Template talk:Infobox aircraft occurrence

Accident cause

Is there guidance or consensus on whether to include the officially-determined cause of an accident in the Summary field of the Aircraft Occurrence infobox? See discussion at: https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Talk:Colgan_Air_Flight_3407#Infobox_summary DonFB (talk) 23:41, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes, the official documentation for the template says Brief factual summary of the occurrence. But, because it is an infobox summary only, the emphasis is on "brief". - Ahunt (talk) 23:45, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

I saw that, but it leaves open my specific question on whether the cause is to be specified. DonFB (talk) 23:51, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

My own personal opinion is "sure, as long as it can be summarized succinctly". So good would be "controlled flight into terrain", bad would be "inadequate pilot training, unresolved maintenance issues, poor company culture, inadequate regulatory oversight, combined with customer pressure which led to terrain impact, hull loss, deaths of crew and passengers, etc". Some official accident reports are easy to summarize in a few words, while others are not. In many ways creating an adequately brief infobox summary is an art form. In the case of Colgan Air Flight 3407 I think the current text Stalled during landing approach; crashed into house is okay, although I would omit the house bit for brevity, since it is not critical what they hit. In the case of that accident, the causes are quite complex and not easily summarized meaningfully in a few words, so it is best not to try and do so and instead just summarize the single immediate cause of the crash, the stall. - Ahunt (talk) 01:01, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes, brevity is a virtue. The distinction on my mind is between mere description and attribution of a cause. I think the phrase "pilot error" is almost never used in official reports, but it could be a reasonable edit choice if the official report clearly points to that as a cause (and if RS use the phrase). The Colgan report faults the pilots, but also cites other issues, along the lines of your (humorously) verbose example above. I don't know that an RFC is needed for the Colgan article, but I'd invite you and anyone else to comment in the discussion at its Talk page. DonFB (talk) 01:30, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Yeah I agree, in that case "pilot error" is neither accurate nor helpful. Okay I will add some words there. - Ahunt (talk) 01:33, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

I've meant to raise this subject for a while (good one, DonFB). 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. --Deeday-UK (talk) 15:22, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Just as a note, in November 2023, Deeday-UK made a change to the template help text that reflected their opinion stated above. In February, they made some changes to accident infoboxes that removed the accident cause from several articles including US-Bangla Airlines Flight 211, citing a project consensus. I noticed the edit because that article was on my watchlist and contacted them on their talk page at User talk:Deeday-UK#Your edit to US-Bangla Airlines Flight 211, asking about what project consensus they were referring to. They pointed to this discussion. I don't feel that this mention by a single editor about removing the cause of accidents from infoboxes at the end of a discussion about how infobox summaries should be brief and concise reflects a true project consensus, especially since there was similar pushback from Btphelps on the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 page. Recently, Aviationwikiflight has been making similar edits to articles, citing the help text changes made by Deeday-UK. I would like to see any users who believe that feel that infobox summaries may not include any mention of causes seek a wider project consensus for such a change at a more widely watched location than this. For now, I have reverted that November change. RecycledPixels (talk) 15:57, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

The relevant project conversation is taking place at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation#Template:Infobox aircraft occurrence: Should the summary parameter include causes?. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 10:04, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Update: That wikiproject thread has been archived to: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation/Archive 24#Template:Infobox aircraft occurrence: Should the summary parameter include causes?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:40, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Here's another update: Now that the RfC has been closed, I've started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation#Post-RfC discussion. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 04:34, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Post-RfC discussion

Moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation § Post-RfC discussion

 – Aviationwikiflight (talk) 11:09, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Now that we've got a consensus on what to do with listing the causes in the aircraft occurrence infoboxes, I would like to propose that we should do a project to clean up the summaries. Any thoughts or objections? Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 04:31, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

I will participate. Before we start, and given that RFC consensus says cause is to be included in the Infobox Summary, I think we should edit the Aircraft Occurrence template Documentation so the explanation of the Summary parameter explicitly says (something like): "Brief statement of the event and cause". DonFB (talk) 05:25, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

DonFB, the consensus is not that "cause is to be included". The RfC closure comment says that causes may be included, "provided they are suitably brief and due weight is followed", and I think it's a fair summary of the discussion. The Aircraft Occurrence template documentation should reflect that, if anything (and the documentation itself doesn't have to be brief, mind you; we can spend as many words as needed to explain the above). --Deeday-UK (talk) 09:31, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

All right. How about: "Brief statement of the event, which may include the cause" (or: "...include the causes"). Or would you like to propose wording? DonFB (talk) 11:26, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

How about: Brief explanation of the event, including a plain-language explanation of the primary cause, if one has been identified. "Crashed into mountain due to pilot error" is better than "CFIT into rising terrain due to poor CRM after descending below glideslope in IMC while attempting to diagnose intermittent blanking of first officer's PFD". Carguychris (talk) 19:50, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Lol. Works for me. DonFB (talk) 21:58, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

No: it's neither a statement nor an explanation; it's a summary. Expanding on the current description, and based on the RfC closing comment, we could say "Brief factual summary of the occurrence. It may include causes, provided the result is suitably brief, neutral, and follows due weight. --Deeday-UK (talk) 22:25, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Do we need to say "factual"? DonFB (talk) 22:49, 20 November 2024 (UTC) And "neutral"? I'm also a bit mystified by the mention of "due weight". What information in a brief accident summary would be "undue" in the meaning of that term in Wikipedia? DonFB (talk) 22:55, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Maybe you can check our neutral point of view policy? Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 21:22, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Sure, but it seems superfluous and condescending to tell users in template documentation that they must be factual and neutral, practices thoroughly embedded in site policies which editors almost certainly know if they're sophisticated enough to be examining a template.

Suggested:

"Brief summary of the occurrence that may include causes." DonFB (talk) 22:10, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

"Factual" should stay: it means the summary should stick to ascertained facts and not include speculation (e.g. about causes, motives etc). As for neutral and due weight, it means that the inclusion of causes must result in a neutral, balanced statement. For example, citing only pilot error when two other causal factors are cited in reliable sources means not giving those two factors their due weight, and that results in a non-neutral summary of events.

The above can well be mentioned in the Summary field's explanatory note in the template doc, of course: the summary itselft needs to be brief, the explanatory note doesn't. --Deeday-UK (talk) 13:14, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

I would simply point out that factual, neutral and due weight are already basic requirements, per Policy, for any text in the encyclopedia. I see no need to repeat them here. Do you believe it's necessary to say "brief" twice in Summary instructions: "Brief factual summary of the occurrence....provided the result is suitably brief"? DonFB (talk) 20:05, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Where is the harm in using a word twice in the same paragraph? Where is the value in making an explanation as short as possible, relying on the assumption that the reader is already familiar with the general policies? You seem to be confusing encyclopedia articles with encyclopedia guidelines: the requirement for conciseness applies only to the former. For the latter, clarity of instructions is rather the overriding requirement, and if it takes a few more words to achieve that, where is the problem? -- Deeday-UK (talk) 10:57, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

It strikes me a little like Templating The Regulars. But let's move on and add the RFC-endorsed instruction to the template's Summary parameter explanation, so we can modify the Summary in articles where needed. DonFB (talk) 03:43, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

That could work. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 07:26, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

A few days ago, DonFB (talk · contribs) suggested we should implement the RFC-endorsed instruction regarding the summaries to the template documentation. I've gone ahead and done so. Please feel free to update and expand on it as necessary. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 09:18, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Now expanded for maximum clarity to the version that was broadly agreed upon. --Deeday-UK (talk) 10:17, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Bringing the aircraft picture inside the infobox (in some cases)

To formalise the proposal set out by user Tô Ngọc Khang in the above "plane1" discussion, the idea is to go from this typical usage (taking TransAsia Airways Flight 235 as an example, changing one image for copyright reasons):

TransAsia Airways Flight 235

Wreckage from Flight 235
Accident
Date	4 February 2015 (2015-02-04)
Summary	Loss of control and crash following pilot misidentification of failed engine
Site	Keelung River, Taipei, Taiwan 25°03′48″N 121°37′04″E
Total fatalities	43
Total injuries	17
Aircraft
Aircraft type	ATR 72-600
Operator	TransAsia Airways
IATA flight No.	GE235G
ICAO flight No.	TNA235
Call sign	TRANSASIA 235
Registration	B-22816
Flight origin	Taipei Songshan Airport, Songshan, Taipei, Taiwan
Destination	Kinmen Airport, Kinmen
Occupants	58
Passengers	53
Crew	5
Fatalities	43
Injuries	15
Survivors	15
Ground casualties
Ground injuries	2

B-22816, the ATR-72 involved, photographed in January 2015

To this usage:

TransAsia Airways Flight 235

Wreckage from Flight 235
Accident
Date	4 February 2015 (2015-02-04)
Summary	Loss of control and crash following pilot misidentification of failed engine
Site	Keelung River, Taipei, Taiwan 25°03′48″N 121°37′04″E
Total fatalities	43
Total injuries	17
Aircraft
B-22816, the ATR-72 involved, photographed in January 2015
Aircraft type	ATR 72-600
Operator	TransAsia Airways
IATA flight No.	GE235G
ICAO flight No.	TNA235
Call sign	TRANSASIA 235
Registration	B-22816
Flight origin	Taipei Songshan Airport, Songshan, Taipei, Taiwan
Destination	Kinmen Airport, Kinmen
Occupants	58
Passengers	53
Crew	5
Fatalities	43
Injuries	15
Survivors	15
Ground casualties
Ground injuries	2

Specifically, the guidelines would be as follows:

• Whenever the top infobox image depicts the accident itself, crash site, or wreckage (which is the preferred option, if available, according to current template guidelines), a pre-accident image of the aircraft involved in the occurrence (if available, or of another example of the same aircraft type) can be placed inside the infobox by using the plane1_image= parameter (so far used only for multi-aircraft occurrences).
• If the top infobox image is already an ordinary, pre-accident image of the accident aircraft (or of another example of the same aircraft type) then no additional images of the same or similar aircraft should be included in the infobox. That is no second pictures of the aircraft in a previous livery in the infobox, or similar duplication.

Admittedly, this new usage of plane1_image= would apply only to a minority of articles (as pictures of accidents or wreckages are often not available), but in those cases the result would look a lot neater and more logical, with the image of the aircraft placed right where the data about it is given.

What do people think? -- Deeday-UK (talk) 11:25, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

This is an example for using plane1 with photo of aircraft involved in service with a previous operator (if you don't have photo of the aircraft involved with a current operator). Tô Ngọc Khang (talk) 05:56, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

@Tô Ngọc Khang, that's a great example of what this proposal is not about. In your example, the top image already depicts the accident aircraft (or a similar one) in ordinary service before the accident. We don't need a second picture of the same or similar aircraft in ordinary, pre-accident conditions, either with the same or with previous operators. It is debatable whether such additional images even belong to the article in the first place (or belong instead to some plane-spotting website), let alone to the infobox. -- Deeday-UK (talk) 11:52, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

@Ivebeenhacked@Aviationwikiflight@Dual Freq@Krd@RecycledPixels@Midori No Sora@Maungapohatu Tô Ngọc Khang (talk) 12:30, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes? Whatsup? Hacked (Talk|Contribs) 01:02, 15 December 2024 (UTC)