Talk:Kara Hultgreen

Neutrality
This article seeems a little biased to me, as if to conclude she really wasn't competent enough to fly. I'm not saying that it's not true, but it certainly made me think so after reading this article. Maybe a slightly more NPOV would be warranted. AceTracer 08:30, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I completely disagree. If you got the feeling that she wasn't qualified, it stems from the fact that the evidence appears to indicate that she wasn't qualified. That being said, it is explicitly stated that she WAS qualified to pilot the aircraft in the article. I suspect your POV is blinsing you to her obvious failures and the indictment of her skills that stem from said failures.


 * I added a link to show that she was indeed unqualified to fly according to the rules of the military. She had 4 "downs," or major errors. One or two "downs" is enough to permanently disqualify anyone from being a military pilot. But she was allowed to continue, because the military wanted more female pilots. Grundle2600 22:05, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Grundle2600's edit. -- 119.31.121.84 (talk) 12:58, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
 * While I can see that both statements have supporting information, it seems that it would be appropriate to rephrase the Reaction section to be less ambiguous. I also got the perception that the sections was stating two contradictory statements, rather than explaining both points of view. Meltonkt (talk) 21:34, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Article is completely biased and untrue. Many aviators have gone through training with "downs".  Having 4 doesn't mean she was unqualified - those downs are complete in the next few flights.  Here is a link stating three "downs" sends a student to a PRB to determine if they can continue training.  http://www.newtotalitarians.com/index_files/TheWrongStuff.htm    — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.83.5.252 (talk) 06:37, 12 November 2015 (UTC)


 * I will be removing the POV tag. I am sorry if the facts lead people to conclude that she wasn't competent enough, the article is fair.Mantion (talk) 04:30, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Or not...
I saw a documentary about 2 australian military pilots and their careers pertaining to becoming f18 certified. One was male, one was female. The male had been shot in the face before his acceptance into f18 flight status - he had a major fight with doctors to prove his flightworthiness (he'd been having headaches and so on). The girl was... well just a girl. 'Strangely' enough the physically perfect girl screwed up her 1st night carrier landing in active duty, the guy passed his with no problems. That was the when the documentary ended. I am certainly biased, but if anyone else knows of this film, I think theres a very relevant point to be made here. The ratio of female combatants vs deaths is ridiculously high. Personally I'd call it an unacceptible ratio, and ditch the whole project, but I'm not a military commander. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.24.134.243 (talk) 17:05, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Excuse me? You saw, some documentary once, that showed a botched landing... and for that you feel that some kind of comment should be made about women not suited to fly, and that this should be in this article about a specific female aviator?


 * To put it very kindly: your argument is a bit of a stretch and any addition to this article based on that would not conform to Wikipedia standards.


 * To put it a bit less kindly: no f-n' way. --J-Star (talk) 08:12, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Must have been an interesting doumentary. Australia doesn't have carriers, so what were they landing on?? That "perfect" male pilot must have been landing on the ocean floor! But seriously, since RAAF F/A-18s are not carrier-capable, perhaps these were pilots on exchange with the USN (the only navy that has carrier-capable Hornets, or Hornet-capable carriers, except perhaps the French CdG), or else in the USN Hornet training program. Still, it makes one wonder about the whole TV program, and what else the IP-commenter might have missed. - BillCJ (talk) 21:56, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


 * If I remember right it was a joint effort with the US, so yes, theres where they were landing (and who they were about to go on duty with).


 * And yes, it was rather too full of emotional bullshit and not enough facts. The guy had no end of tearjerking moments too. Thats why this is in the discussion section, not the article. I repeat myself: '...if anyone else knows of this film...'


 * Theres a few biological studies (1st link from a quick 30s web search) that show females are inherently worse at spatial awareness (flying in 3d) and logic (comprehending the flight computers on f14s... or anything), and alot better at other things. I find it amusing that there's not even a decent sample size yet, and its already looking bad for the navy, and if something like that should be referenced to set things straight... as in: she tried astonishingly hard, but its just not her fault.


 * Or are there still too many people stuck in the 1960s bra burning mentality? :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.24.134.243 (talk) 11:19, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Accusations of being stuck in ancient gender-think I think perhaps that user 203.24.134.243 should not quite be uttering too much about lest he/she wants to be subjected to ridicule over double standards.


 * Anyway, this is not the place to be having that debate. Unless someone can provide a verifiable source that the individual Kara Hultgren was a bad aviator, instead of doubtable statistics about what women on average may or may not be capable of, such speculation has no justifucation for being in this article. --J-Star (talk) 12:21, 12 May 2008 (UTC)


 * From above: I added a link to show that she was indeed unqualified to fly according to the rules of the military. She had 4 "downs," or major errors. One or two "downs" is enough to permanently disqualify anyone from being a military pilot.


 * That does it, Im separating this from the original thread. And her name is Hultgreen, show some respect at least.

Modification to her Tomcat?
It is mentioned in "Silent Knights: Blowing the Whistle on Military Accidents" by Alan Diehl that her Tomcat had been modified into a "Bombcat" by adding an external bomb rack to the plane, and that this caused additional disruption to the airflow into the engines. --85.92.162.58 12:02, 13 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Even the most moronic citizen aviator would have accounted for the different aerodynamics shortly after takeoff. I refuse to believe Miss Hultgreen was *that* dumb to not notice it 'till landing, having had military training.
 * That book sounds like a fun bit of prose though, just for a laugh - I guess I'll wait for the hollywood film.


 * Heh, exactly. And to any competent aviator, bombs stuck onto the plane would be pretty obvious at 1st glance of preflight inspection before they even got off the ground.
 * I wonder what the film will be called - 'Hot Gun' maybe? I look forward to it too.
 * 203.24.134.243 (talk) 20:06, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Why the whitewash?
Why has all mention of Hultgreen's competence (or lack thereof) been scrubbed from this page? Her death is of noteworthy importance precisely because of the questions it raises concerning affirmative actions, and certain groups not being permitted to fail Solicitr (talk) 22:48, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * You could almost make a counter case that the Navy set up a situation which was designed to fail. It was a clear case of something being rushed through before it was properly resolved and it put the case for female combat pilots back 10 years. Certainly, the evidence that Hultgreen's skill was not up to the task needs to be highlighted but this is an article about her as an individual and not a rage against political correctness.Flanker235 (talk) 00:46, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

She should have washed out during training but Congresswoman Pat Schroeder had an axe to grind.

In October 1994, Lt. Kara Hultgreen was killed during an attempted landing of her F-14 on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. Femfeared (fear of feminists) Navy officials first re ported that engine failure caused the death of the Navy's first female F-14 pilot. That was a deliberate lie and coverup as later revealed in a leaked Mishap Investigation Report and the Navy's Judge Advocate General's report. After three requests, under the Freedom of Information Act, the Center for Military Readiness recently obtained a 1995 report written by Admiral Lyle G. Bien. The report confirms special treatment for female F-14 pilots. It also confirms that Lt. Hultgren was retained in the F-14 training program and graduated to the fleet despite low scores and four major errors (Downs), two of which were similar to those made the day she died. Just one or two major Downs have been enough to send men packing.

Elane Donnelly at CMRlink.org broke the story and the US Navy sued and lost.

Elaine Donnelly expressed great satisfaction that the Court ruled in her favor, just as she predicted it would all along. She noted that "In 1995 I learned that the information I had was 'largely accurate,' but top officials of the Navy had no intention of admitting there was a problem or doing anything about it. "This victory will strengthen the Navy by discouraging official cover-ups, as well as any repetition of double standards in training that elevate risks and undermine morale." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.30.64.225 (talk) 21:10, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Salvage of the aircraft
In December 1994, the Navy's salvage teams were still trying to raise the aircraft, a month after they'd found and recovered Hultgreen's body. Anyone know if they ever succeeded?

Philadelphia Inquirer report on the unsuccessful attempt to raise the Tomcat.

Just curiousWiseguyThreeOne (talk) 13:45, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I added the following
During her training, Hultgreen had accumulated four "downs," or major errors. Normally, having just one or two of these "downs" would be enough to permanently prevent someone from being a military pilot. However, Hultgreen was allowed to continue, because the military was using affirmative action to try to get more female pilots.

Chucky Cheerio (talk) 18:52, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Link is broken, and I can't find the paper from the suggested author and title (though it does sound like the sort of article Walter E. Williams was apt to write). Can you (or anyone else) give a working link or a more precise citation?  109.255.211.6 (talk) 05:57, 30 October 2021 (UTC)


 * I doubt if this is a conversation we need to have, for the same reason we don't need to include a treatise on the earth being flat in a discussion about the globe. Not being dismissive here. I just don't see that it brings anything helpful to the table. YMMV. Flanker235 (talk) 11:16, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Unreferenced material
The Death and Investigation sections do not contain any references. (One that may or may not have previously been good is now a dead link, and there seems to be nothing on their site about Hultgreen.)

Material in the introduction apparently is intended to summarize the material in the two sections mentioned above. Because it is ultimately unreferenced, I have removed it. It can, of course, go back in if proper references are cited. Lou Sander (talk) 02:25, 15 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I tracked down the page in the Internet Archive and found it back at its updated location. --75.157.40.169 (talk) 17:06, 11 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Good work on tracking it down! However, it doesn't seem to contain anything that supports the assertions in the Investigation section. There are no references at all that back up the assertions about the MIR. Since the newly-recovered citation doesn't apply to the content of the section, the section is once again truly unreferenced. I won't restore the tag at this time, since people seem to be working on the problem. Lou Sander (talk) 23:33, 11 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Your Walter Williams reference is very useful, and I was unaware of it until now. I missed seeing it because it showed up as a mysterious bulleted point at the end of the page. I've fixed that. At the moment, it seems to be a self-published comment, but it looks like it may have been published in a reliable source long ago. Can you help by identifying the place it was published? Lou Sander (talk) 13:26, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

There are now some references in the Death section, but they aren't germane to the claims made about the pilot's actions immediately prior to the crash. We know the number of the aircraft, and we know about the recovery of the remains and the aircraft. We have only unreferenced claims about the rest of it. Those claims are surely eligible to be removed, unless somebody can come up with some references. (Not removed because they are inaccurate, but removed because they aren't currently verifiable.) Lou Sander (talk) 13:42, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

How about the following link ? JW19335762743 (talk) 10:48, 28 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Good get! It is useful, verifiable information, but certainly doesn't support all the detail in the "Death" section. Somebody needs to redo that section to make it match the reference. If nobody does it before then, I'll do it myself when I find the time. Lou Sander (talk) 17:32, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

The Navy's Mishap Investigation Report (MIR) for Hultgreen's crash
I found a text document on the internet, it was claimed to be the leaked report of her fatal crash. The link is However, if it's a leaked document, we can not know for sure whether it is genuine. :( JW19335762743 (talk) 10:00, 6 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Also, as I understand these matters, even if it is genuine, it is a primary source, and must be used with great caution. In the past, great leaps have been made between what appears in this primary source and what is claimed in the article. It might be OK to list the link to the MIR in the External links section, but I'm not real sure that it is allowed or wise to do so. We surely want all sides of the controversy over her death to be covered in the article, but only if they are all meticulously sourced. The record on that in this article hasn't been very good, IMHO. Lou Sander (talk) 22:01, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Investigation section
I have deleted the entire Investigation section, due to its long and continuing inclusion of bad and missing references, and due to the recent addition of references incorrectly claiming to support the claim that "The Mishap Investigation Report (MIR) came to a different conclusion, however, citing pilot error as the primary factor."

The references are both identically worded, and their content includes the specific and unambiguous words "And the more recent document, called a Mishap Investigation Report, stops short of blaming the crash on pilot error" (emphasis mine). Primary factor, indeed.

There are certainly legitimate questions about the causes of the crash and Hultgreen's death. The article should cover them. But it can't do so with original research or by making a claim and supporting it with references that say the exact opposite thing. Maybe some capable editor can restart a properly referenced Investigation section. Lou Sander (talk) 20:47, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Military Career
Being a "Distinguished Naval Graduate" at Aviation Officer Candidate School (AOCS) has nothing to do with subsequent flight training. Nobody could accumulate 4 downs in AOCS and graduate as a DNG. I believe she got all of the downs in Tomcats at Miramar.

When I went through AOCS in 1985, we had various class sizes, sometimes as low as 20 and as high as 50. I find it hard to believe there would be an AOCS class with only 7 graduates so soon afterward and a DNG could end up ranking only third in that class. I'm not saying it's impossible, but given the obvious blunder about Kara being a DNG despite 4 downs, I question the validity of anything else written in this article by the same author.

I would hope someone out there will attest to her flying skill in Training Command and in the EA-6B. She might have been average or even good, who knows? The evidence is clear that she simply could not handle an F-14 in the landing pattern at the boat. Few pilots can, and not too many aviators can, either. That's why not everyone gets to do it. Unfortunately, the quality control system that was put into place (to protect lives, among other reasons) was disregarded and the natural order of things was disrupted. Her instructors and LSOs did their best to stop it, but nobody at their level in the post-Tailhook navy was going to stop a runaway feminist train driven by Pat Schroeder. Carey Lohrenz was another less than stellar F-14 pilot on her way to a Class A mishap, but thankfully someone managed to get her off the track in time and save her life. And maybe other lives, too. You might say one woman's death helped save the other's life.

In the end, Pat Schroeder and all the Navy brass that went along with her have Kara Hultgreen's blood on their hands. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.17.107.8 (talk) 03:52, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Don't assume the two are by the same Wikipedia editor; they may have been independently added to the article.  (And only one of these is present currently.)  A source is given for the DNG claim, and its publisher is the Naval Institute Press, so one would hope it'd be factchecked, and it certainly seems to be a suitable secondary source.  Whether its contents are accurately summarised here I can't immediately say, someone would have to verify against a copy of the book in question, some other source, or a consolidated list of Distinguished Graduates if that's centrally available somewhere.
 * The rest of your comment doesn't seem to be material to the content of the article. As WP:WPNO says, "Do not use the talk page as a forum or soapbox for discussing the topic."  109.255.211.6 (talk) 05:38, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Officer Candidate School
It is my experience that no one who goes through OCS has a single college credit; everything is rubber stamped. Talk about her earlier college degree should be verified. There should have been an easier way for her to get her wings than enlisting as an E-1. Looking at her picture, she doesn't look like the smartest girl. Lord Milner (talk) 14:50, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Your experience and your assessment of a woman's intelligence from her picture are not reliable or usable sources; whereas the supplied source and (for example) The L.A. Times ("Hultgreen, a graduate of the University of Texas") are.  Having a degree on entry to AOCS seems to be the norm -- in fact I believe it's part of the usual requirements.  Or do -- let's say -- Erik Prince's degree and Susan Kilrain's two attract your skepticism too?  I don't see the basis of the "enlisting as an E-1" comment;  AOCS candidates don't occupy that paygrade at any time, as far as I can determine.  Your comment is also in spectacularly bad taste and extremely ill-advised, it should go without saying.  109.255.211.6 (talk) 04:44, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

"she crashed"
I reverted parts of a recent good faith edit. "She crashed" does indeed put things into active voice, but there is considerable doubt and contention about the pilot's responsibility for the crash. Looking at past material on the talk page, there have been efforts to have the article blame her for the crash, supported by primary sources and by distortion of the meaning of sources. Given this controversy, it seems best to say that the plane crashed, rather than that the pilot crashed it. I also reverted the British English "centreline" to the American "centerline". Lou Sander (talk) 14:06, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Sourcing not so good
I deleted a claim about the Navy's opinion that was based on reference #6, "Safety last?" That reference is a Letter to the Editor, and really isn't a reliable source except for the words of its writer. Lou Sander (talk) 23:33, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Still in mind
R.I.P Kara --91.47.18.65 (talk) 03:16, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

CMR
There seems to be pretty extensive coverage of the CMR issue in RS. I don't see any reason to cut this material given the amount of discussion it clearly generated. 37.245.79.127 (talk) 14:41, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
 * You are not restoring "pretty extensive coverage of the CMR issue in RS" you're restoring links to those fringe sources yourself... We can't use CMR or Accuracy in Media at all here, even for primary because the information is about a third party. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 14:46, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
 * There's sourcing to the Chicago tribune and UPI which are perfectly good sources for the content included94.57.66.254 (talk) 16:11, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
 * UPI is not a WP:RS, its owned by the fringe Unification Church. I missed the Tribune source in the middle there, thanks for pointing it out. Can you explain how my text was "not an NPOV summary of the WAPO source"? Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 16:21, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Fringe ownership does not automatically make a source non RS. The WaPo source says nothing about a smear campaign, just that the incident is being used as argument against women flying fighter jets. We need a source that calls it a smear campaign to phrase it that way94.57.66.254 (talk) 16:36, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
 * "The Navy returned to flight status yesterday the female fighter pilot it grounded two years ago in the midst of a smear campaign by civilian activists and naval aviators opposed to allowing women to fly fighter aircraft." Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 16:38, 12 September 2022 (UTC)