Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2012 Virginia Beach F/A-18 crash


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete. Black Kite (talk) 16:04, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

2012 Virginia Beach F/A-18 crash

 * – ( View AfD View log )

WP:NOTNEWS and WP:AIRCRASH. Crashed fighter jet, nobody killed. Not notable. ...William 22:30, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment This article was created by a sockpuppet. The editor has already been banned. So it should be a speedy delete....William 22:42, 8 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Comment The policy is under CSD GraemeLeggett (talk) 22:50, 8 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Aviation-related deletion discussions....William 22:34, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions....William 22:34, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions....William 22:34, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Virginia-related deletion discussions....William 22:34, 8 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete - note that this article was previously G5'd as a creation of a community banned editor (User:Ryan kirkpatrick), then restored on the grounds that others had edited it - however none have made significant contributions to the article, so it should have remained G5'd. Anyway, fails WP:AIRCRASH, WP:NOTNEWSPAPER, and is very likely to fail WP:PERSISTENCE. Nobody killed, either in the aircraft or on the ground, no notable landmarks damaged, a WP:RUNOFTHEMILL incident as far as such incidents go. The accident can be sufficently covered in the Naval Air Station Oceana article if desired. - The Bushranger One ping only 22:49, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep I don't care about sockpuppets, as long as the content itself is actually acceptable (it's the height of stupidity for us to run around deleting things that banned or blocked editors have created without considering the actual content). So, that taken care of, the only things to address are WP:NOTNEWS and WP:AIRCRASH. NOTNEWS is quite subjective, and in my view this was a "significant current event" and therefore the standalone article is allowable within policy (opinions can vary of course, but I don't think that it's unreasonable to assume that an event that receives worldwide coverage meets the criteria). The point about "nobody killed" in AIRCRASH, and the section about military aircraft accidents, is intended to cover instances that are more "routine" than this. This acciden did involve "hull loss or serious damage to the aircraft or airport" (although, substitute an entire residential neighborhood for airport) as well. In short, this was an unusual (read: notable) accident primarily due to the area which it impacted and because of the remarkable lack of loss of life involved. — V = IR (Talk&thinsp;&bull;&thinsp;Contribs) 23:20, 8 April 2012 (UTC) ps.: I'll likely work on this article if it survives AFD, which I hope will address The Bushranger's "none have made significant contributions to the article" point. I'm not about to waste time on an article that has the threat of deletion hanging over it, is all.
 * The G5 is part of WP:DENY, while holding off on improving the article until it's kept, while understandable, helps to get salvagable articles deleted, sadly. - The Bushranger One ping only 06:18, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I understand what you mean about DENY, but... there's gotta be a balance to it. Running around and blindly G6'ing in the name of DENY seems more damaging than sockpuppeteering does, honestly (and, incidentally, could be a good motivation to disruptively sock...). As for holding off on the article... I could turn the DENY type argument around (AFD is not supposed to be used to get an article improved, after all) and use it there. ;) Really though, I can see the water rising above my chin on this one already, when I posted my "keep" here. There's no sense in putting any time into this, when it's more likely than not that someone will come along and see nothing but a loan "keep" and decide to delete the article anyway. — V = IR (Talk&thinsp;&bull;&thinsp;Contribs) 06:26, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete. Per WP:NOTNEWS. No evidence that this plane crash incident has any lasting notability. And WP:OTHERSTUFF isn't a valid argument. Night Ranger (talk) 23:27, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep. Very similar to previous incident 2008 San Diego F/A-18 crash - differences are that the investigation is incomplete and the casualty count is remarkably low. Lack of deaths doesn't make this automatically fit WP:NOTNEWS. Leondz (talk) 00:07, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete per NOTNEWS; we don't need to have articles on just about every plane crash: we should cover the ones that get sustained coverage, not all of them. This isn't the B-25 Empire State Building crash or the TWA Flight 800 crash.  Nyttend (talk) 01:59, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * It's pretty much up to the closer's discretion of course, but I've gotta ask: don't you think that this incident has a similar character to the B-25 Empire State Building crash? The F/A-18 here didn't run into a skyscraper of course, but it's landing on the residential area that it did fall into was hardly less impactful, it seems to me. Better yet, as Leondz says above this incident is quite comparable to to the 2008 San Diego F/A-18 crash. All due deference to the OTHERSTUFF advice here, but that's what we're all basing our decision making on here isn't it? — V = IR (Talk&thinsp;&bull;&thinsp;Contribs) 02:34, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Not really; at the risk of sounding callous, aircraft crash into subdivisions and houses all the time, and are usually quickly forgotten by anyone who wasn't there. They crash into skyscrapers rather less often, and the B-25 crash is a singularly memorable event. As for the San Diego crash, it is similar - but that crash has shown WP:PERSISTENCE with news articles in the references dated 2012. - The Bushranger One ping only 06:21, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The unusual aspects of this make it a fairly remarkable event though. The aircraft crashed into a rather large apartment complex, and yet nobody was seriously injured. The pilots acted quite heroically as well; it was a training mission (which adds a whole other dimension to this), and the pilots had the presence of mind to dump fuel prior to ejecting at the last second. I'd also point to the persistence of coverage for the San Diego incident as a fairly good predictor that this incident will receive continuing coverage, which seems like a more likely prediction then that it won't (you said yourself that they are similar incidents, after all). — V = IR (Talk&thinsp;&bull;&thinsp;Contribs) 06:35, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * True enough, but IMHO (and I'm honestly a bit surprised at myself here, since I usually prefer to keep as much as possible) that's crystalballing either way; one can't say if it will 'become' notable/persistent or not, so best to recreate later if it does. Of course, if the article was improved and expanded... ;) - The Bushranger One ping only 21:00, 9 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete per WP:NOTNEWS. This subject is already adequately covered in List of accidents and incidents involving military aircraft (2000–present).  Sustained in depth coverage doesn't look likely, nothing that cant be covered in that list. RadioFan (talk) 03:12, 9 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete Worldwide coverage is a furphy IMO, after all the Australian evening news bulletin I watched on TV last night carried a story about an armoured van that nearly went off the side of a freeway overpass in Los Angeles. I also think that creation by a Sockpuppet should be a consideration, as this particular banned User has around 100 Socks and counting; and I feel that every time one of this guy's articles is kept it encourages him to persist. Aside from that, the crash can be covered adequately elsewhere - in the article about the unit to which the aircraft was assigned as well as in the list of military aircraft crashes. YSSYguy (talk) 03:43, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete per nomination and YSSYguy's comments above. Nick-D (talk) 06:36, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete per Nick-D. Buckshot06 (talk) 06:54, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Speedy delete per CSD G5, or, if that must be denied, delete per WP:NOTNEWS. Reaper Eternal (talk) 12:24, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Speedy Delete per CSD G5, with no prejudice for recreation by an editor who isn't indef blocked for being a sockpuppet. Either we WP:DENY or we don't. Any collateral damage is small compared to rewarding sockpuppeting.   Dennis Brown   (talk)  13:40, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment I'm the editor who nominated this for deletion. I understand why there is G5 and I agree with it but....


 * I have to admit something. Twice since Dec 2011, I have asked Wikipedia administrators for copies of Ryan Kirkpatrick(One of his socks created this article. It's easy to tell, Ryan's typos are well known. I cleaned up at least one of his articles before his getting banned.) created plane crash articles so I could I could create them myself. Which I did so, the most recent of which was Eastern Air Lines Flight 605.


 * Ryan or his socks have created articles on crashes. Some of which deserve them, and in this case I feel doesn't. The article was left to stand, and that was probably wrong, but I think we need to debate whether this crash should have an article rather than whether it should be deleted under G5 because it's going to come back one way or another. Someone else(not me) will create another article on this crash and we'll be having a debate once again....William 13:53, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I very much agree (that we shouldn't be discussing deletion under G5) since an important part of G5 says "[...] and which have no substantial edits by others." This article relates to a recent and developing event, so the addition of content from other editors is virtually guaranteed. That said, I support the article for the notability reasons in my !vote below and I'll say this in response to the next most apparent argument for deletion (that no one died). Death isn't notable. Everyone will die. I would propose a WP:NOTOBITUARY. People dying doesn't make an event notable, nor does it contribute to its notability. Deaths only contribute to notability when there is something notable about the deaths, in which case it isn't death that makes it notable. For example, if an event causes the death of tens of thousands of people, the deaths would indirectly contribute to the event's notability because of the rarity of events that kill so many people. For another example, if an event resulted in the death of a well-known person, the well-known person would contribute to the event's notability because of the notability of the person who died, death being merely the manner in which the notable person was related to the event. DanielDeibler (talk) 15:18, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * You're pretty much describing how we already assess non-airliner (i.e. light and military) aircraft crashes. - The Bushranger One ping only 21:04, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep The incident is notable per nomination. Its notability stems largely from the fact that no one died. The incident stands out as a solitary instance in which a military jet has crashed in a situation particularly likely to result in extensive human casualties but resulted in only a few injuries. A jet, having just taken off and consequently loaded with fuel, crashed into an apartment complex inhabited largely by elderly/retired people, destroying or severely damaging 5 apartment buildings and the most severe injury was a broken bone. Furthermore, as the extensive news coverage keeps reporting, the incident has sparked public debate about whether these types of training flights should be conducted in densely populated areas, renewing a call for those bases to be relocated. Since some of you are trying so hard to delete an article about a jet that crashed into residential structures in the largest city in Virginia, but are not also suddenly requesting the deletion of any of the countless stub-like articles about jets crashing in uninhabited areas, it is clear to me that your main "beef" with this article is the suspected identity of its creator and you're trying to punish him by removing the article, an action that really only punishes Wikipedia as the creator won't suffer any loss from the deletion. That is, quite frankly, silly and juvenile. I understand your frustration with sockpuppets. Really, I do. Life is far too easy for them. However, those of us who rely on Wikipedia for valuable encyclopedic content would greatly appreciate it if you wouldn't tear apart Wikipedia in the process of your otherwise noble efforts to combat them. DanielDeibler (talk) 14:54, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Unfortunatly, while it may be clear to you, that clarity is mistaken. Our main "beef" with the article is that this is not a siginificantly notable event. Those 'countless stub-like articles' you mention? They are about airliner crashes. Airliner crashes that kill people are almost always notable. Military aircraft, sadly, crash rather more often, and, especially in a case where there were no fatalities at all, either in the aircraft or on the ground, they are almost never notable. That is why we believe the article shouldn't be kept, not because we don't like it. - The Bushranger One ping only 21:03, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of News-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 14:07, 9 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep Made national news, similar to other US Military plane crash situations into Civilian areas.Naraht (talk) 15:31, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete not news or really notable, military aircraft crashes are not that rare. MilborneOne (talk) 16:10, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete as per WP:NOTNEWS. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 16:58, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete basically because no civilians on the ground were killed or seriously injured. If this crash results in congressional hearings over the safety of residential areas under the flight patterns of naval air stations, or the residents file a class-action lawsuit against the Navy, or something like that, then I think the article could be recreated. Cla68 (talk) 05:40, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:NOTNEWS and too much WP:RECENTISM. Military aircraft fail and crash in the US every year, and this is not a notable exception. &mdash;  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 14:56, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete I could quote policy and guidelines all day long, but we all know what they are. All I can ask is, how is a military plane crash notable by itself? Military aircraft crash all the time. Its not that it didn't make the news, but lots of things make the news that shouldn't have articles.-- JOJ Hutton  20:10, 11 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Merge: I understand the desire to delete; I noted the probability of that when someone first split this off in an attempt to clean up the main article. However, I'm not really clear on the assertion that it's not notable enough to be included in even the main article; notability guidelines can help determine whether a subject rates a separate article, but they do not apply to content within articles. Sometimes I wish they did—it would certainly help minimize the number of "Family Guy" and "In popular culture" references—but as it stands, we don't have a forum for rejecting neutral, verifiable information that cites sources (which, in this case, would be the books themselves). I'd say the possibility of a merge has to be on the table here. Sonarclawz (talk) 07:07, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.