Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation

Template:Infobox aircraft occurrence: Should the summary parameter include causes?
I would like to start a discussion regarding the template infobox aircraft occurrence. The discussion is on whether the summary parameter should include the causes of an accident.

On 27 March 2023, user DonFB started a discussion on Template talk:Infobox aircraft occurrence to ask whether there was a guidance or consensus on whether to include the officially-determined cause of an accident in the Summary field of the Aircraft Occurrence infobox linking a discussion on Talk:Colgan Air Flight 3407.

Prior to any of these discussions, the official explanation for the summary parameter was to include a Brief factual summary of the occurrence.

The problem with that explanation was that it did not specify what should be included in the summary leaving the emphasis on "brief".

Another problem with the explanation is due to the fact that some accidents have much more complex causes which makes summarizing an accident more difficult which can, at times, make summaries no longer "brief" as some of them included multiple causes and contributing factors such as. A lot of articles use(d) the term pilot error in their summaries which while may be correct is also an oversimplification of what actually caused that accident and what led to it. Decisions pilots make are usually influenced by multiple factors.

Following the discussion between users DonFB and Ahunt, user Deeday-UK expressed his opinion:

[...] I would go one step further and explicitly discourage editors from adding causes to infobox summaries. Air accidents are complex events most of the times; accident reports almost invariably list multiple causes and contributing factors, which are impossible to summarize in a few words while still maintaining a NPOV. 'Pilot error' is the best example: the all-time favourite cause among editors, often added on its own even when it's clearly not the only factor. In my view, a summary should:

- First state what happened (e.g. that the aircraft crashed), which is often far from obvious, given article titles such as "XYZ Airlines Flight 123". - Then briefly describe the circumstances (on approach, at night, on take-off etc).

- Finally leave the causes for the article body, instead of cherry-picking some of them and trying to cram them into one line.

In many cases, 'Controlled flight into terrain' is all that's needed for the infobox summary. The Colgan crash could do with Stalled on approach, crashed into house, and so on, keeping it simple, concise and neutral.

Following this, without gaining an official consensus, user Deeday-UK changed the summary usage note and added a hidden usage note to add in the infobox. Following this, user Deeday-UK started editing numerous articles changing the summary while broadly stating: Trim summary per project consensus: summarize events and circumstances, leave the causes for the article body without actually gaining an official consensus.

The first time I became aware of this was when I removed the under investigation summary in the article 2018 Sapphire Aviation Bell UH-1 crash and replaced it with the term pilot error,. My edit was soon reverted without giving too much reason as to why. Following this, I reverted the edit performed which was soon reverted by user Deeday-UK citing Trim summary per project consensus: summarize facts and circumstances, leave the causes for the article body. I tried finding where this was discussed and found the template talk page in which I assumed that this was an official consensus, and with the template history displaying last edited in 2019, I assumed that the discussion must have been a follow-up to the decision while not actually realizing that I wasn't on the correct history page being on instead of.

Just around a few months ago, I started editing the summaries of multiple articles to be consistent with the usage note when I was notified by user RecycledPixels, on the 9th of May on my talk page, that there wasn't an official consensus regarding the summary usage note and had consequently challenged and reverted both edits performed by user Deeday-UK on the template doc, also messaging user Deeday-UK on his talk page regarding his changes to multiple summaries.

So my question regarding this discussion is whether the summary parameter should include accident/incident causes and (if so,) how should the usage note be worded? Aviationwikiflight (talk) 11:28, 12 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Leaving the summary blank would be missing out the 'what' and 'why' of Who what when where why, it would look odd if the summary is included in the lead section but not in the infobox. If I visit a blue linked accident article that I'm not familiar with I look for the precis and cause in the infobox, I would expect other readers to do the same. If the cause can't be easily determined from the accident report (if there is one) then perhaps use the talk page or project pages for advice/thoughts of others. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by)  11:59, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Nimbus, nobody is suggesting to leave summaries blank. I totally agree that they should contain the what. It is the why that is problematic, especially when it involves the quick and easy explanation of 'pilot error'.
 * There are indeed some clear-cut cases in which that is precisely what happened (e.g. the 2010 Alaska USAF C-17 crash: the report literally reads "the cause of the mishap was pilot error"). However, in the vast majority of cases, the causes and contributing factors are multiple and complex to explain. Try and summarize the causes of the Air France Flight 447 crash: the result will be either far too long for the infobox, or partial, incomplete, and therefore non-neutral. -- Deeday-UK (talk) 12:46, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Nobody suggested leaving summaries blank. I agree with including what happened but the why is more problematic.
 * An example that I gave was Pan Am Flight 799 and how the summary was way too long. The summary read:
 * Defective checklist, defective takeoff warning hardware, airline's ineffective implementation of Boeing's Service Bulletins, and stress caused by a rushed flight schedule.
 * The cause of the accident was a take-off performed with flaps retracted, leading to a loss of control. If we put that into a summary it would resemble something like: Loss of control on take-off following incorrect flap configuration.
 * A similar summary would maintain a neutral point of view while not citing any causes due to its complexity. By simply saying pilot error, the summary disregards other causes/factors involved and oversimplifies the causes.
 * The summary of West Caribbean Airways Flight 708,
 * Deep stall' due to pilot error', a lack of 'crew resource management', and loss of situational awareness,
 * goes against the explanatory parameter note, stating that the summary should be brief and factual. This summary omits several contributing factors and issues from within West Caribbean Airways and engine icing. This summary does not maintain a neutral point of view as it disregards multiple factors that led to the accident taking place. Aviationwikiflight (talk) 15:32, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I've been somewhat of two minds in my thinking on this issue, which is probably reflected in some of my past comments.
 * It seems that either including or excluding a cause in the Summary can lead to controversy among editors. That is true even though my impression is that official findings of cause are rarely seen as controversial by the industry or public.* My preference, I have decided, is for the Summary to include rather than exclude the (probable) cause. It's a given that the public, our readers, want to know the cause of an accident, and if we're including a Summary, that's an appropriate place to put it, in addition, of course, to the main text. Yes, there can be multiple contributing factors, but I believe we are capable of briefly summarizing the two things of most interest to people glancing at an Infobox Summary at the top of an accident article: what and why.
 * Therefore, we can use "pilot error" or similar phrasing, but only if two things are true: 1) reliable secondary sources explicitly use such phrasing, and 2) the official report uses equivalent phrasing like "captain’s inappropriate response", "flight crew's failure" or "the captain's failure" (quoted from NTSB Colgan 3407 report). Quite possibly, the NTSB has never used "pilot error" in a report. My inference is that it and other official agencies wish to avoid that phrase due to sensitivities in business and political realms. The agencies instead circumlocute using a variety of equivalent terminology.
 * But policy tells us to use reliable secondary sources, not primary sources, as the main basis for articles. However, if a primary source (NTSB or BEA or other such agency) refers to a "failure" or "inappropriate", "improper" or "incorrect" action by a flight crew or crew member, it is reasonable to consider that information as support for our use of "pilot error"—if, and only if, reliable secondary sources use that phrase. If no secondary source uses "pilot error", then, to avoid OR or SYNTH, Wikipedia must not. But we are still free to use one of those alternative words (eg: failure, improper) in the Summary, if it's citable to RS.
 * I support the need for brevity in the Summary. I believe it can be achieved while including the two fundamentals of an accident: what happened and why.
 * Exceptions exist, like EgyptAir 990
 * DonFB (talk) 00:05, 13 May 2024 (UTC)


 * I agree with past discussions that the infobox summary should be a brief summary of the accident, that should include what happened and why. A summary of "crashed on takeoff" is not nearly as helpful to a reader as "crashed on takeoff due to low altitude wind shear".  Understanding that it is intended to be an extremely brief summary, we are going to encounter issues where one or both aspects of that will be oversimplified with terms like "pilot error".   The body of the article, ideally the first paragraph, will more effectively summarize the facts of the accident for a reader to gain a better understanding of what happened, and the rest of the article will dive deeply into all of the fine nuances.  In a case where I, for example, might use the phrase "pilot error", another editor is free to come along and refine that summary to something they feel is more appropriate, like "aircraft damage from accidental slats deployment".   If I'm following that article and I disagree, we can discuss it and work it out, or I can made another refinement to the statement, or we can invite others into the discussion to reach a consensus.  If I agree that the revision is an improvement, great, nothing needs to be said.  I don't think there needs to be a hard "don't include causes because we might get it wrong" rule here.   RecycledPixels (talk) 15:26, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
 * So basically you are saying: it doesn't matter if the summary is oversimplified and potentially misleading, because the rest of the article will give the full picture. Well, no: many passing readers will never read beyond the infobox. The summary must obey WP:NPOV like anything else; if something in the summary makes it non-neutral (such as one or two cherry-picked causes among many, especially if apportioning blame) then such element must be removed from the summary.
 * Why don't we focus instead on the circumstances of an accident? Instead of "crashed on takeoff due to low altitude wind shear" (which attributes the crash to just one reason), we could say "crashed on takeoff in wind shear conditions", which meaningfully describes the event without ruling out other factors (e.g. that they were flying too slow). -- Deeday-UK (talk) 19:00, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I never said that it was ok for the infobox summary to be misleading. What I'm saying is that, given the previous consensus that the infobox summary should remain as brief as possible, that there are going to be tradeoffs in how comprehensive that brief infobox summary is going to be.  Things are going to get oversimiplified, much as the "crashed on takeoff" part of that statement doesn't mention that the occupants of the aircraft were successfully evacuated moments before it burst into flames, resulting in only injuries and no fatalities, in the case of Aeroméxico Connect Flight 2431.  It also doesn't mention that an unqualified pilot was flying the plane or that the air traffic controller failed to give the flight crew adequate warning of the change in weather conditions.   That's an acceptable tradeoff, since all of that is covered in the article.  I think the cause of the accident is at least as important as the description of the accident, so it needs to be included in that brief summary.  If you don't want to deal with oversimplification, then we should strike the entire "be as brief as possible" part of the infobox summary instructions, which I'd also support to some extent, but that's a different conversation.  RecycledPixels (talk) 20:11, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I think the more brief and consistent we can keep it, the better. Looking at the ATSB database of accident reports, the summaries of each tends to summarise occurrences short 2-3 word catergories such as: Control problems, collision with terrain, runway incursion, ground occurrence etc. Although this doesn't give the full context of the causes, it cam be combined with the "Damage to aircraft" (none, minor, substantial, destroyed) and "Highest injury level" (none, minor, serious, fatal) and a fourth datapoint like "Phase of flight" (Ground, takeoff, enroute, landing) - i believe the NTSB include these. These four things provide more than enough to understand the basic nature of the occurrence. Eg. An aircraft experienced control problems enroute which resulted in the aircraft being destroyed and fatal injuries. In terms of the "why", at infobox level we are only looking to explain why the aircraft crashed (control was lost), and not why control was lost - that is another level of detail that is highly contextual, thus better explained in the lede simce aircraft accidents are nearly always complex, multifactorial chains of events. I also note this characterisation is far more WP:NPOV than relying on characterisations in secondary sources, which even when that are WP:RS often cover aircraft accidents in a sensationalised way by reporters who have limited understanding of Aviation or a bias against certain airlines (thinking of the Australian media's coverage of anything related to Qantas of late).
 * I do not agree that an oversimplified infobox summary is misleading to readers who only go as far as the infobox. I think most of those readers understand there is limit on what can be put in an infobox and are able to look at the text and realise there is a lot more context available if they have questions. This is an encyclopedia after all. Dfadden (talk) 21:39, 13 May 2024 (UTC)


 * I've undone all of the summary changes as they are not backed up with an actual consensus. I don't see a larger or more visible amount of editors suggesting either one or the other of these two options. I think that the summaries should stay as before unless a definitive consensus is reached. Cutlass Ciera  00:13, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Let's look at Colgan 3407, where the Summary has triggered multiple debates among editors. At present, the Summary is: "Stalled during landing approach". This, I believe, is clearly an oversimplification. I'd even suggest it's misleading, as it seems to (silently) attribute the cause only to the airplane itself. As we all acknowledge, accidents have multiple contributing factors, which are typically shown in great detail in official reports. But the sentence that describes "probable cause", even in official reports, is a lot more succinct. In Colgan, the NTSB said: "The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the captain’s inappropriate response to the activation of the stick shaker, which led to an aerodynamic stall from which the airplane did not recover." In the Summary, that can be stated: "Stalled during approach due to pilot error". (Multiple secondary RS use "pilot error".) There's no way and no need to sugar-coat it. The official report gives details of several errors by both pilots. It seems that this Summary should actually be one of the easier ones to write, given the extensive media and official descriptions of crew errors. Do we need to mention icing or training or airline policy in the Summary? The NTSB did not in its probable cause statement, and we don't need to either, if we want to keep the Summary both brief and accurate.

A couple of other examples, which have generated plenty of back-and-forth: Lion 610 and Ethiopian 302. At present, the Summary for each is identical: "Loss of control in flight". To be a little blunt, this is just plain silly. The Summary does not need to say "in flight", so we could actually make the Summary even briefer: "Loss of control". That's not very informative. Based on sources, the Summary for each should be slightly different. Secondary sources did not ascribe "pilot error" to either flight (with possibly an outlier media exception for one or the other). The official Lion Air report described multiple technical faults and also said crew resource management in response was "ineffective". So, the Summary could be: "Loss of control due to automated flight control behavior and ineffective crew response". The Ethiopian official report made no mention of "ineffective", "improper" or any such similar term for pilot action; the report fully blamed MCAS. So, the Ethiopian Summary could be: "Loss of control due to automated flight control behavior". A complicating issue is that the U.S. and French agencies published reports that assigned some blame to the crew in each accident. But those were not the official findings of the investigating countries, and the Summaries need not attempt to describe such additional factors; the article text provides the full background. I think these examples show the feasibility of writing a Summary that tells both what and why and is brief, accurate, informative and not misleading, whether the cause is unequivocal (Colgan) or nuanced (Lion, Ethiopian). DonFB (talk) 02:24, 14 May 2024 (UTC)


 * DonFB, I almost agree on the Colgan example, which makes me think of a possible rule: if there is a clear statement in the 'reference' reliable source (a report by the NTSB would normally count as such) that cites just one probable cause, then such cause could be included in the summary. Anything more articulated or nuanced than that goes as a whole in the article body, and the summary covers only the what.
 * I disagree on the 737 MAX examples though: "Loss of control in flight" is not silly, because control can be lost just as well during the takeoff or landing runs. What's missing is the core piece of information about the what: that the aircraft crashed (as opposed to recovering from the loss of control), and there could be a bit more detail too, e.g. "Crashed following loss of control during initial climb". And those two accidents are great examples of complicated and even controversial chains of events that are the opposite to the Colgan crash, and therefore do not belong to the summary.
 * [--- BREAK --- ]
 * Dfadden beat me to it: I am still to find an accident investigation authority whose reports include, in the Accident Details section at the top, a field such as 'Causes', 'Probable cause' or anything like that. Same for the Aviation Safety Network. That means something. -- Deeday-UK (talk) 20:48, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Well, consider this: the very phrase that has been in use by official government investigating agencies for many years is "probable cause ". They state the why as a standard part of their announcement. I believe we can do the same in a brief Summary.
 * This discussion, I believe, is essentially about whether we may ever use the phrase "pilot error" in the Summary. I'll repeat something I said earlier. If neither reliable secondary sources nor the official investigating report uses that phrase, then Wikipedia should not use it. If secondary sources do use it and the official report supports it with a word like "improper" or "inappropriate" when describing crew action in the published probable cause, then our summary can use the phrase. DonFB (talk) 17:46, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
 * DonFB: yes, investigation authorities use the phrase "probable cause" to explain the why of an accident, and they typically do that at the conclusion of the report, at the very bottom of it, not in a one-liner at the top alongside date and place of the accident. Perhaps we should follow their example.
 * And no, this discussion is not just about the use of the phrase "pilot error"; it's about finding a way to include accident causes in general in the infobox summary that is brief and neutral at the same time. I believe that in some cases that is possible, but in many others it is not, and when it's not, causes should be omitted altogether. -- Deeday-UK (talk) 08:44, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree with the principles you state: brief and neutral, and I believe we can uphold them. You appear to believe, however, that only a minority of cases can include causes in the Summary while being brief and neutral: "in some cases, that is possible, but in many others it is not". You say if RS gives "just one probable cause", then we can show it in the Summary, but "Anything more articulated or nuanced than that goes as a whole in the article body". The Colgan 3407 Summary at present does not meet your standard. The NTSB clearly stated a single probable cause: the captain's "inappropriate" response to the stick shaker which led to the unrecoverable stall. Their next sentence begins, "Contributing to the accident...." We can accurately summarize the probable cause with the neutral phrasing: "Stalled and crashed during landing approach due to pilot error". Another well-known case: Air France 447. The Summary is: "Entered high-altitude stall; impacted ocean". Correct, but to be accurate as well as brief and neutral, it should say: "High-altitude stall due to malfunction and pilot error; impacted ocean." We can readily and briefly summarize the two main causes. I don't see a necessity for arbitrarily limiting the Summary to a single cause. Yes, accidents can have multiple contributing factors, and those are identified in official reports, but it's not the purpose of the Summary to show them, and they are not the same as "probable cause".
 * On your other point: I don't think the placement of probable cause in the format of an official report should have any influence on our summary. The investigating agency may choose to show all the evidence before giving their conclusion. We are not obligated to "follow their example". We have a Summary for a reason: to give readers an immediate basic understanding of the event, rather than forcing them to read most of the article to learn about conclusions. DonFB (talk) 01:12, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
 * The example of the investigative agencies is that they don't put the causes in a one-liner part of any summary; they only cover them in the body of the report, in prose, in a dedicated section. That's what I meant, location aside.
 * Your summary for Air France 447 is a good example of how quickly this becomes problematic: that there were just "two main causes" is your opinion; certainly it's not stated in the report. "Malfunction" suggests that something broke, which is inaccurate: everything on that aircraft worked as designed, including the pitot heat system; it was the beyond-design icing conditions that led to the pitot tubes becoming blocked. -- Deeday-UK (talk) 21:06, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree with Deeday that the summary for AF447 as suggested by DonFB mischaracterises the causes as determined in the BEA report. Thus a better, neutral, summary per my previous suggestion would be "loss of control enroute resulting in the destruction of the aircraft". This is based on the format used by some (but not all) investigating agencies and provides an accurate, factual characterisation of the accident.
 * As for saying the summary should allow readers to understand the accident without having to read further to find the conclusions, I'd suggest that's why we have a Lead parargraph, as does WP:SUMMARY. While infoboxes can provide quick facts (not contextual information) "at a glance" and allow third parties to use the data more easily per MOS:INFOBOX, it is also true that infoboxes should be kept very brief and consistent. They should not be a replacement for a well written lead paragraph, which will cater sufficiently to time-poor readers while providing context that is outside the scope of an infobox. Dfadden (talk) 22:31, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Also, about TAM Airlines 3054, the final report lists cockpit coordination, training, management planning, little experience of the pilot and management oversight, perception error, lack of perception, loss of situational awareness and design as contributing factors for the crash, but no mention of "pilot error" in said report. Given those statements, I'm thinking we can keep the infobox summary brief with "Runway excursion on landing" and mention the causes elsewhere in the article's body. On a side note, should we start an WP:RFC on listing the causes in the infobox summaries if it's necessary? Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 16:19, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * As to the RFC, I don't have any objections if it is necessary to establish a consensus. I also don't have any objections to waiting a week or two longer to see if one can be established without a formal RFC. RecycledPixels (talk) 15:09, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
 * As to the RFC, I don't have any objections if it is necessary to establish a consensus. I also don't have any objections to waiting a week or two longer to see if one can be established without a formal RFC. RecycledPixels (talk) 15:09, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Proposal for Summary field guidelines
To try and move forward with this discussion, what would people think of the following idea of guidelines for the Summary field of the Infobox aircraft occurrence template? What would people change, add or remove? "Summary – Brief factual summary of the occurrence. Should include any relevant circumstances and the fate of the aircraft (e.g. crashed, ditched etc) if not already obvious from the article title. Can include causes if a statement of probable cause is present in a reliable source (typically, the accident investigation report) and can be concisely summarised without compromising accuracy and neutrality. Otherwise, causes should be omitted, and covered instead in the lead and article body." -- Deeday-UK (talk) 21:33, 23 May 2024 (UTC)


 * I think this is overkill - it currently says "Brief factual summary of the occurrence." and I don't think we need to be implementing any more rules than that. SportingFlyer  T · C  21:58, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Well, that would leave the question that started this discussion unanswered. The point matters, editors have different views about it, and there are currently no guidelines on a common approach. And it's not the first time that the question comes up. -- Deeday-UK (talk) 08:35, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
 * By definition, anything we write should be neutral, and we all seem to agree the Summary should be brief. I think Project guidance that says we should exclude cause or causes if someone deems it to be too complicated still leaves the door very much open to disputes about brevity and oversimplification. My opinion is that guidance should say the Summary is for specifying the event and its cause, and should be brief. We might define "brief" as no longer, and preferably shorter, than a basic declarative sentence. I agree with the rebuttal above of my proposed Summary for Air France 447. I would offer instead: "High-altitude stall due to weather [or 'icing'], system design and pilot error; impacted ocean." That's still brief, and I believe it's neutral and covers the major causes. In my comments on this subject, I've been including actual proposed text to try to distill our generalities (neutral, brief, reliably sourced) into real-world phrasing to show the possibilities for condensing official summaries and RSes into usable and useful Infobox text. DonFB (talk) 07:19, 26 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Comment – Since this discussion has stalled for over a month now without much consensus, where do we go from here? Should an RFC be started (and where would it be appropriate to start one) or should we keep discussing this topic in this section?  Aviationwikiflight (talk) 21:52, 8 July 2024 (UTC) Or should we leave the status quo as is? Aviationwikiflight (talk) 08:57, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
 * By all means feel free to create an RfC, although in general I don't see much appetite for changing the status quo, tbh. -- Deeday-UK (talk) 08:17, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Indian Civil Aviation Airshow
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Indian Civil Aviation Airshow that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Safari Scribe Edits! Talk! 01:02, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion at Articles for deletion/List of preserved Boeing aircraft
This is to inform the members of this WikiProject, within the scope of which this article falls, that this article has been nominated for deletion at Articles for deletion/List of preserved Boeing aircraft. –Noha307 (talk) 01:39, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Northrop Grumman E-2 Hawkeye
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Northrop Grumman E-2 Hawkeye that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Safari Scribe Edits! Talk! 11:49, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Plane crash at Yanks Air Museum
A new section, documenting the fatal 15 June 2024 plane crash at Yanks Air Museum, has been added to that article. Help to expand that section, and to keep it up to date as more information becomes available, would be appreciated. Renerpho (talk) 22:20, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Drone redirects
FYI, drone redirects are being discussed at Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 June 24 -- 64.229.90.32 (talk) 02:22, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

"Swarm Drone"
claims to be an India-only topic, and only a military aviation topic. Seems, a bit odd, since drone swarms are vastly used in advertising and artistic displays across the world, and espionage and military swarm drones exist outside of India. -- 64.229.90.32 (talk) 04:42, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

BOAC Flight 712
A discussion has been opened at talk:BOAC Flight 712 in an attempt to settle an apparent dispute over which of two images to use. Please feel free to join the discussion. Mjroots (talk) 14:02, 30 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Much ado about nothing :) ? There is even no need for any image. If I had to decide, I would go for the better quality picture, but I mostly consider the whole point very moot. Jan olieslagers (talk)

Ted Smith Aircraft Company / Ted Smith Aerostar Corporation
I've recently rewritten the Piper Aerostar article. Before the design was purchased by Piper, the aircraft was produced by the Ted Smith Aircraft Company and then the closely related Ted Smith Aerostar Corporation, which numerous sources diplomatically describe as having a "checkered" corporate history—a familiar story in aviation, company is created to produce an impressive new aircraft, but the company never figures out how to make money producing the aircraft, and the design is bought out by others. My questions: Did these two companies ever do anything notable outside of building the Aerostar? Do they warrant a standalone article, or is their history basically the same as the history of the aircraft itself? Carguychris (talk) 17:50, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * A quick web search suggests that the companies were absorbed with the Aerostar series. I'd say no, no separate company articles unless and until sufficient RS telling their own independent stories turns up. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:23, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Avia
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Airlines of Australia navbox template on defunct airline articles
There is an ongoing discussion on whether defunct Australian airline articles should have the Template:Airlines of Australia navbox at Talk:Bonza. Fork99 (talk) 07:26, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Airborne Interception radar
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Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition
I have nominated Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Z1720 (talk) 22:41, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Is planehistoria.com a reliable source?
https://planehistoria.com/ publishes quite a lot of aviation content, but I see many red flags, including a general lack of bylines, absence of listing sources, lack of photo attribution, lack of editorial, and lack of contact information. None of these signal unreliability per se, but taken together, it looks bad to me. What do others here think? Do we have anything conclusive one way or another? --Rlandmann (talk) 22:54, 15 July 2024 (UTC) Update -- I also note very many copyright violations for the images on the site. It makes extensive use of CC-licenced images from Wikimedia sources but does not attribute them, and also republishes images that appear to be under copyright and not have any free licence, eg this photo taken from here (note the copyright notice in the footer). --Rlandmann (talk) 01:47, 17 July 2024 (UTC)


 * I took a quick look at the site and noticed the exact same red flags you did (lack of bylines, no sourcing, no attribution, etc.). I also noticed that the writing just seemed off, so I some randomly selected segments of various articles through AI detection services (GPTZero and Detecting AI). Though I cannot vouch for the accuracy of either service, both stated with high confidence that the text samples were written by generative AI. AI detection might be spotty at best, but it's another data point. I'd recommend adding this to WP:RSPSS if consensus is reached that it is Generally Unreliable or should be Deprecated.
 * I would support having it listed as Generally Unreliable due to the lack of attribution, sourcing, and what appears to be extensive use of generative text, or Deprecated if substantial amounts of incorrect information can be found. nf utvol (talk) 01:17, 16 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Ha! Nice catch with those tools. Not definitive of course, but I tested them out on some texts of known provenance, and they seem to work well. I also noticed this weird article which not only includes an obviously untrue headline, the article body doesn't make any reference to that extraordinary claim. This itself reeks of AI! --Rlandmann (talk) 01:33, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Generally unreliable. To the other problems I'd add that it is a mix of reporting, history, discussion and opinion, with no clear dividing lines between them. A useful source of gossip to follow up, but nothing more. (FWIW, Deprecation is a formal process and not really worth pursuing for minor cases like this one). &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 14:11, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Is acig.org aka Air Combat Information Group a reliable source?
I did a source check on a recent edit to Dassault Mirage F1 and ran across this archived site. Quick search on the Googles suggests that the original website lost its .org domain 15± years ago and some content was moved to a .info domain, but updates ceased circa 2020 and most of the former pages are no longer linked. The dial-up-friendly formatting, 31337 H4X0R color scheme, and lack of notes or citations virtually screams WP:USERGENERATED Usenet project. Seems extremely sketchy but I'm curious if anyone out there knows anything different. Carguychris (talk) 22:11, 16 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Bits of the overall site are written by published authors, like Tom Cooper - (with some being extracts from works published elsewhere), and might be able to pass WP:SPS, while other parts of the website (such as the page you linked) don't have an identifiable published author and definitely don't count.Nigel Ish (talk) 23:03, 16 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Generally unreliable. No editorial oversight. Only cited quotes from RS can be trusted, but then you have the RS so you don't need the BS. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 08:27, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Further discussion here. It wasn't completely dismissed.Nigel Ish (talk) 17:14, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

reliability of airdisaster.ru
Another reliability question! This time about airdisaster.ru, which is cited nearly 600 times on various articles. It's cited so often that I opened a discussion over on the Reliable Sources noticeboard if anyone wants to weigh in. --Rlandmann (talk) 13:21, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Mentioning initial survivors/fatalities on template:infobox aircraft occurrence
Should the aircraft occurrence infobox include initial survivors/fatalities of aviation disasters in brackets? I've noticed that some articles include it and some others don't. Scs52 (talk) 16:02, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
 * No. At least some of those edits we're seeing on accident articles are just vandalism with made-up numbers, such as this edit.  Even if the numbers were valid, there is no reason to include them in the infobox. RecycledPixels (talk) 04:45, 21 July 2024 (UTC)