Talk:Controlled flight into terrain

EGPWS vs. TAWS
EGPWS is a product name (from Honeywell company) which "implements" the TAWS system. Shouldn't the article use "TAWS" instead of "EGPWS" ? --Laomai Weng (talk) 14:34, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Suggest to remove two accidents
Both crashes of the thunderbirds ( jan18, 1982 and sept 14, 2003) are - in my opinion- not CONTROLLED flight into terrain. Both are crashes while performing aerobatic maneuvres, and should be listed on a different list. --Saschaporsche (talk) 07:41, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * removed these 2 accidents --Saschaporsche (talk) 08:19, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Picture
What's the picture of a guy ejecting got to do with the article? Sure, it's a nice picture - but it clearly isn't a CFIT. Suggest it's removed. 89.5.234.158 (talk) 14:26, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

911
Aren't the 11/09/01 plane hijacks and subsequent crashes into buildings technically CFITs ?

Buildings aren't terrain. Kurt Weber 19:30, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
 * One of the planes did land in a field. &mdash;Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 11:26, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The article states CFITs are inadvertent. All of the September 11 planes were intentionally crashed, likely including United Airlines Flight 93 - the black box seems to indicate the terrorists crashed the plane upon losing control.  So none of the September 11 crashes are CFITs.  49giantsharks (talk) 22:21, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Damnit, someone beat me to this joke. 86.166.56.224 (talk) 05:19, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
 * This article should explain what category an intentional flight into terrain or other fixed object (such as the 9/11 hijackings) falls in to. Bonus Onus (talk) 22:28, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

What did the NTSB rule? Or did they leave the investigation to the FBI? (In my opinion flt 93 was not cfit. As a thought point, even though af af447 was not ruled cfit, it would be closer to cfit that flt 93.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.182.241.250 (talk) 07:38, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Thunderbird Diamond Crash
According to the USAF Thunderbirds air demonstration team article, there was a crash of four of their planes following the malfunction of the lead pilot's controls; the three planes following him were paying attention to him and not to the ground coming up at them. Is this a notable enough instance to have a brief mention added to this article? --BlueNight 06:41, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I like the notability standard applied to the list of notable accidents and incidents on commercial aircraft. If the instance is notable enough to have its own dedicated article, not just a mention in USAF Thunderbirds' entry, then the crash could be included here. plmoknijb 22:32, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

United Airlines Flight 389
Could someone familiar with this type of aviation accident or this crash in particular review the article on United Airlines Flight 389, linked from this page. An alternate, but apparently not widely accepted, theory that the plane was blown up by an explosive device is included. This seems to be drawn primarily from a first-hand account and qualifies itself with this sentence: "This is a question that has seldom even been asked." -- jqubed (Talk | Contributions) 20:04, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

American Airlines Flight 965
The article states that "Statistics show that no aircraft fitted with a terrain awareness and warning system has ever suffered a CFIT accident." But what about American Airlines Flight 965? [] This aircraft had a terrain awareness system fitted and yet crashed unintentionally into a mountain near Buga in Columbia, so this statement would appear to be incorrect. --Antarctic-adventurer (talk) 11:48, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing out; text has been corrected. The TAWS term is sometimes used to refer to EGPWS rather than older GPWS systems, which is a confusing usage. PolarYukon (talk) 15:40, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

"Cummulo"
This page is, for some reason, accessible as "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cummulogranite" but not the proper spelling of "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumulogranite". I have no idea how to fix this, so I figured I'd point it out. 71.113.73.25 (talk) 08:04, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Life expectancy in clouds
It is stated in the article that "Pilots who enter cloud without navigational instruments–flying blind–have a life expectancy of somewhere around 19 seconds,[1]." Reference [1] almost literally makes the same statement without further explanation on how this number was obtained. In my opinion it is therefore not a reliable and traceable source, but this is not the point I want to make here. I rather find that, regardless of the source, this number must be wrong. I assume that it is rather meant that those pilots who die after entering a cloud do so after on average 19 seconds. If this is not what is meant, then a single pilot living until his natural death (potentially many years) after having flown through a cloud would catapult the average number well into the range of minutes or hours unless absolutely vast numbers of pilots have died in clouds in the past. Does anyone feel like makeing a more precise statement in the article or find a more meaningful source? Thanks, 88.152.4.45 (talk) 10:37, 29 November 2009 (UTC)


 * It is very misleading, I'm going to remove it. The stat is saying that pilots withint equipment to determine their orientation (right side up, upside down, etc) or without the proper training (new solo student pilot, etc) will have a poor outcome. However, this is *NOT* CFIT, this is spacial disorientation. I'm going to correct this. -robert, FAA Certified Flight Instructor, FAA Certified Commercial Pilot --RobertGary1 (talk) 17:52, 7 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I've correct this. The original statement was misplaced because it deals with spacial disorientation which is very much NOT controlled. --RobertGary1 (talk) 17:55, 7 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Cheers, mate. btw: It's "spatial", not "spacial". Funny grammar, isn't it? :-) 88.152.4.45 (talk) 18:25, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Inexperienced Pilots in the clouds
I believe the 19-second figure refers to the time from disappearance of visual clues to departure from controlled flight. One can see that even if loss of control is instantaneous, any aircraft flying above a couple of thousand feet would take more than 19 seconds to strike the ground. However, I agree it does not belong in a CFIT article, since we are talking here about aircraft striking the ground while the pilot was in control.74.239.2.104 (talk) 19:40, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The problem isn't hitting the ground, it is overstressing the airframe so the wings are ripped off. During experiments (NASA maybe?), on average, when a person untrained in instrument flight lost outside references, they would misinterpret the effects of flight on their bodies and would erroneously attempt to correct it, usually causing the aircraft to go into a spiral dive, which very quickly escalated into ripping the wings off the aircraft. During the tests it took on average just 19 seconds for this to happen. Buddy Holly (the day the music died) died in one such incident, as did John F. Kennedy, Jr. when he crashed near Martha's Vineyard.NiD.29 (talk) 05:18, 6 January 2014 (UTC)


 * One of the most time-consuming aspects of blind flying training, i.e., for IFR, is teaching the student pilot to ignore the physical sensations and rely on the instruments to the exclusion of all else. This is very difficult for the student at first and takes practice.


 * FWIW, the RAF in the 1930s found that it took as long again to train a pilot for instrument flying as it did to train him to fly in visual conditions in the first place. In other words, it doubled the time needed to train a new pilot.


 * They also found that without proper instrument training a pilot, any pilot, flying into IFR conditions will eventually kill himself. The only difference between pilots was the length of time it took them to do so.


 * If you don't have an instrument rating then if your journey is delayed and likely to extend into the evening with poor light you cancel the flight and stay on the ground - if you are already in the air then you find somewhere to land, even if it means putting it down in a field or other safe open area. You can always resume your journey later, even if it means spending an uncomfortable night in a cramped cold and unheated aircraft in the middle of nowhere. Same if the weather is suspect. And you stay clear of clouds.


 * As they say; "Better late than never", as "never" is a very long time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.247.31 (talk) 10:19, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

Notable incidents -> table?
Maybe the growing list of notable incidents should be moved into a table, with columns for date, nb of casualties, notabilities, etc. AugustinMa (talk) 15:08, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Over 9000 usage, meme takes over article respect
Maybe it's just me, but I suggest you remove "over 9000 deaths", as this can cause corruption in article because people see internet memes and probably want to troll. If you don't like this, just remove this suggestion. I don't have any trouble. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.204.28.101 (talk) 20:13, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Dogfighting
Would pilots who crash during dogfights (or otherwise performing evasive manoeuvres) count as CFIT? Is it at least worth a mention? Jellyfish dave (talk) 16:36, 3 January 2013 (UTC)


 * In this document:, "Page 7" there are some definitions of CFIT. `a5b (talk) 23:06, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

computerized flight into terrain
Some pilots, convinced that advanced electronic navigation systems coupled with flight management system computers, or over-reliance on them, are partially responsible for these accidents, have called CFIT accidents "computerized flight into terrain".[citation needed]

Original research? Added here at 6 September 2011 ; moved from Aviation_safety; added originally: at 19 December 2004 by User:4.64.65.225. No citation for more than year. `a5b (talk) 23:01, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I've removed it. Superm401 - Talk 01:58, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

ASIANA 214 CFIT ??
My understanding is that Asiana 214 flew into the ground on a clear and calm day because the 3 crew members did not monitor their airspeed properly (they thought the auto throttles were engaged, which they were not). 70.75.236.3 (talk) 02:07, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree with you, the asiana accident is not a CFIT, i removed the accident. Reference this document:, "Page 7" definitions of CFIT Regards Saschaporsche (talk) 05:36, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, thank you. Asiana 214 should be listed as an "undershoot" accident 174.0.188.173 (talk) 16:53, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, one might call it an "undershoot" accident, but that too would be misleading. The plane crashed because it stalled close to the ground and that happened because they allowed the airspeed to fall way below the required and safe 1.3 Vref speed.


 * While they attempted a go-around at the last few seconds, it didn't work because the wings had stalled. When a stall occurs, the only way to get out of it is to push the engine thrust to MAX, AND to LOWER the nose so that the angle of attack is reduced. That is essential because the air will not begin to flow smoothly over the wings again, if that high angle of attack is maintained. Of course, to do that, the plane must have sufficient altitude above the ground to make that kind of recovery, which in this case it did not.


 * This was NOT a CFIT accident, precisely because their failure to maintain the required 1.3 Vref speed, led to a loss of control. That is what a stall amounts to: A loss of control, i.e., the plane continues to descend even though the pilot is trying to make it climb (the pitch was about 12 degrees ANU and the control column was in the full aft position).  EditorASC (talk) 00:09, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Aeroflot 821?
Why is Aeroflot 821 included? The official investigation said that the pilots actually lost control due to their failure to notice and correct an excessive left bank.76.6.152.65 (talk) 18:47, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Agree I have removed it. MilborneOne (talk) 17:47, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
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Notable accidents and sourcing
Please note that WP:SOURCELIST stipulates that "Lists, whether they are stand-alone lists (also called list articles) or embedded lists, are encyclopedic content just as paragraph-only articles or sections are. Therefore, all individual items on the list must follow Wikipedia's content policies: the core content policies of Verifiability (through good sources in the item's one or more references), No original research, and Neutral point of view, plus the other content policies as well." Additionally, WP:CIRCULAR makes it clear that Wikipedia articles are not in and of themselves reliable sources.

My reading of this suggests that for the Notable accidents table we should be provided sources establishing not just that these are notable accidents but that they are also considered CFIT accidents. Currently few of the entries are sourced, which means there's no in-article way to readily verify that the accidents listed are CFIT. It should not be incumbent on readers to have to refer to other articles to confirm the information published at this one.

Other opinions are welcome. DonIago (talk) 20:15, 28 May 2019 (UTC)


 * I wish slapping a Refimprove template on an article was as time consuming as it is to add all the references it complains about. Duplicating all those refs for this kind of largely uncontroversial articles is a massive waste of editors' time. I'm certainly not wasting mine, and you have not improved the article. --Deeday-UK (talk) 22:24, 28 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Based on your rather knee-jerk response, you don't care enough about the article to bring it up to Wikipedia standards then, and I'm guessing you're not especially interested in discussing the matter further either. So be it. If nobody else weighs in I'll give it some time before taking further action. Cheers. DonIago (talk) 02:33, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

One of the problems is that it is not really a list, if it was just a list of accidents with linked articles then it would not need a reference but this table is introducing article content. This should be referenced, that said perhaps the easiest is to ditch the table as it overwhelms the article and really adds no value. Just listing aircraft that hit things doesnt add to the understanding of CFIT or give any more than looking at the CFIT category. I would suggest ditch the big table and possibly expand the causes section to give more value by giving a few examples of the type and causes of CFIT accidents. MilborneOne (talk) 07:48, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm amenable to this approach. I think ideally we'd have a listing of more "notable" CFIT accidents, but I have no idea how we could objectively distinguish those, as plane accidents tend to attract news coverage in general. Morbidly speaking, we could just list the "top" accidents in terms of casualties, but... In any case, a concern with the table is that well-meaning editors are likely to continue to add entries without sourcing, so we'd end up having to police the table for those. Thanks for your thoughts on this! DonIago (talk) 13:04, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
 * MilborneOne, what DonIago says is the opposite to what you said: even if the big table was "just a list of accidents with linked articles", his point is that it would still need references, which to me it's just pedantic. I too thought about ditching the big table before, because it does indeed overwhelm the article. However, a proper list article of CFIT accidents would definitely add value. The existing CFIT category is not very easy to navigate, with all the articles dumped in alphabetical order; a proper list article would have them sorted chronologically and maybe grouped in some meaningful way. It's quite some work though, especially if we have to copy all the references from the articles to their respective entry in the list. --Deeday-UK (talk) 13:55, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I would not object to a seperate List of controlled flight into terrain accidents, as you said if it was properly organised it would help the reader. Need to be clear on the grouping of causes like weather related etc. MilborneOne (talk) 14:03, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I'd be okay with "outsourcing" the current list from this article, and taking it as an opportunity to improve matters. DonIago (talk) 23:23, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Notable accidents table
Moving this here until we have consensus about how to dispense with it and resolve sourcing concerns, and what makes a CFIT accident "notable" (are there even CFIT accidents that don't meet the standard WP definition of "notable"?). DonIago (talk) 15:45, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Notable accidents
Many notable accidents have been ascribed to CFIT.

Whether to add another pic
There seems to be a debate over adding another picture to the article, that has escalated to edit-warring. I'm hopeful that one or both parties will either discuss their concerns here or cease their disruptive editing. Personally, I don't currently have much of a horse in this race. DonIago (talk) 17:28, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
 * My 2 cents: i don't see the advantage why the new picture should be added, no real improvement to the article. Saschaporsche (talk) 18:22, 6 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Many of our articles make use of multiple relevant images by incorporating a Gallery of images. For example, see Wingtip vortices. For Wikipedia’s guidance about Galleries see WP:GALLERY.
 * I suggest the current controversy about “should we have another image in the lead” should move to “should we establish a Gallery of images within the article”. If the consensus is “no, we don’t need a Gallery of images” then we probably don’t need one more image in the lead. Dolphin ( t ) 23:08, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Good evening everybody, I am Charlie and I added the picture. I have no experience in this sort of situations so I apologize if I made some behaviour mistake, from now on I will discuss the issue only on this page. Talking in general, it is my opinion that any information we add to an article, if pertinent and correct, is never useless and for sure never a damage, it only makes the article richer. In this particular case, the Superga air disaster is one of the most known examples of CFIT and, according to me, it should somehow be mentioned in the article, together with any other related example, and I don't see any reason to keep it out. If the way I did it is not the best way, then I let you gentlemen decide in wich other way. Best regards, I wait to see you opinions. Charlie Foxtrot66 (talk) 19:53, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
 * We used to have a list of "notable" CFIT disasters, but the list was problematic because there was no sourcing for it and there was no agreement (that I recall) on how to establish what constituted a "notable" disaster in a scenario where all of them are likely to get news coverage for obvious reasons. The table is in the thread above this one, in fact, while the discussion is immediately above that. I'd be open to revisiting that discussion, but we'd need to come up with some criteria for what makes such an accident notable. A category may be a better option. DonIago (talk) 21:06, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Why not a gallery for the most notable cases and a category for all of them? Now is difficult to know wich criteria is better to use, but if we talk about media coverage then the crash of Superga must be the king of the CFITs... one of the strongest teams in soccer's history was on the plane, the thing made big worldwide emotion at the time. I guess that nowadays this happening is not very known in the U.S.A. because soccer is not much popular, but I don't know how many books and newspaper article they wrote about it and how many times at the tv in the last 70 years, in Italy and abroad. Commemorations every years, mostly in Turin but not only. For this reason I think that the article of Superga should be mentioned in this one, along with other examples that I let you gentlemen choose Charlie Foxtrot66 (talk) 16:38, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
 * To me, the most obvious objective criterion would be number of fatalities. By that standard, the Superga disaster doesn't seem especially notable. Yes, it's tragic that the team died in the crash, but how does one objectively measure "worldwide emotion"? It should not be us deciding which disasters qualify as notable, but rather reliable sources. I believe you've just highlighted exactly why we moved away from having a table of notable accidents; because it's difficult to claim that one was more notable than another. I welcome feedback from other editors. DonIago (talk) 20:22, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree, it would be good to hear some other opinion. Anyway, there are plenty of Wikipedia articles with a gallery of examples, is not that now we cannot make a gallery just because there are too many cases happened... in the article of the bridges there are not all the bridges of the world, just a certain number of different examples. About the emotion and most of all the news coverage at the time and until today, it's very easy to find all the reliable sources you want just with google but yes, this doesn't make it the only example wich deserves to be shared, is pretty possible to post also other big cases. Anyway this matter is not that a big thing to me, if you gentlemen think that it is so important to delete my contribution, ok, is gonna be fine with me. My best regards, I am sure you will take the best decision. Charlie Foxtrot66 (talk) 21:15, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Unintentional or intentional CFIT
While one of the cited sources in the lede does define CFIT as unintentional, the other (the cfit-report.pdf) does not. It is perhaps worth noting that definitions of CFIT differ, and CFIT could arguably occur intentionally. Examples might include that European airline pilot who locked his colleague out of the cockpit once the latter took a b/r break, and who then CFITted the fully loaded airliner. Someone probably remembers the details. One might also argue that the 9/11 flights ended in CFIT. ReadOnlyAccount (talk) 16:10, 25 October 2023 (UTC)


 * I recommend that CFIT be focused on unintentional accidents; and suicides be excluded. A lot of very useful work has been done in the area of unintentional CFIT leading to significant technological advances including GPWS and TAWS. Suicide is a very different phenomenon, and the work that needs to be done is much broader than just flight into terrain as a means of committing murder or suicide. Dolphin ( t ) 07:50, 26 October 2023 (UTC)


 * I don't dispute that a lot of useful work has been done re. unintentional CFIT – but that is neither here nor there.
 * I agree that unintentional and intentional CFIT differ in some important ways. However they also share significant commonalities, and etymologically, controlled flight into terrain literally just references the fact that someone was actively flying the aircraft right up to a terrain collision event.
 * I note that the lede has been edited since I left my above comment, but not necessarily for the better: The current claim now is that "Incidents resulting from (...) deliberate action (...), such as a forced landing, (...) terrorism, or suicide by pilot, are (...) excluded from the definition of CFIT" (emphasis added). That claim is even more clearly incorrect than what was there before. In truth, again, only one of the cited sources defines CFIT as unintentional, the other does not.
 * It might be possible to cover unintentional and intentional CFIT in different articles, but the current attempt seems to be to relegate the latter to mainly the suicide by pilot article, and to cherry-pick/misrepresent cited sources to exclude acknowledgement of intentional CFIT as one type of CFIT. That looks a lot like an attempt to sweep all the icky dust bunnies under the rug. I'll also note here that it is not unheard of on Wikipedia for both splits and mergers to be used to try and suppress undesirable information.
 * If there is consensus for your suggestion to use this CFIT article to exclusively cover unintentional CFIT, then at the very least it should be acknowledged that some definitions of CFIT do not exclude intentional CFIT, and disambiguation or hatnotes should then also be used to signpost appropriately.
 * IMHO it would be wholly wrong to just cover only one kind of CFIT just because the other feels icky or even more uncomfortable. I do note that on a flight recorder, intentional CFIT will often look just like unintentional CFIT, perhaps right up to the last few moments, where in some cases, unintentional CFIT pilots might yet realise the danger and try to correct, albeit too late. (Absence of a recovery attempt evidenced by the flight recorder wouldn't necessarily establish intent; possibly something caught by the cockpit voice recorder might.) NB: Intentional CFIT need not necessarily be suicide by pilot; it might be possible for a pilot to set up the plane to fly into terrain and then "D. B. Cooper" themselves out of the airplane right before its unstoppable force meets an immovable object. That, arguably, is more or less what Trevor Jacob did, though I guess you could bicker that from the moment he bailed, it was no longer controlled flight. —ReadOnlyAccount (talk) 21:28, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Tone adjustments and list of CFIT accidents needed
This article's tone is reminiscent of a personal essay about CFITs, not an authoritative encyclopedic entry on the subject. I think this article should draw more from instructional materials for private pilots for background. Also glaringly absent is a list of CFIT accidents. I cannot tackle all of this immediately, but I plan to return to this article in the coming weeks. @pdxgimlet Pdxgimlet (talk) 08:22, 21 November 2023 (UTC)


 * There's that notable accidents table above, which was in the article, but was exiled here pending consensus – which might have been done in good faith, but which move also often effectively amounts to a putting-out-to-pasture of the relevant info. That you possibly hadn't seen it would seem to tend to prove the point. —ReadOnlyAccount (talk) 23:18, 12 December 2023 (UTC)