Talk:United Airlines Flight 585

Untitled
I have updated the information on the crash of UAL 585, to reflect the revised finding that a malfunction of the rudder PCU caused this crash, as well as the crash of USAir 427. Also, changed the notation that the female FO in the 585 crash, was the first female pilot to die in a US Airliner crash. She was the second one, having been defeated for that dubious honor, by Zilda Spadaro-Wolan, in the Hensen Airlines crash in 1985.

My sources for all the additions and changes are the relevant NTSB accident reports.

I have an FAQ on the history of the B-737 faulty PCU design and correcting AD, at:

http://airlinesafety.com/faq/B-737Rudder.htm

I think it would be a highly relevant external link for this article, but only if the editors approve. --EditorASC 08:22, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

This page requires significant revision with regards to the valves and therefore rudder problems behind two Boeing 737 crashes: the 1991 United flight and a 1994 US Air flight. Londo06 06:46, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

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I rewrote the Investigation and Probable Cause sections to clearly show that there were two separate investigations, with no conclusion in the first report, but a probable cause of rudder PCU malfunction, in the second, revised report. I eliminated the comments about how damaged the FDR was, since that is common in many accidents. Since the foil tape itself remained intact, they were able to extract the data, and that is what is truly relevant and germane.

I also put back in the fact that First Officer Eidson was the second female pilot to be killed in US Airline service, not the first one. I don't understand why anyone removed that fact and re-inserted the original, but erroneous claim that she was the first such fatality. The source given for that erroneous "first" claim, was PlaneCrashInfo.com, but it was simply wrong.

PlaneCrashInfor.com is often in error in many of the things it says about the details of accidents and investigations, so I would recommend using that source with caution, since they apparently rely a lot on newspaper articles, and we all know the general press media often gets it wrong, in the cases of airline crash news.

I have proved my claim, that Zilda Spadaro-Wolan, in the Hensen Airlines crash in 1985, was the first female airline pilot fatality, with the addition of the link to the official NTSB report, which gives her name. That is the "horse's mouth" source, so to speak, while PlaneCrashInfo is all too often a secondary and hearsay source. Again, I urge anyone to use them as proof of some fact, with great caution.

EditorASC 01:42, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Part 121
Here is a reference for the simplified terminology used to distinguish Part 121 "major airline", from Part 135 "commuter airline". The complete 14CFR119,121,135 rules are more complex, e.g. Part 135 includes on-demand air taxi. Crum375 (talk) 19:21, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

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The problem though, is that FAA Part 135 Regs and Part 121 Regs are totally irrelevant to the issues in this crash investigation. Injecting them in a futile attempt to make it appear that the original reference to Eidsonas being the first female airline pilot to be killedwas accurate (which it wasn't), only serves to confuse the laymen readers of this article. We are supposed to be making these articles easier to read and understand, by the average person. We cannot do that if some insist upon injecting irrelevant statements and/or issues.

Someone originally inserted that side-bar fact (first female pilot killed) because www.planecrashinfo.com had this statement at their website:

"First female pilot to die on the flight deck of a U.S. airliner."

That was the reference given, for this statement: "Patricia Eidson was the first female pilot to die in an accident involving a United States commercial airliner.[1] Notes 1. ^ PlaneCrashInfo.Com - Entry on United 585."

Clearly, that statement was not accurate, since First Officer Zilda A. Spadaro-Wolan was the first female commercial airline pilot to be killed.

So, to please whomever it was that wanted something in the article about female pilots being killed on the job, I compromised (I could have deleted that reference entirely), with an adjustment, so that both dead female pilots could be mentioned, in a way that was historically accurate.

But, I found that my accurate statement had been removed and replaced with the original erroneous statement. That is totally inappropriate! Removing an accurate statement, and going back to the inaccurate one, just to satisfy someone's ego, is not how Wikipedia is going to keep advancing its own credibility standing in the world.

So, I reinserted my accurate statement again. Now, this time, you have injected an irrelevant issue (FAA Part 135 vs Part 121), again for an inappropriate reason. Today, all airlines, big or small, are regulated with Part 121. And, the fact that Henson airliness was under part 135, when its female pilot was killed on the job, is totally irrelevant to the issues in the crash of UAL 585. Both dead female pilots had to have the same commercial license, issued by the same FAA, regardless of the size of the airline. Passengers had to pay for their tickets on both airlines, for the privilege of riding on both planes. That is why they are called "commercial."

So please, don't keep mucking this article up, just to try and justify the erroneous information posted at www.planecrashinfo.com

I repeat my previous caution about the quality of information found at www.planecrashinfo.com They have lots of erroneous information at that site. That site is so incredibly careless with its writing, that it refers to the 737 PCU as the "PUC." [This portion was posted by EditorASC, on May 14, 2008] EditorASC (talk) 09:12, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

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I removed the reference to an "explosion" when UAL 585 impacted the ground. Although there was the common postcrash fire, the NTSB report said nothing about an explosion and the debris pattern did not give any evidence of an explosion, either. [This portion was posted by EditorASC, on May 14, 2008] EditorASC (talk) 09:19, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

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Once again, I had to remove the reference to an "explosion" when UAL 585 impacted the ground. It seems that Crum375 put it back in again. The question is "Why?" The word "explosion" is used only twice in the NTSB report: Once, in reference to a 1966 Braniff BAC-111 accident, that did explode in the air. The second reference was when the report said that US Air 427 did not explode. There is no mention of any explosion in the NTSB report on UAL 585. Nor did the debris pattern give any evidence of an explosion..... So why do you insist upon putting in information in Wiki that has no legitimate source of justification?

Same for once again injecting an issue into this Wiki summary, which was not an issue of the investigation at all: FAA Part 135 vs Part 121. It still appears that you are insisting it be there, because you originally relied on an erroneous statement from www.planecrashinfo.com. I think that kind of response to erroneous information (injecting issues that were not part of the official NTSB Accident Investigation, in an attempt to justify the original error), is why so many view this encyclopedia as being written only by a bunch of amateurs.

And again, I found it necessary to remove the short-hand probable cause statement, which contradicted and short-circuited the larger and complete NTSB Probable Cause statement, which is already under the Probable cause section. What is the point of leaving out much of the wording of the NTSB Prob Cause statement, in an earlier statement which lacks key words and phrases? Why do that? It only adds confusion. EditorASC (talk) 23:29, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

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I removed all references to this link ( servo ) because the nomenclature was innacurate, in reference to the servo valve, which is part of the PCU for the 737 rudder. Nothing said on that page, had any relevance to the NTSB's discussion of how the PCU was designed or to how it malfunctioned. Adding such extraneous information like that, will serve only to confuse layperson readers. Our goal is to clarify, not confuse.

Thank you, EditorASC (talk) 07:14, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

An injury on the ground
The article currently states there were no injuries. I lived in Colorado Springs at the time of this accident and recall from the local coverage at the time that there was one injury on the ground. I don't have any references but maybe if someone else knows where to look. Considering it was in a city park near residential areas, it was very fortunate that it didn't cause any more deaths or injuries thatn it did on the ground. --Mwalimu59 (talk) 05:09, 18 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I have several Newspaper articles in my file on UAL 585, including the Denver Post, the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph, USA Today and the Chicago Tribune. The only one I found that mentions any injury on the ground, is an article in the Tribune, dated March 4, 1991.  It says, "Only one person on the ground was reported injured, 8-year-old Michelle Summerson, who was standing in the doorway of her home when she was blown backward into a wall by the force of the blast.  She was treated at a hospital and released."


 * The problem with that report, is that there was no blast. No explosion of any kind, that would have produced a pressure wave severe enough to throw a human body through the air, which was standing in a doorway at least 150 feet (if not more) from the impact site.  There was no damage of any kind to any structures that were near the crash site. A sudden pressure wave strong enough to fling a human body, would have broken a lot of windows. Almost all of the plane was compacted into the crater, which was only 39 ft. wide.


 * That same newspaper article said that one witness looked out her apartment window and saw a female passenger frantically beating on the window of the plane, "seconds before the plane hit the ground and exploded."


 * Of course, many were giving accolades to the pilot for choosing to crash the plane in an area that would not hurt anyone on the ground........ Other newspaper articles had stories and quotes that were even more absurd.


 * Press reports, right after an airliner crash, are notoriously unreliable. Sensationalism, for the sake of beating the competition, seems to be the guiding motivation as to what is printed and what is not.  EditorASC (talk) 10:02, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Not Listing the Dead
I have checked and there is no such Wikipedia policy to "not list the dead," (the crewmembers) in airliner crash articles. We are now supposed to discuss this issue on the talk page, to avoid an edit war. So, my question is do you have some other reason why you removed the names of the dead crewmembers in this accident article, beside the one that you listed? I assume you are aware that there are probably over a thousand other Wiki air crash articles that do have the names of dead crew member in them? That has been considered notable information, for many years. I think those names should be restored, since I can find no Wiki policy rule that would requires their removal. Thanks, 66.81.53.174 (talk) 23:21, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Take this to here. That is where the editors who take of these articles will be best found. ...William 23:49, 2 September 2012 (UTC)


 * OK, I will when I have some extra time. However, I think the rules state that when there is a disagreement among editors, as to what material should or should not be included, that we are supposed to give our reasons for our positions on this talk page.  So far, you have said nothing on this talk page about why you reverted my putting the names back in.  In your history page summary, all you said is that we "do not list the dead."  I cannot find any such rule and remind you that there are a huge amount of other airliner crash articles that DO list the names of dead crewmembers.  With that in mind, I think you should expand on your short statement, which seems to imply that it somehow is against Wiki policy.  Please show us where you got that from, and you might also tell us if there is some project afoot to go through all those other crash articles and remove the names of dead crew, as you have done here.  Thanks, 66.81.52.28 (talk) 21:03, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Cause Of Superheating Of Hydraulic Fluid To Create Rudder Reversal Not Found
I've just watched the National Geographic tv programme which features the NTSB investigation into the United FL585, USair FL427 and Eastwind FL517 related mystery air disasters. The overall conclusion after extensive testing, was that superheated hydraulic fluid forced into the supercooled, -40 degree due to previous high altitude, rudder dual servo valve caused the unit to function in reverse. If a pilot pressed the right rudder peddle to counteract a slight roll to the left, then the opposite of the desired effect would result i.e. the plane would suddenly continue to roll alarmingly further left and create complete confusion for the pilot, leading to a stall and nosedive. The NTSB seemed satisfied that a remodelling of the rudder dual servo unit was a good resolution of the investigation.

There is an elephant in the room here though. No-one actually mentioned why the hydraulic fluid would suddenly become superheated in the first place. Unfortunately, this remains a complete mystery which still has the potential to strike any aircraft in the future. Why is this vital element of the investigation missing from the article? 176.24.226.120 (talk) 06:36, 5 July 2013 (UTC) Alan Lowey.


 * The NTSB's concluding report is given as note 4 in the article. The word "superheat" and phrase "super heat" do not appear in it.  Page 68 (pdf page number) or page 50 (displayed on the page) describes the conditions of the standby rudder actuator.  Flight 427 does not mention superheating anything too.  It does talk about cold saturated hydraulic parts.  Maybe normal temperature fluid interacting with a very cold—-70 °F—piston would have a similar effect?  —EncMstr (talk) 07:28, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm not convinced. Why would the National Geographic channel show the now retired NTSB Lead Investigator at the time, Tom Haueter, say to the camera that the hydraulic fluid was superheated first before being forced into the -40 degree PCU? The reconstruction clearly said so. The experiment didn't show normal temperature hydraulic fluid to jam the PCU, it specifically said "superheated". This is necessary to create the thermal shock conditions. The PCU wouldn't get to -70 degrees, certainly not in all three cases investigated. This issue really needs to be cleared up. The hypothesised mystery force which creates Flyby Anomalies is an obvious contender but would require the creation of a new physics ideology. Is this reason enough to distort the facts? I don't think so. Can you ask Tom Haueter himself perhaps, to clarify the situation? 176.24.226.120 (talk) 12:34, 5 July 2013 (UTC) Alan Lowey.


 * The "superheated" hydraulic fluid was only used in the thermal shock test for the "proof of concept" that the valve could malfunction without leaving physical traces of damage to the valve. Gil gosseyn (talk) 04:56, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

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A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 07:37, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
 * N999UA photo.jpg

Image Dispute
@Khang To. The image you're adding is disrupting the article. It has no real value to this article, as it was the aircraft involved, it was serving a previous operator and using a previous livery. Because of the reasons stated, it would be best to remove the image from this article for good, since it has no purpose, and leave the image I added. CreatorOfMinecraftHerobrine (talk) 13:14, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Personally, I think having a photo of the incident aircraft is more preferrable to having a photo of a similar aircraft with the correct livery. I don't see how this is disruptive as long as the photo is properly licensed and free to use and the caption is correct. This incident was over 30 years ago, so I don't think we need to worry about Frontier being blamed or having their reputation tarnished by the photo's presence. --Dual Freq (talk) 13:43, 10 May 2024 (UTC)