Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/TWA Flight 742


 * 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 Keep - consensus is to keep the article. Mjroots (talk) 17:48, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

TWA Flight 742

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Minor accident (1 dead). Only reliable WP:NOTNEWS source is a primary , source, the National Transportation Safety Board, which routinely (though thoroughly) researches every accident. Fram (talk) 15:45, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Aviation-related deletion discussions. Fram (talk) 15:45, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. Fram (talk) 15:45, 13 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep per nom - and yes, that's correct. Minor accident (1 dead). Per consensus any scheduled airline flight that involves a passenger fatality is notable. WP:NOTNEWS means "Wikipedia does not include things that are routine news" (which this is absolutely not), not the implied "Wikipedia does not cite the news". It would be nice to have better sourcing (and I would not count the NTSB as a "primary source"; it did not cause the accident, and I would very much dismiss the statement that aircraft accidents are somehow "routine"), but we have multiple reliable sources for an occurance for which notability is presumed, and that is enough. The article is in a sorry state, but AfD is not for cleanup. - The Bushranger One ping only 02:24, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Linking to consensus is meaningless: if such a consensus exists, then link to evidence of this, don't just claim it. It is not listed in any of the guidelines at Notability. And yes, WP:NOTNEWS is perfectly applicable here; if all we have (from neutral observers, not government institutions which have to write such reports) is routine recent news coverage, then this is a not news article. This minor accident didn't result in prolonged coverage, changed regulations, later coverage in third-party RS, ... Fram (talk) 08:12, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
 * if such a consensus exists, then link to evidence of this, don't just claim it Funny that, the page that once expressed that consensus got attacked from every angle every time it was referenced until it was gutted and for all intents and purposes depreciated. And now there are "link to the consensus or it doesn't count" calls. Hm, that is just so very odd isn't it. - The Bushranger One ping only 16:59, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * If that "consensus" got attacked every time it was referenced, then perhaps it wasn't such a good example of consensus after all? But yes, "link to the consensus or it doesn't count", you got that right. Everyone can claim that some consensus exists, but without a link it is impossible to see whether it indeed exists, how local or universal it is, and whether the current page fits into the mould, the "rules" established by that consensus. Simply accepting "oh, the Bushranger says there is consensus, so keep" it just as wrong as saying "oh, Fram says delete, so delete". Fram (talk) 17:08, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * And looking at that page (current and historical versions), it argued that accidents with fatalities should be included in articles about the airplane type (of course), and could have stand-alone articles if the GNG was met. Which is what is being argued here. That's why linking to the consensus you claimed isn't such an outrageous demand as you seem to make it: often, that consensus (ignoring for now the essay vs. guideline situation) doesn't tell what people claim it does. Does this subject meet the GNG? No, you have a newspaper report from when it happened (which is in itself WP:NOTNEWS: it fits the general description, even if it isn't enumerated in the examples), and an official report which got no attention as it turned out to be a one-off minor issue. Fram (talk) 08:32, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Speedy keep as an invalid AfD for a notable and reliably sourced subject. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 19:45, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Nothing invalid about this AfD. It may end in keep, but "speedy keep" should only be used in specific circumstances, and this isn't one of them. Fram (talk) 08:12, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep (perhaps speedy) - Another misuse of NOTNEWS which only bans articles with routine news coverage like, as it states "announcements, sports, or celebrities." This clearly passes GNG and had a fatality as a result of this commercial flight. And you don't need any fatalities for a flight be be notable. TWA Flight 841 (1979) had zero fatalities, no hull loss and the aircraft even went back into service soon after the incident yet it is still notable. Oakshade (talk) 04:05, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Notability of a flight is not dependent on the fatalities, indeed. Obviously, crashes with tens or hundreds of deaths are always notable, as they generate lots of coverage, usually over longer periods. This one was a minor blip on the news radar, an accident with one death, which just happens to be aboard a plane and not aboard a ship, train, ... Notability is based on prolonged coverage in independent third-party sources, which is missing here. Government reports don't give notability, they are obligatory reports (just like school inspection reports don't give notability to a school). Fram (talk) 08:31, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Fram, if you honestly think an aviation accident is comparable to a school inspection, I don't know what to say. - The Bushranger One ping only 17:01, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * No, I don't. An aircrash investigation report is what I said. The report has to be made and doesn't indicate any notability. The effect it has (newspaper reports, law changes, NatGeo documentaries, ...) is what makes it notable. Fram (talk) 17:08, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Daniel (talk) 07:01, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep per all above. Longstanding consensus is that air crashes with at least one human fatality are notable. Not sure why this was relisted when consensus was already clear, but here we are for some reason. And it probably would qualify as a speedy as the rationale specified in nomination is invalid as others have noted. At the very least it should have been closed after a week following unanimous consensus. Why we are still here is a mystery to me. Just close this as keep and don't waste another week of our time. Smartyllama (talk) 16:26, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep per everyone (why was this relisted?) - per the article, the incident was both "fatal to humans" (one person died as a result of injuries sustained in the incident) and "resulted in changes to procedures, regulations or processes affecting airports, airlines or the aircraft industry" (Airworthiness Directive 74-18-10), which are two of the three criteria for aircraft accident notability. The idea that the NTSB is a primary source for aircraft accident investigations is interesting but I think not in the spirit of WP:PRIMARY: the NTSB is the agency that reports officially on US-airspace accidents, and if they say "this is why the plane crashed" then that is as good as fact. It's not a violation of any of our policies to use their reports as a source to say "the NTSB said this is why the plane crashed". It's difficult to test notability based only on contemporary coverage for a minor incident that happened nearly 50 years ago now, but this article is well-written and well-sourced, and it serves no constructive benefit to Wikipedia to delete it. Ivanvector's squirrel (trees/nuts) 19:03, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete I am not concerned with "longstanding consensus" or anything that happened before I came to this article. We are instructed as editors of Wikipedia, to take these articles in a microcosm and look at the sources provided and the sources we can find conducting a WP:BEFORE search. You may not like Fram, from what I see there is a lot of animus being thrown about, but the fact remains, no matter what a consensus decided years ago, does the subject receive significant coverage in multiple (intellectually different) reliable and independent secondary sources? No. So according to the notability guideline WP:N the subject is not notable. If we disagree with the criteria that's cool, go through the process of changing it. Trying to circumvent the guideline just because enough people got together on an AfD somewhere, or wrote an essay about how bad the criteria is, does not change what we are given to judge notability by. If you had a consensus in this case then why didn't you change the criteria by which articles are judged for notability and this issue would never come up again? -- A Rose Wolf  19:10, 21 January 2021 (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.