sourced. "Few days" is a broad guideline intended to cover all articles on Wikipedia. The important point is that you wait until information is reliable, confirmed, and factual. No one here is disputing it was suicide. We are disputing your characterization of it as 'murder'. It does not matter if multiple sources have confirmed it as suicide, because no one cares about that, we have moved on from that. Look up the definition on 'malice aforethought' and 'malicious intent'. They're identical. Where is the source for that quote? ― Padenton|✉   20:06, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
No it's not a WP:BDP. The person is "confirmed dead by reliable sources". There is no doubt he's dead. The suicide is factual, confirmed and reliably sourced, in contrast to the WP:OR phrase "Deliberate flight into terrain". If you say "No one here is disputing it was suicide", then let's at least change it into "suicide by co-pilot"! And yes, malice aforethought is already given if there is "intent to kill". That's quoted literatlly from the article murder and malice aforethought. There is no such thing as "malicious intent" when it comes to murder. That was at best a very old understanding. "the term has been abandoned, or substantially revised. The four states of mind that are now recognized as constituting "malice aforethought" in murder prosecutions are as follows:[7] i. Intent to kill, ii. Intent to inflict grievous bodily harm short of death, iii. Reckless indifference to an unjustifiably high risk to human life ..., or iv. Intent to commit a dangerous felony" see also "The courts broadened the scope of murder by eliminating the requirement of ... true malice" Did you actually read those articles? --rtc (talk) 20:12, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
@Rtc: WP:BDP refers to recently deceased people being protected under the WP:BLP policy, it doesn't matter that sources confirm he's dead. For the thirtieth or so time I've said it, "Such extensions would apply particularly to contentious or questionable material about the dead that has implications for their living relatives and friends, such as in the case of a possible suicide or a particularly gruesome crime." Suicide by copilot is incorrect because we are supposed to do our best to match the phrasing to already existing pages, in this case, there is a category for it. Also for the thirtieth time, there is no evidence that there was "intent to kill". There's no evidence that he even thought about any of the passengers before he committed suicide. The murder article also says "This state of mind may, depending upon the jurisdiction, distinguish murder from other forms of unlawful homicide, such as manslaughter." and in this case, we are talking about German and French law, as the jurisdiction is between them. ― Padenton|✉   20:40, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
WP:BDP literally begins with a simple and clear statement: "Anyone born within the past 115 years is covered by this policy unless a reliable source has confirmed their death" (my emphasis). Other than that it discusses "contentious or questionable material about the dead that has implications for their living relatives and friends, such as in the case of a possible suicide or a particularly gruesome crime" But we are not talking about "contentious or questionable material". This is a high profile case, with high profile authorities involved with evidence-based investigation (flight recorder, the co-pilot's personnel and medical records, search of his tablet PC, etc.) and covered on the front pages of mainstream press. The policy clearly does not refer to this, but to smaller cases where rumors or questionable information are spread. "Suicide by copilot is incorrect" No, it's correct. It's what happened, it's what the sources say. And other articles have similar reasons given. "Also for the thirtieth time, there is no evidence that there was "intent to kill"." oh yes there is, nobody disputes that, not even you. You claimed true malice was necessary in addition, which I clearly refuted. But not even intent to kill is necessary, as I already have shown! It is perfectly sufficient to have "Reckless indifference to an unjustifiably high risk to human life". We are not talking aobut German or French law, we are talking about the exact term "murder-suicide", the German translation of which would be "erweiterter Suizid", which does not require first degree murder. But even if you want to debate that, according to German law, it would clearly be first degree murder, "Mörder ist, wer ... mit gemeingefährlichen Mitteln ... einen Menschen tötet." http://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/211.html" Crashing a plane into the mountains is very obviously such an uncontrollably-dangerous means (gemeingefährliches Mittel). When do you admit that you are simply wrong? --rtc (talk) 20:54, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
WHAT? So you fly an airplane to the ground to kill yourself and take a hundred people with you and that's not being malicious???? Are you guys for real? The pilot obviously commited murder-suicide 179.153.241.50 (talk) 20:57, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
You are absolutely right and it's good to have someone agree. It's so obvious. I don't know why those users are disputing that, wasting their time with involved attempts to argue for the absurd opposite. --rtc (talk) 21:03, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
Let's see: Several sources (pretty much every single source out there) point to evidence suggesting that the co-pilot deliberately committed suicide. Not only he looked for suicide up in the Internet before the fatal crash, but he intentionally closed the cockpit door, turned off the autopilot and flew the plane into the mountains, killing himself and all other people with him. He could have committed suicide in a way not to harm anyone else, but he chose to take everybody with him to their death. He obviously wasn't THAT weak, if he planned the thing beforehand. I seriously cannot understand why the editors are sooo opposed to calling that murder-suicide a murder-suicide -179.153.241.50 (talk) 21:39, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
You forgot to mention that his Internet searches included cockpit door security. --rtc (talk) 21:50, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
I'm not going to add to the content debate. Firstly, I don't feel competent to do so; and I don't care that much about the specific words. More important to me is the abuse of process here. I see one editor arguing endlessly against the opposition of multiple others, including several with some experience. We are way past drop the stick here, and close to an ANI complaint for disruption. Rtc, you made your case clearly enough, it was debated, you lost. You have the option of starting an RfC to get more opinions, but please cease this particular tack. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:17, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
I Certainly did not "lose"; the others stopped discussing when their arguments were so clearly refuted by me that any reply by them would have meant either embarassment or conceding defeat. If any editor has ignored WP:STICK, it is you by this very contribution of yours. That is always the solution people have if I have defeated them by argument, get me blocked for "disruption", just because a majority of editors fails to respect to the rule of argument and to admit that they were wrong. That's ridiculous and only shows what an intellectually poor place Wikipedia has become. What apparently counts is not the abundance of reliable source saying highly suspected to be murder-suicide, what seems rather to count is the ability of some users to enforce their WP:OR phrase of "Deliberate flight into terrain" in the article at will, by cooperative edit-warring. And when it comes to experience, I don't see you have any authority to use it as an argument against me. --rtc (talk) 00:50, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
WP:Consensus is a bedrock principle around here. I couldn't count the times I have deferred to a consensus that I felt was clearly wrong, and I don't lose any sleep over it. But good luck with your approach. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:58, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
User:Rtc: It is pretty simple, you have not gained consensus here to make these proposed changes. - Ahunt (talk) 01:55, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
No, it is not that simple, because you have not given a convincing answer (in fact no answer at all) to some crucial arguments. Your claims have been refuted. Therefore, we are in a situation where you objectively have lost the debate, but refuse to admit it, instead using the subjective views of the majority of editors (the "consensus") as an excuse for not accepting the necessary change to the article. That is not what WP:CONSENSUS is intended for, rather, it can be considered an abuse of that rule. WP:CONSENSUS can only work if people change their opinion once they have been shown to be wrong. "Here editors try to persuade others, using reasons based in policy, sources, and common sense". It does not even remotely say that it is sufficient to declare one's opinion to be X or Y and look for whether X or Y enjoys majority support. --rtc (talk) 02:31, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
We've all seen it before, but it's usually from people with less experience. The idea that it's on others to convince you, to show that you're wrong to your satisfaction. In other words, the debate is over when you say it's over. If you can't escape that fundamental misunderstanding of how Wikipedia works, you might consider the possibility that you're just too smart to participate in a collaborative environment such as Wikipedia. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:47, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
There is no misunderstanding on my part. Your analysis is simply logically incorrect. It is true that it is on others to convince me, to show that I am wrong to my satisfaction. It is a non sequitur, however, to conclude that under this assumption the debate is over when I say it's over. The other possibility is that you simply do not reply. You complained above that "We are way past drop the stick here", which is a performative self-contradiction, suggesting the incorrect idea on your part that it is on others to drop the stick, not on you. In other words, that the debate should be over not by you stopping it (by not replying), but by coercing others to stop, either by showing them to be wrong to your, but not their satisfaction (a faulty idea), or simply by blocking (an idea that may work for various reasons rooted in the imperfection of wikipedia's system, but clearly should not). If you wish the discussion to cease, simply do not reply. But if you reply, do not complain when I respond and point out the errors in your reasoning. --rtc (talk) 03:02, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
At this point, I would suggest that everyone stop replying. If Rtc modifies the article against consensus, I'll be there to support an ANI complaint. Otherwise I'm happy letting him (may I assume maleness, given the style of interaction?) argue with himself. Server space is cheap. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:08, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
Instead of all this tiresome meta-discussion and abusing consensus as an excuse for ignoring reason, you should rather accept the fact that my arguments have clearly refuted the status quo and make either the change I prefer ("murder-suicide"), or the alternative change I proposed ("suicide by co-pilot"). --rtc (talk) 03:24, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
I agree with you and, because of that, we have been accused of being the same person! LOL! Isn't that funny? The authorities have found strong evidence hinting to murder-suicide by the co-pilot, but for some reason the owners of Wikipedia don't agree with that. And since they have no better argument than accepting the truth, they have come up with false accusatings trying to imply we are the same person. OMG! How upside down has this world become??? I'm deeply saddened by that, completely lost my faith in this website... :( why on Earth are they so inclined to conceal the truth that every single piece of news source out there quote the authorities who say the pilot not only planned it all in advance (looked up "ways to commit suicide" and "cockpit door security" in the Internet), closed the cockpit door and deliberately flew the plane into the mountais, thus killign himself and everybody else???? Isn't that clearly murder-suicide for Gods' sake? Lets hope they show some respect to the memory of the victims! Wikipedia is a first source of info for many people around the Globe, and that's why we should make our voice be heard and fight against the censorship of those trying to push their own agenda and trying to conceal the truth. it was murder-suicide by the co-pilot, as the authorities have said already countless times, and this raises serious security concerns to aviation in general. Let's not conceal the truth. -179.153.241.50 (talk) 13:49, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Issues raised at WP:ANI

MAXIMUM RECURSION DEPTH EXCEEDED
We don't need a meta discussion of the ANI report on the article's talk page. Please refer to WP:TPYES. Alakzi (talk) 18:21, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

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

I have raised this discussion at WP:ANI for the reasons stated there. Naturally all involved editors (or those concerned) are welcome to contribute in the search for a resolution as agreeable to all as possible. --wintonian talk 05:10, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

You are accusing us of being the same person. Sorry, but that's low. Can't you understand that people may think differently??? The other editor who complained about an unfair banishment of someone else who figured out the truth about the tragedy is from the UK, as you can tell from his IP. I'm from Brazil, so we are definitely not the same person lol Why is this my "first edit"??? I have edited Wikipedia before - in small bits - without registering to an account, but very rarely. I edited this one because IMHO some editors are trying to conceal the fact that it was murder-suicide, and it's just frustrating to see you acting as if you were the owners of Wikipedia. For this very same reason, I'm not inclined to creating a personal account and become a "full-time" editor, since some of you brag about your "many years experience" and try to push your own agenda here. I'm deeply disgusted at it. And what you don't realise is that you are not being contributors, but rather you scare away newcomers like me, who don't want to waste energy in senseless arguments with people who cannot understand there are people who think in a different way than theirs. 179.153.241.50 (talk) 12:22, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Aaaand, here it goes:

We are waiting for a reliable source quoting one of the prosecutors explicitly accusing the late Lubitz of murder. Until this happens, as editors we can't infer murder from these sources, we can only state exactly what the sources say (and we already have the information from these news stories in the article). I hope that sounds reasonable to you. If you have any questions feel free to reply. Prhartcom (talk) 14:15, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
Hello! I understand that, thank you! And you replied in a polite way, not in the same way as the guy below, for example, who just accused me of being that other guy. The only thing I'm disliking about all this is the censorship-like behaviour of those editors. -179.153.241.50 (talk) 14:27, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
Understood. Please don't let that bother you. Literally all of us who have been editing this article have had our work reverted by another editor who wanted to be more cautious (read the Talk page archive, especially on the first day). All of us soon realized caution is a good idea. As we are an encyclopedia and not a news agency, we really should wait until the facts are in before including information in the article. Prhartcom (talk) 14:32, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
"We are waiting for a reliable source quoting one of the prosecutors explicitly accusing the late Lubitz of murder" That will never happen and has never happened in any of the very similar cases before! Because the prosecutors are simply not prosecuting the co-pilot. He is dead. You cannot prosecute someone who is dead. The legal basis for the investigations is thus not the co-pilot, but figuring out whether any co-perpetrator was involved. If it turns out there was not, the investigation will simply be stopped with no result. Prosections are there to prosecute criminals, not to feed the sensation-seeking public. Thus, you are saying "I will accept murder-suicide in the article if 1=0", that is, never. That's a nice way to say that no rational argument whatsoever will convince you that you are wrong. WP:RS does not require "a reliable source quoting one of the prosecutors". It requires a reliable source. By what means the source comes to the conclusion is irrelevant. Countless reliable sources have said that it is highly suspected to be suicide! --rtc (talk) 15:43, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
No one here is disagreeing with the 'Deliberate flight into terrain', which is all those sources say. ― Padenton|✉   14:22, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
I disagree with "Deliberate flight into terrain", because it is unsources WP:OR and just saying "murder-suicide" in a disguised way. Either say murder-suicide, or do not say it. --rtc (talk) 15:43, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

I would defer to consensus on this dispute, but there are sources saying it was murder: The Independent - Suicide and mass murder by the co-pilot: that explains the deaths of 150 people aboard Germanwings flight 9525 and CNN - government official with detailed knowledge of the investigation said that Lubitz's actions amount to"premeditated murder." Isaidnoway (talk) 17:20, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)@Isaidnoway: The independent article looks like it's citing the prosecutor (though mass murder is only mentioned in the headline), it's a prosecutors job to get a conviction. That's not to say I fault them, it's their job to look at a case that way, just that that defines the perspective with which they look at the incident. As for the CNN article, it's quoting an anonymous European government official for that line, and I don't believe that statement would meet WP:RS because of that (I've had stuff removed for such things myself). The investigation is still underway, there's really no rush for us to declare him a murderer from an encyclopedia. ― Padenton|✉   17:36, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
Nobody wants to "decleare" him a murderer, but merely say that it is highly suspected to be a case of murder-suicide, which all reliable sources agree on. The phrase "deliberate flight into terrain" has NO reliable source at all, and, in fact, as shown by simple google search, no such reliable source exists. In contrast, an abundance of sources exist calling it a murder-suicide case, many even without the qualification of "highly suspected". --rtc (talk) 17:40, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
Of course there are, and many more. See my statement on WP:ANI. The "consensus" does not dispute that. What they claim is that "It does not matter if multiple sources have confirmed it as suicide, because no one cares about that" and that I must not voice my opinion against this consensus for otherwise I will be blocked. --rtc (talk) 17:32, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
I think you have voiced your opinion plenty, and you don't seem blocked to me. The problem is that you can't stop voicing your opinion long after a clear consensus against you has become evident. You seized on the last part of what Isaidnoway said, the part that you liked, and ignored the first part, where he said he would defer to consensus. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:41, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
No, the actual problem is that some editors here seem to assume that being part of an alleged "consensus" somehow gives them the right to have the last word. I will reply and continue to reply to everything I disagree with, criticize it and point out the error in argument. --rtc (talk) 17:47, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
And you will get blocked for disruption, like hundreds before you. The rest of us have work to do, within the bounds of Wikipedia principles. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:49, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
Possibly that strategy of yours will work to get me blocked for "disruption", but only because some Wikipedia administrators are easily tricked into believing that the consensus has the right to have the last word. Nobody forces you to insist on the last word, and it is not disruption to point out the grave flaws in the views of the alleged "consensus". --rtc (talk) 17:53, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
I was more than willing to let you have the last word, but others decided it would be a great idea to continue this argument with you. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:58, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
I don't see how I could be responsible for the decision of others. --rtc (talk) 18:04, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
Now we agree on something! How about a beer after? ―Mandruss ☎ 18:05, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Clarification of citizenships table

It appears that the table does not count people, but rather citizenships. Those with multiple citizenships are counted in multiple rows. I can see the logic behind that, and I am not disputing that (anymore). The question now is how best to make that clear to the reader, and I don't think the current table does that. For starters, the table heading says it's a table of "people on board by citizenship", but it is not a table of people if people are counted more than once. I clarified the heading and added explanatory text at the bottom of the table, and this was reverted. So here we are.

Before my edit: [1]

After my edit: [2] ―Mandruss ☎ 14:16, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

[Last five words stricken after discussion with wintonian.] ―Mandruss ☎ 05:23, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Do whatever the usual practise is? Personally I would just assign them to what ever countries passport they were travelling under, although I expect others might disagree and there is likely to be practical difficulties in obtaining the information. If there is no established practice then to avoid the confusion I would suggest (assuming there are only a small number) adding cells for e.g. "Germany/ Spain", this way we actually know what the nationalities claimed are rather than having to guess from a table counting 150 but adding up to 160, 165 or whatever. Of course that will give rise to the question of what to do about flags, a problem I'll leave for someone else to solve. --wintonian talk 01:56, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
Forget what I wrote above, I have just discovered that you have used footnotes alleviating the problem of what the nationalities are. --wintonian talk 02:02, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
@Wintonian: Do you have an opinion about the subject of this thread, i.e., which of the two examples best clarifies the data for the reader? (The only differences are in the heading and footer text.) ―Mandruss ☎ 02:12, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
Ah! I prefer the 2nd example, though I do find the footer text a bit wordy. I wonder if the larger 2nd sentence would be better assigned as a footnote to the first, in the same way dual citizenship as been noted? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wintonian (talk • contribs) 02:54, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
Hmmm. You're suggesting taking text that is almost essential to understanding and hiding it from all but the most thorough readers. I rarely take the time to look at footnotes because they usually contain "fine print" that doesn't significantly improve my understanding. "The table counts citizenships, not people" makes no mention of the multiple citizenships and so, by itself, would not tell the story adequately. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:12, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
I am assuming that people actually bother to hover their mouse over the annotations, which lets face it doesn't involve much effort. I guess they don't and it needs to stay where it is then. But is it possible to make it less wordy or am I being picky? --wintonian talk 03:46, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
I think it's already fairly well pared to the minimum, for example omission of two occurrences of "the" in "total count exceeds number of fatalities". I'm certainly open to specific suggestions as to how it could be shortened without loss of essential meaning. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:53, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
That's why I asked if it was possible as I couldn't see anything obvious :-) One thought though, use of the term "preliminary data" kind of implies that things may change so is it necessary to say that they might or do we see the clarification as important? --wintonian talk 04:06, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
A fair point. Strike "and may be adjusted later". ―Mandruss ☎ 04:11, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
Removing the word "are" would reduce it further by a whopping 3 chars? --wintonian talk 04:17, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
How about? "The table counts citizenships, not people. Those with multiple citizenships are counted in multiple table rows. Counts based on preliminary data and exceeds number of fatalities." --wintonian talk 04:24, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
Saves three words (10%) and, in my opinion, is less clear. The total will continue to exceed the number of fatalities after the data is no longer preliminary, thus it makes more sense to put that with the mention of multiple citizenships. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:34, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
Ok, looks like it's going to be struggle that isn't worth it then. --wintonian talk 04:43, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
I'm not sure how to take that, but thanks for your input. It's five words shorter as a result. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:45, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
I mean it's going to hard to save anything more than a word or 2, and therefore probably isn't worth thinking too long about it. Mind you eventually we will be be able to just get rid of the "preliminary data" bit --wintonian talk 04:50, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
True, although it may be preliminary for longer than we think, per comments like this from InedibleHulk above:

For quite a while, the 2012 Aurora shooting had 70 injured, total. Then one day, it was 70, plus 12 dead. I just glanced at the edit history to find out when, and noticed it's still confusing people.

Even if an accurate manifest is released, will it include complete information about citizenships? That's what we'll need to be completely accurate in a table that counts citizenships. We might well end up changing "preliminary" to "incomplete" and leaving it that way indefinitely. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:06, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
I would delete "Estimates based on preliminary data" as it's pretty meaningless - it's just the most reliable data identified. If and when something better comes along, the article will be changed and re-referenced (if necessary with an explanation for any significant changes). The citation is there for readers who wish to know more of the source. Davidships (talk) 11:28, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
@Davidships: Thanks, maybe we can get more opinions on that. Any comment as to which version is better as to heading and footer text? ―Mandruss ☎ 12:12, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
I agree the "Estimates based on preliminary data" is meaningless and can possibly be deleted, especially because they are not "estimates", they are simply reliably sourced data. Otherwise, the table is fine the way it currently is. Prhartcom (talk) 12:36, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
Personally I feel that the term "preliminary data" (or something like it) is crucial to explaining why (even allowing for dual nationalities) the total may not equal 150 or change. --wintonian talk 15:27, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
How about: "Some passengers had multiple citizenship. Data is awaiting completion of investigation. Counts do not total 150." Prhartcom (talk) 18:50, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
Understanding that some people are counted on multiple rows is essential to an understanding of the table. I'm sure you feel that follows clearly from your first sentence, but I disagree. It won't be obvious at all to a reader who is seeing the table for the first time, expecting it to count people, not citizenships. A significant mental shift is necessary, and I don't think your one sentence will get them there. I have no problem with your second sentence. Your third sentence doesn't say whether the counts total less than or more than 150, so my version is clearer and, again, more helpful to reader understanding. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:01, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
Perhaps - "Some passengers had multiple citizenship and are counted more than once"? 2nd sentence is fine as long as the whole thing doesn't start to get lengthy again, in which case I feel "data is preliminary"/ "data is incomplete" etc. would suffice. As for the 3rd sentence, I'm not fussed either way. --wintonian talk 23:57, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Missing table rows

Since it counts citizenships, not people, there are at least two missing table rows: "Bosnia 2", and "Poland 1". These citizenships are stated in the footnotes for Germany and United Kingdom, respectively. They need to be added lest we offend the Bosnians and the Poles. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:37, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Dont think so, it appears we are running a "we have more victims then you" competition, the various citzenships are not really notable to the accident, we should use the nationality that the passenger declared for the flight. Hardly offending anybody as the passport used was the choice of the passenger. MilborneOne (talk) 12:29, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
@MilborneOne: That works for me, and it would render moot some other points of contention. But it would need a clear consensus and it's not going to get much exposure hidden in this little subsection. After the past four days or so I'm weary of being the lead advocate of changes to this table; would you care to open such a thread? ―Mandruss ☎ 12:46, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
Agreed and I did suggest the passport thing in my first para above before I scrubbed it due to misunderstanding the question. --wintonian talk 22:51, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Articles on medical confidentiality

Not sure where these fit, but I found:

WhisperToMe (talk) 13:15, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

These and the one above appear to be editorial opinion pieces. Wikipedia articles need facts from reliable sources, not opinions. Prhartcom (talk) 13:29, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
I agree: noise, disregard. - Ahunt (talk) 13:33, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
In my experience Wikipedia articles often do talk about opinions (Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources#News organizations explicitly says editorials are okay for sourcing opinions, but not facts: "Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (op-eds) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact."), but I wonder if these aspects are best discussed in another article. If Lubitz's article survives AFD, I'm wondering if something may be discussed there? Or an article on medical confidentiality? WhisperToMe (talk) 00:07, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
Not when the subject of the article is protected by WP Biography of Living Persons policy or WP Biography of Recently Dead Persons policy. ― Padenton|✉   04:04, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
BDP applies in this case. We can wait until the dust is settled and see how many/what kinds of better articles appear. If these articles are outdated and superior articles appear, the superior/newer articles take precedence. WhisperToMe (talk) 05:54, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
(Stream of consciousness warning) Hmmm...I admit, I skimmed through these at first and thought they were more about Lubitz, sorry, it's been a long week on this article. Thinking about it a little more, if you're just talking about the impact on medical privacy policy, I agree these would probably feel more at home on an article on medical privacy. An opinion piece would certainly be justified there. However, I'm wondering if this is a notable enough event to justify presence on there. Maybe on a medical confidentiality in Germany article? (is there one?) It just feels like every time there's a tragedy that makes headlines, there's some number of people that want to radically change policy, so such an article could get quite long. And with an event that makes international headlines, is that impact exclusive to Germany (or wherever)? I dunno, maybe it could have a place in this article, in an impact/aftermath section? I think it's still too early to provide much on the impact (the debate will probably go on for a bit), but maybe a sentence or two along the lines of "Following the reveal of Lubitz's medical history (be more specific) and its connection to the incident, people pushed for policy changes in medical confidentiality." (that could use a bit of work, it's late for me, brain not work much longer) ― Padenton|✉   06:30, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
I took another read through the articles and they are pretty much about medical privacy policies. The Artze Zeitung is a newspaper meant for doctors. The Google translate title of the second article is "When doctors have to break their confidentiality" WhisperToMe (talk) 23:47, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
This will be an issue for investigators to discuss, in consultation with German aviation authorities. Wait for official reports -- Aronzak (talk) 06:28, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Fatalities table reform - take 4

The table is a bit of a confusing mess. Here is the current situation, as I understand it:

  • Based on all sources to date, there were 150 fatalities.
  • Three passengers had dual citizenships.
  • One passenger had triple citizenship.
  • That means 5 "extra" citizenships (3x 1) + (1x 2).
  • Some of the multiple citizenships are counted on multiple rows, once for each citizenship.
  • If all were, the table's total count would be 155 (once for each person, plus once for each "extra" citizenship).
  • The current total count is 154, not 155.
  • The footnote for Germany indicates two German-Bosnians, but there is no row for Bosnia. Therefore two Bosnian citizenships are not counted.
  • The footnote for UK indicates one Spanish-Polish-British, but there is no row for Poland. Therefore one Polish citizenship is not counted.
  • If the above three citizenships were counted, the total count would be 157, not 154. Per bullet 6, it should be 155.

Are you thoroughly confused? Me too. I'm not entirely confident in my own reasoning above, because it's so confusing, and I've spent 30 years in the logic business. See my first sentence above.

I have been under the impression we were counting citizenships rather than people (or trying to, rather) for one or more of the following reasons:

  • Because it was all we could do, given the uncoordinated and sometimes overlapping reporting from many different sources.
  • Because it was considered more encyclopedic to do so.
  • Because it was done that way in other similar articles. Which ones, I don't know.

If my impression is wrong, I'd like to correct it.

I feel we need to discuss these questions:

  • Is the status quo acceptable, at least for now? (Strong Oppose) Does anyone think the table ought to make at least some sense—now? Or am I overthinking? Is just looking pretty with countries and numbers in the right ballparks good enough?
  • How difficult would it be to count each person only once? Could we get to a total count of 150 without fudging the numbers? Prhartcom is the resident expert on the data, and probably the only person present who can easily answer this question.
  • If it's possible, do we want to do it? This is for all of us.

Thank you for your participation. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:45, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi Mandruss, thank-you for bringing this up, but I'm afraid we can't act upon it. Your impression is not wrong, all the numbers you presented above appear to be correct to me. Yes, I understand you'd like to correct it, but I'm afraid we can't—we don't have the reliable sources to make the necessary data improvements. I dearly wish the reliable sources had reported which passport the multiple citizens were flying under, but they didn't. I dearly wish the reliable sources had provided a fatality count by country when they reported that body parts for all 150 people had been found, but they didn't. As you said, the tallies by citizenship don't add up to 150. I believe that is for two reasons: Some of the passengers had multiple citizenship (and are probably counted twice) and some of the numbers seem to be preliminary data (it appears to be off by two). If anyone would like to follow along with me here, I believe I can explain it simply: I believe Spain counted the Mexican-Spanish citizen in their Spanish count and I believe Mexico counted the same person in their count. Also, I believe Spain counted the Spanish-Polish-British citizen in their count and I believe the U.K. counted the same person in their count. Therefore, I believe the fatality count for Spain is two less than the reported tally of 51, or 49. As for the two Bosnian-German citizens, they are not counted twice (there is no row for Bosnia); the same is true for the Spanish-Polish-British citizen, they are not counted a third time (there is no row for Poland). So it is just the two Spanish citizens counted twice (probably; please understand I have no reliable sources to back up my belief.) If you add up the tallies in the table, but substitute the number "49" instead of "51" for Spain, you get a total of 152, That is two off the number of fatalities. Therefore, there is another error in the tallies as reported by reliable sources, most likely in the German or Spanish tallies. But the main point is we can't do anything about the subject you raised, because we have already accomplished our most important job: Reporting the number of people per country as reported by the reliable sources. The table is correct according to reliable sources; each tally shown has a reliable source to back it up. It would be nice if the tallies totaled 150, even accounting for the multiple citizenships, but they don't. Which is more important: A total of 150 at the bottom or tallies that match the reliable sources? Obviously the latter; it is not important to total 150 as long as we do our job as editors and report the numbers that appear in the reliable sources. Therefore, we have a disclaimer at the bottom: "Counts ... do not total 150." The table is going to have to stay as it is until more reliable sources appear. Prhartcom (talk) 12:39, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
P.S. Yes, I just said the phrase "reliable sources" at least ten times. :-) Prhartcom (talk) 12:48, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
We dont normally list citizenship in airline accidents it should be just a list of fatalaties and the country they claimed to be from. At the moment it appears to be some sort of competition of claiming as many bodies as possible for each country, remember these are people that have died and I am sure they would not appreciate being in "I have more dead than you" competition. The list should be a simple list of fatalities against the country of origin (that is the passport or ID presented) the fact that one was born in fooland has and once lived in beeland, also noted that they may have one had a passport for ceeland and sleeped in deeland once, clearly the citzenship has zero notability to the accident and not relevant to the article. The only reason we detail the origin of the passengers is because we are repeating the reliable sources although it has not relevance at all to the accident. If we cant find a reliable passenger list then we should not make one up. MilborneOne (talk) 14:02, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
I'm not sure what this editor is talking about. No one said this table a competition. I believe I made it very clear above that we did not "make one up". We are reporting from the (you guessed it) reliable sources. The information in this table is all we have to construct any kind of data on the people on board. If any of us see any better data, then by all means, add it. I hope we don't continue discussing this topic yet again again because there is nothing any of us can do. Prhartcom (talk) 18:54, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
Maybe people can ask the airline to release its own nationality table, but that's all I can think of. The airline counts the passport/ID the passenger boards with. WhisperToMe (talk) 23:49, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
I accept your explanation. But I think we could at least create the "Bosnia 2" and "Poland 1" rows, which would at least get us closer to what the table is intended to be, a tabulation of citizenships. I assume the refs can be copied from the Germany and UK footnotes. If there's no objection, I'll do that soon. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:53, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
You don't want to do that. There is no way the omission of those rows is "offending the Bosnians and the Poles", as you recently tried to assert. What we want is the number of fatalities per country if possible. Your change gets us no closer to that, it only gets us farther away. The obvious ideal table, and what I believe you once wanted also, is one tally per person if possible, not what you are suggesting. Also, from what I understand reading one of the sources, the infant with three nationalities "did not travel using the Polish identity document." As for the two with partial Bosnia citizenship, reading one of the sources states the two lived in Germany. Therefore it is likely they used their German passport. Please leave the table until the sources publish fatalities per country. Prhartcom (talk) 05:37, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
Well thanks for finally saying what you could have said over three days ago. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:32, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

El Pais opinion article about country stereotypes and the Germanwings crash

Someone on an Airliners.net thread mentioned this El País article:

It asks "¿Se imaginan las reacciones en la prensa alemana y de otros países europeos de haberse tratado, digamos, de un vuelo de Iberia Express?" - It is asking something like: So imagine how the German press and other European press would react if it was an Iberia Express flight? WhisperToMe (talk) 10:29, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

What a completely preposterous article - whining about how Spanish culture somehow would have been blamed if the plane were Spanish (are you serious?) and than going on to stereotype Germans and asomwehow blame them for excessive belief in their "Germanic" efficiency. Paul B (talk) 13:23, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
Do you want anything from there in this article, or just saying? If you want that repeated, no, Wikipedia doesn't do rhetorical questions. InedibleHulk (talk) 14:48, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
What I do is I find articles that may be possibilities and let other editors decide if it's worthy to include the information. If not, that's totally fine. WhisperToMe (talk) 21:18, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
Opinion pieces are not RS. If German prosecutors or aviation officials state that the system of medical confidentiality needs changing, that should be referenced, not opinion pieces criticising German culture.-- Aronzak (talk) 06:27, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
Opinion pieces are not RS in terms of facts, but in terms of the opinions they say. Please take a look at Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources#News organizations: "Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (op-eds) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact." - I also understand that not every opinion is worthy of being included in any given article. WhisperToMe (talk) 16:54, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Updated list of BEA documents

Here is an updated BEA document list:

French pages:

English Pages:

Spanish pages:

German pages:

CVR Photos:

FDR photos:

Crash site photo: http://www.bea.aero/fr/enquetes/vol.gwi18g/images/photo.site.jpg - http://www.webcitation.org/6XLB2CFtW WhisperToMe (talk) 00:32, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

B.E.A. statement about descent

At present the article says "It showed that he set the autopilot to descend to 100 feet (30 m), and that he increased the aircraft's speed several times during the descent."BBCNYT

Both the BBC and NYT quote the B.E.A. with:

  • "Then several times the pilot modified the automatic pilot settings to increase the speed of the airplane as it descended,"
  • “several times during the course of the descent, the pilot adjusted the automatic pilot so as to increase the speed of the plane as it descended,”

The B.E.A. statements are:

  • "Une première lecture fait apparaître que le pilote présent dans le cockpit a utilisé le pilote automatique pour engager l’avion en descente vers une altitude de 100 ft, puis, à plusieurs reprises au cours de la descente, le pilote a modifié le réglage du pilote automatique pour augmenter la vitesse de l’avion en descente."[3]
  • "The initial readout shows that the pilot present in the cockpit used the autopilot to put the aeroplane into a descent towards an altitude of 100 ft then, on several occasions during the descent, the pilot modified the autopilot setting to increase the speed of the aeroplane in descent."[4]

Unfortunately, I believe the B.E.A.'s French to English translation has an error that carried on to the BBC and NYT reports. "pour augmenter la vitesse de l’avion en descente" should be "to increase the speed of the aircraft descent." When flying you reduce power, and thus the aircraft's speed, to decent or to increase the rate of decent.

CNN seems to have done their own translation and got it right in Germanwings 'black box' shows co-pilot Andreas Lubitz sped up descent.

  • "Initial tests on the flight data recorder recovered from downed Germanwings Flight 9525 show that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz purposely used the controls to speed up the plane's descent, according to the French air accident investigation agency, the BEA."
  • "But Robin noted that Lubitz made voluntary actions -- such as guiding the plane toward the mountain and reducing its speed to prevent alarms from going off -- and was "alive and conscious" to the very end."

For now, I'm not updating the Wikipedia article but instead wanted to see if there's consensus to change the wording to better match what CNN reported but will conflict with what the BBC and NYT reported. The article should say "It showed that he set the autopilot to descend to 100 feet (30 m), and that he reduced the aircraft's speed several times to increase the rate of descent." Smith-Spark, Laura; Haddad, Margot (April 3, 2015). "Germanwings 'black box' shows co-pilot Andreas Lubitz sped up descent". CNN. --Marc Kupper|talk 15:21, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Reduced power, not speed. There's no way something can fall faster by going slower. InedibleHulk (talk) 15:29, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
Attitude for Airspeed & Power for Rate of Descent?

So, in essence, when flying an approach to land, reducing the power will increase the rate of descent without any actual manipulation of the controls.

JoeSperrazza (talk) 16:20, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
" There's no way something can fall faster by going slower." .-> yes, it's possible. Or you can do it with faster speed or constant speed, In A320 there are many different modes in plane automation or you can do it manually. When planes approach airport they try to descend most fuel efficient way.
There is lot of speculations what technically happened in plane, what pilot really did do in last seconds and what plane automation did do. Many newspapers and journalist are doing their own conclusions from official statements.
One reason seems to be that many journalist or people in here do not understand technical details and basic flight physics. And some even some don't understand what speed is ( IAS, TAS, MACH). And what are relations between them.
Only reliable source for this is BEA and "raw" data what comes out from FDR(Flight Data Recorder) or QAR("Cockpit" Quick Access Recorder). QAR is not crashproof, so change to find it and recover data from it is slim.
Best data what is available is "flightradar24 data" and "descend profile" what BEA showed in first press conference. If you combine this two sources and visualize it, both data correlates to each other. http://i61.tinypic.com/70deac.jpg
From Flightradar latest data we can see that Speed IAS or sinkrate was not constant during descend. http://i59.tinypic.com/2im1gtg.jpg And BEA has now confirmed that this values was not constant during descend.
You can say this in words that everyone understand, someone was "pushing buttons" in cockpit during decend.
Until FDR (Flight data recorder)data is published and analyzed by investigation team everything is only speculation what pilot did do in those last minutes.
And I think that "technical" speculation what public media does should not be published in Wikipedia, even it comes from multiple sources.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.115.9.106 (talk • contribs) 17:27, 3 April 2015‎
(ec) The Airbus A320 family article doesn't tell us much about its autopilot system, but it certainly has autothrottle. So the pilot may have entered a higher speed datum. If he advanced the throttle manually, beyond a certain threshold, he'd probably drop out of autothrottle. As User:Marc Kupper suggests above, the article should reflect this, if supported by the official sources. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:38, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
(ec) How about using:
It showed that he set the autopilot to descend to 100 feet (30 m), and during the decent Lubitz made several autopilot adjustments to increase the aircraft's rate of descent.
We'd use both CNN and the B.E.A. french-language version as sources. While B.E.A. is primary I suspect readers that follow up look at the sources would like to see the original statement.
88.115.9.106, while I agree with your reasoning Wikipedia articles should be based on WP:SECONDARY rather than primary sources. --Marc Kupper|talk 17:39, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
The BEA is quoted as saying that he increased the speed; as can be seen from the plot, the rate of descent remained fairly constant throughout. Alakzi (talk) 17:52, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
BEA is not saying that he increased speed setting, He increased speed of descend.What is now in front page is wrong. Pilot changed "speed of descend" not "speed of plane" setting. Speed change is result of descend speed change.
A320 has Vmo/Mmo (Maximum Operating Limit Speeds) 350/0.82. It's possible that plane fly faster if pilot set different flightcontrol law or there is technical fault in plane. If plane automation was working in "Normal law" there is flight envelope protection function "High Speed Protection" and it not allow plane fly faster than 350/0.82. Flightradar data shows that speed started to increase gradually at begin of descend. Flight envelope protection did not allow plane to go faster. Begin of decend speed was quite near to 0.82 and later speed was almost 350, this means that plane was flying near its operating limits.
After plane speed reached 350 descend rate was "almost" constant, but before that it was not. There was some small deviations what could suggest that someone was "pushing buttons".
If pilot did try to increase speed by change descend rate after Vmo was reached plane speed did not increased anymore. When operating limit are reached and flight protection functions are working pilot inputs are not converted to outputs.
Saying
"It showed that he set the autopilot to descend to 100 feet (30 m), and during the decent Lubitz made several autopilot adjustments to increase the aircraft's rate of descent."
Its right — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.115.9.106 (talk) 21:08, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
So the aircraft has a maximum operating speed. Does it also have a maximum rate of descent? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:19, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
No, there is no maximum. But there are other limits like speed, that limits rate of descent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.115.9.106 (talk) 21:47, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
Not strictly, no. But with all computers functional, it's theoretically impossible to attain an extreme rate of descent—i.e. it's impossible to exceed the flight envelope. Alakzi (talk) 21:51, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
Functional limit is passenger comfort:) Flight Envelope allows extreme sinkrates, speed could be problem. In normal law A320 limits nose down pitch angle to -15 degrees. But if you change law its possible to fly really extreme descend rates and still stay inside plane structural and aerodynamic operating limits. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.115.9.106 (talk) 23:34, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
No, BEA does not say that he increased the "speed of descent"; they say that he increased the speed in descent, i.e. during descent. Alakzi (talk) 21:51, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
You are right and wrong :) BEA says "pilot modified autopilot setting to increase speed of the aeroplane in descent" The plane speed change is result of what he did do. BEA does not say what parameter/setting did he change in autopilot. If you set speed to autopilot, automation will keep that speed and it not change so much what is in data. But if you change something else result is speed change and autopilot allows variation of speed like in data.
In front page it should read exactly what is in BEA web pages and let reader to do own conclusions. If autopilot is turned on, autopilot is that who changes speed not pilot. Pilot put parameters to autopilot and autopilot controls plane. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.115.9.106 (talk) 22:37, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
We're in agreement. Alakzi (talk) 22:45, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Hate to resurrect a dead horse, but this horse was foaled, lived, and died while I was sleeping. I have problems with the change to the text.

It showed that he set the autopilot to descend to 100 feet (30 m), and that he modified the autopilot setting to increase the aircraft's speed several times during the descent.

This makes it sound as if it refers twice to the same autopilot setting; that he modified the altitude setting to increase speed. The point of the information is to show that he was in control during the descent; whether he increased speed with or without autopilot is an unnecessary technical detail (is there some relevance I'm missing?). Sure, we have lots of unnecessary technical details, but the others don't imply an incorrect technical detail, as this does. The rationale for the change was "it should say what BEA says", but we all know that we don't include every detail that any source says; there needs to be better justification than that alone. I think it should be returned to the old text.

It showed that he set the autopilot to descend to 100 feet (30 m), and that he increased the aircraft's speed several times during the descent.

―Mandruss ☎ 01:00, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Note that speed refers to IAS; ground speed, which is what laymen would be familiar with, at first increased only slightly and then decreased. That should be enough reason not to use the previous wording. Alakzi (talk) 01:38, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
I don't follow. The only difference between the two is the second reference to autopilot. How does that clarify anything about IAS vs ground speed, for the layman who doesn't know anything about autopilots, either? Anyway, a concern about laymen's understanding of IAS is inconsistent with references to altitude with nary an ASL qualifier. The dumb-down factors are pretty much identical. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:55, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
I'm not sure that you understand. Commanding a higher speed does not necessarily mean that the aircraft did go faster; IAS and GS diverge at higher altitudes. If the text is unclear, the solution isn't to make it downright misleading. Alakzi (talk) 02:16, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
You're right, I didn't understand. Both are misleading, in different ways. We probably can't clarify the speed question without committing original research. Would it be OR to eliminate the confusion as to the autopilot setting, as follows?

It showed that he set the autopilot to descend to 100 feet (30 m), and that, several times during the descent, he adjusted a different autopilot setting to increase the aircraft's speed.

―Mandruss ☎ 02:39, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
I think that it'd be an acceptable reading of the BEA report. Alakzi (talk) 03:03, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
I think everyone is overthinking this. Autopilot is on. The two knobs for descent are flight level (he set it to 001) and descent rate (Vertical Speed set in hundreds of feet per minute). A plane can obey those commands at a constant power level. But a sophisticated jet will also have an autothrottle. He is likely not touching the throttle at all or even adjusting aircraft speed. Even if he pulled power to idle and overrode the autothrottle, the plane can certainly respond to an increased descent over the natural glidepath. He most likely never adjusted speed of the aircraft as a command, just the vertical speed. An interesting thing not mentioned is if the TAWS system went off. That should be on the audio of the cockpit recorder. --DHeyward (talk) 07:01, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
@DHeyward: Um-kay ... could you translate that into some suggested article content? ―Mandruss ☎ 08:03, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
No, he shouldn't. BEA quite clearly say that he adjusted speed. Alakzi (talk) 09:25, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
Sorry DH, but subject experts are not welcome on Wikipedia. ~Sigh~ 86.5.31.8 (talk) 10:17, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
Alakzi, the speed setting is called "Vertical Speed" and it is a setting on the Autopilot. Just like altitude, it's entered into the autopilot. In order to achieve the altitude he set, he also has to set the "Vertical Speed." He increased it. It has to be set to something or the plane won't leave current altitude and it has a setting left over from the climb. The article should not imply he adjusted any other speed setting as "vertical speed" is both what the source says and the particular setting on the autopilot. --DHeyward (talk) 17:59, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
Here [5] you can see the course change to 26 and what appear to be autopilot Vertical Speed increases. --DHeyward (talk) 18:16, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
OK, can a French speaker translate the original BEA report? It is quite possible that they got lost in translation. Does "vitesse de l’avion en descente" mean the airspeed (during descent) or vertical speed? Alakzi (talk) 18:22, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
It's "speed of the descent." But that's not the relevant piece. He used "autopilot". That's a commanded descent rate entered as a vertical speed in hundreds of feet per minute. He can also tell it to hold IAS while descending at the commanded vertical but the data they are looking at is what the autopilot is told to do. It appears to me, from the data, that he commanded a 3000 FPM descent on the new heading and to Flight Level 001. Then, as he was below the mountain height, he commanded a slower vertical speed while still maintaining Indicated Airspeed near the edge of the envelope. This increased his groundspeed to maximize impact speed. How autopilots work is critical to understanding the source especially if paraphrasing from a different language. The available manipulations using autopilot is "Vertical Speed." Changing the "vertical speed" to increase ground speed is another piece of information that it was deliberate. Autopilots are invaluable in emergencies and high-workload conditions so separating out an emergency descent from a suicide is what they are doing and it's these autopilot changes that show a deliberate act rather than an entry error or emergency. --DHeyward (talk) 23:34, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
Which are the sources that support these assertions? Alakzi (talk) 23:46, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
Here [6]. Page 4-8 will introduce the concept of how an autopilot is used to initiate climbs and descents outside of the flight director and FMS. Also Wikipedia:Competence is required --DHeyward (talk) 05:01, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
WP:CIR does not refer to competence in aviation technology. It's about competence in Wikipedia editing policy and skills, one of which is WP:NOR. So that would be a clear misuse (and abuse) of WP:CIR. In a box at the top is the statement, Be very cautious when referencing this page, as it can be very insulting to other editors. I'd suggest a strike. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:39, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
That was uncalled for. I'm quite aware of how autopilots work, but the fact remains that "He most likely never adjusted speed of the aircraft as a command, just the vertical speed" isn't supported by any source. If we must absolutely engage in speculation: I see no proof that he kept fiddling with the VS; however, the minor fluctuations are indicative of airspeed adjustments, which would necessitate an increase in attitude. Alakzi (talk) 09:48, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
Look at this early graph [7]. To me, it looks like his descent rate (vertical speed) is changed at 9:35 (made smaller), halfway in the descent. His airspeed declines at 9:35 as well. What's not shown is groundspeed. If his goal was to increase groundspeed, that is one way to do it. But that graph does not show that his airspeed increased. Quite the opposite.--DHeyward (talk) 01:44, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
Yes, a classic test of the TAWS, not that anyone was checking. Once again, however, the Airbus A320 family does not say anything about TAWS. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:41, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

School children

They were in grade 10 so not really children but young adults who should be referred to as students from so-n-so school, airline industry does not recognise over age 12 as children.139.190.230.234 (talk) 13:26, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank-you for your comment. The sources explicitly call them "schoolchildren". However, your information is correct and your point is valid so I have changed the single word to "students". Feel free to make these changes yourself (if they are out of line they will be reverted, if they are improvements they will stay). Cheers. Prhartcom (talk) 13:37, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
I agree that students is more appropriate in this case.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 15:34, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

French prosecutor

I thought a 'conclusion' had been reached a bit fast in this case. Apparently the French prosecutor involved has upset some people i.e. European Cockpit Association, by making statements a bit prematurely, see

Not sure if this has any place in the article, but here as a source if needed. - 220 of Borg 09:58, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I think that is a notable reaction. The first source, which specifically mentions the European Cockpit Association, could be used, although it is subscription-only. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:26, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
No new press release from that group here but some non-subscription articles have appeared i.e. here. Prhartcom (talk) 17:12, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
Let's continue to watch for more reliable sources reporting on the statements of this European Cockpit Association, and in the meantime consider putting the phrase "French prosecutors believe" into the article to qualify the statement of fact that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz caused the crash (this is being done at the Lubitz article). Prhartcom (talk) 17:40, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
Hence my comment favoring the merge, Unjustifiable nightmare keeping the two articles coordinated and in agreement. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:04, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

The Flightglobal articles do not require a subscription, only a registration (free). Davidships (talk) 00:12, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

So can we add this note using that source? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:06, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Airline operating service between Dusseldorf and Barcelona

There has been a couple of people removing Barcelona from the table at Dusseldorf Airport and Dusseldorf at Barcelona El Prat staying that this flight crashed and that the airline no longer operates the route anymore and the airline doesn't have any aircraft to fly the route. Please note that per http://airlineroute.net/2015/03/24/4u-mar15/, Germanwings operates a morning and afternoon flight between the 2 cities and that the airline is retired 9U9525/9U9424 and renumbered it to 4U9440/4U9441 while the afternoon service is operated as 4U9528/4U9529. Also, please note that germanwings has 14 Airbus A320s in its fleet and 3 operating for Eurowings so how can they not have enough aircraft to fly the route? Also, MH17 was shot down in Ukraine, did Malaysia Airlines end service to Amsterdam? With MH370 missing and presumed crashed, did MH stop serving Beijing all together? 71.12.206.168 (talk) 04:09, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

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