Template talk:Infobox Airliner accident

Comments

Comments and suggestions would be greatly appreciated. The international orange colour is used for the main template colour, because it contrasts with a clear blue sky and it is evocative of the flames and blood that so often attend aircraft crashes.

I think the bright red (thats what it looks like on my monitor) is a bad choice. It is quite ugly, the infobox becomes a bright flashing red light on the page, instead of becoming an integrated part of the article. I think a simple grey, black, or white will do. Qutezuce 20:13, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely concur. I get a nasty red which makes it nearly impossible to read the text. I am changing to ffcc99 - if no one likes it, I am sure it will get reverted or changed to something else. KillerChihuahua^?!? 15:43, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

The toned down orange seems to work. It still retains some of the sense of flames and danger, but I think readability issues have to take precedence over symbolism. Thanks for that. What about the aircraft infobox for alternate aircraft (i.e. second or fourth)? The light grey colour for the text background now looks a little out of place. --Jumbo 17:20, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Question. Is there any way, either directly or via bot action, to have all crash info boxes automatically create a unified 'Aviation Accident' category? Even if the cat is 'aviation crash', that would be useful. Ideally the cat should be universal, without limitation for country, region or sector of aviation, but anything derived from the crash info template would be acceptable. Ideas or comments? Crum375 17:36, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion. Can we add coordinates in the coor format? In some cases the crash site is very small. In those cases it would be helpful to pinpoint it on the map. See Pulkovo Airlines Flight 612. Solarapex 22:30, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I fully agree and second the recommendation. We do need to decide on a standardized coord format and datum. Crum375 01:50, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Datum - UTC like Wikipedia signatures (although the exact point of time may nobe know, there may be an interval). Coord - I wouldn't limit the precision, but would encourage to provide a region and scale. The scale parameter is needed as a crash site area may be pretty large. Also, this page (http://www.airdisaster.com/cgi-bin/database.cgi) has a good list of attributes. Solarapex 04:58, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Rename?

Suggest rename to "Infobox Aircraft incident" as (a) infobox template names seem to follow a "Template:Infobox ..." format; and (b) "incident" is less specific than "crash"; I don't think all the pages featuring this infobox describe crashes...?  Regards, David Kernow 21:36, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I've got no objection to this, as I believe some of the incidents, like the Qantas Flight 1 overrun could hardly be described as crashes, but I'm wondering how much work is involved? This is a bit more complex than merely moving a page, isn't it? --Jumbo 21:53, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd hope using the [move] tab at the top of the page would suffice...?  Regards, David 23:47, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Further thought: This template also seems intended for airline flights, so perhaps "Infobox Airliner incident" preferable...?  David 23:50, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

That suggested name sounds good. I'm not sure we want a WP article and template for private plane crashes anyway, and military accidents and disasters would need to be more specialised. I'm not sure of the technical details of renaming a template. What happens with a normal article move is that the article is renamed and a redirect page created, so that wikilinks keep on working. The thing keeps on flying and a good editor will then go back and change all the articles that reference the old name so that the redirect is no longer needed. With a template, does this work? Wouldn't renaming the template immediately break all the articles? --Jumbo 23:59, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I've been bold and made the move; according to this there don't appear to be any double redirects, so I'm guessing all should be well. If you agree (and no-one else reading this objects) I can use AWB to convert all instances of "Crash infobox" to {{Infobox Airliner incident}} relatively simply.

I'm also minded to try upgrading extending the infobox (using #if:) so second or third planes involved in an incident (are there any involving more?) may be included within rather than bolted on below. What do you and/or anyone else reading this reckon?  Yours, David 12:04, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Aviation incident and accident are very different. Up to now, I have been using this nice template for the various accident articles I either wrote from scratch or upgraded/improved. If this name remains, it will make all those articles wrong since they are accidents and not incidents. Please reconsider this move, and if need be create a new 'incident' template, but do not leave this name change as is, as it messes up lots and lots of articles that rely on it. Thanks, Crum375 23:12, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Apologies; I didn't realiz/se there was a crucial distinction; it appeared that an accident was a type of incident. Thanks for correction, David Kernow 00:11, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

No problem. It is a common mistake. As I assume you discovered, aviation accident has the NTSB definitions near the beginning. Crum375 00:21, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

A third aircraft option needs to be added too as 1990 People's Republic of China airliner collision had three planes involved. WhisperToMe (talk) 06:23, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Tail Number

I would suggest that Tail Number be changed to Registration as the term Tail Number in the aviation industry does not always have then same meaning - and all the infoboxes I have seen so far actually have the Registration in this field.MilborneOne 21:45, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Nobody has commented so I have changed tail number to registration. The term tail number is a colloquialism, the american FAA for example uses the term Registration or Aircraft Registration.MilborneOne 12:28, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate Crum375 comments below, but I suggested changing the template two-weeks ago, waited for adverse comment, had none then changed it. I still stand by the fact the "Tail Number" is not a generally used term, it certainly is not used on the american FAA website, the UK CAA website or British and Australian accident reports who all use the term Aircraft Registration. I can only presume government agencies are north american perhaps this should not be a global template ! MilborneOne 13:32, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Injuries and fatalities

These parameters are officially and formally defined by various government agencies that investigate accidents. By changing them and creating a new terminology, the existing body of accident articles that rely on this template will become technically incorrect, and new ones will not be able to use the template, as it will not conform to the accident reports prepared by the investigative bodies. Please do not change these parameters without thinking long and hard about their effects on the existing articles and the formal definitions. Thanks, Crum375 13:06, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

• And what about canadian and german authorities? http://www.tsb.gc.ca/en/reports/air/1998/a98h0003/01report/01factual/rep1_02_00.asp
• And how does a fatality happen when not by an injury (I mean, when the head is ripped off by some piece of metal, isnt that an injury somehow?)?

Thanks! --213.54.144.50 13:25, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

For comment on Crum375s revertion of my tail number change please see above.MilborneOne 13:32, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Regarding your comment "above" regarding this (below) section: Why? Just because some silly newspaper cant use the official wording? Or some crazy US agency likes to play insane word games, while describing the consequences of governmental failure? Btw.: Where is your source? And why dont u just adopt the articles in question to the official wording instead of adopting the Infobox to some silly newspaper wording. --213.54.144.50 13:40, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

If I dont hear a reasonable explanation within 7 days (on my calendar), I will revert it to the official version in the hope, that somebody repairs the already wrong articles... --213.54.144.50 13:40, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Btw.: I have an account here now, too, and I am responsible to some extent for all edits caused by 213.54.0.0/16 in this area of wikipedia... --Homer Landskirty 13:57, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

The concept of 'fatal injury' is not by itself wrong, and some agencies do use it, but not all. The issue is finding the terminology that will fit the most reports and official definitions. I did not say which agency we should use, although it's logical to rely on the major English speaking countries: US, Canada, UK, Australia, as reference, since this is the English WP. The non-English countries will normally translate their reports to terminology that is similar to the English ones. As an example of the complexities, the US NTSB/FAA (in 14CFR 830.2) define an accident related 'fatality' as any injury directly caused by the accident that leads to death within 7 days after the accident. For example, if a passenger dies of burn injuries sustained in the accident after 8 days, s/he is considered an 'injury' FAA/NTSB wise, while another who dies after 6 days is considered a 'fatality', Many countries follow suit with this (or similar) definition. Obviously if different countries use a different fatality 'cutoff window', that would create a difference by itself in the definitions, but we just have to accept it and it doesn't seriously affect the entire article. In some cases we may need to include the specific definition (e.g. in a footnote), but overdoing it could clutter the articles, IMO. Crum375 14:07, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

The TSB of Canada (see link above) is among the "english (speaking) countries" u mention above. The TSB of Canada clearly follows my argumentation (a fatal injury is an injury, too). Your example about the definition does not explain, how the number of "injuries" can be zero, if the number of "fatalities" is non-zero. Cheers! --Homer Landskirty 14:17, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

We have to cater to all agency reports, old and new, hence the simpler our terminology the more inclusive it will become. I see no problem in the current version of "fatalities: 3, injuries: 7". It is simple and to the point. An agency can decide where to classify an eventual fatality based on their own time window. The bigger problem I see is with serious vs. moderate vs. light injuries. Do we include a minor scratch, or a minor neck strain (whiplash) as 'injury'? What if not all reports make the distinction or use the same criteria? Despite that gap, I would leave the template as simple as possible, and let the editor(s) make the decision 'on the ground', on a per case basis. BTW, I see no problem with having '10 fatalities, 0 injuries' - the reader immediately understands the concept, and the text of the article would normally say: "all 2 crew and 8 passengers on board the aircraft were killed". Crum375 14:37, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

OK - last try: In ur own example "fatalities: 3, injuries: 7": So 4 of the injured people, who r involved in that accident, survived, while 3 died? Or 7 of those injured people survied and 3 died? Semantically it is better to classify the involved people in "fatalities" (or "fatal injury" or isomorph), "seriously injured" (or so) and "other" (or "minor/none injury" or so). I would say, that every serious government agency (e. g.: german, canadian) does it so (or do u know a report, that uses semantically different wording? The FAA? Can u give me a link to one such report?). --Homer Landskirty 14:45, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Ohoh: I found another problem: "seriously" could euphemistically include "fatal", so that the semantics related problem could remain in spite of the additional word ("serious")... --Homer Landskirty 14:56, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

In my example, "fatalities: 3, injuries: 7" means 3 died, 7 survived (at least 7 days). That's pretty straightforward and very common. Typical language from reports: "Of the 85 persons on board Flight 123, 62 were killed, 22 were seriously injured, and one was slightly injured". Again, I am not disputing the validity of using 'injuries' to include fatalities, it's just that it could be confusing. Formally, we probably need to define 'injury' as 'serious or moderate, non fatal injury'. Generally, when someone says "X were killed and Y were injured", the meaning is crystal clear: the Y survived (at least for a while). Crum375 15:06, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Argl! I cant let it stand like that. Your favorite wording is in contrast to official governmental wording (see the Canadian TSB). Again my question: Do u have a FAA report, that uses ur wording? Or do u just know newspaper reports, that tend to me inaccurate and even wrong. --Homer Landskirty 15:10, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

(outdent) The "typical report" example I gave above (85, 62, 22, 1) is from a real NTSB report. Here is another example from another NSTB report: "Of the 181 passengers and 8 crewmembers aboard, 8 passengers, the flight engineer, and a flight attendant were killed and 21 passengers and 2 crewmembers were injured seriously."
We could use 'killed' and 'injured' as our categories, but I think 'fatalities' and 'injuries' is better. And you didn't reply to my point above about when someone says "X were killed and Y were injured", the meaning is crystal clear: the Y survived (at least for a while). Do you disagree? Crum375 15:52, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Since I am physically and psychologically unable to discuss this as thoroughly as obviously necessary, i would like to stress the "seriously" in your previous citation (why do u want to omit this?). --Homer Landskirty 16:42, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

And as I mentioned before: "X were killed and Y were injured" is ambiguous, since X could be the size of the subset of the injured persons (with size Y), which my attempts r all about. But I am really unable to discuss this correctly (I am not even sure, if my understanding is correct -- I still wonder, if a "serious injury" could be fatal -- already in school I was quite bad in languages (german, english, french and latin; all D (in germany: 4 of 6 with 1 "very good", 4 "satisfactory" and 6 "deficient") or so))... Sorry. --Homer Landskirty 16:42, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I think you are overcomplicating it. I think that to 99 people out of a hundred, the statement: "There was an airplane crash. 100 people were killed, and 30 were injured" would be totally unambiguous. Clearly each is a separate category. I agree with you that technically getting killed is getting 'fatally injured', and many reports do use that language. But it is inconsistent (as not all use it), awkward and confusing. In order to try to cover the largest variety of reports from many countries, I think the simpler is better, and "X killed and Y injured" is extremely clear and would cover all bases, IMO. Granted, there is that issue of defining "killed" as "not surviving X days after the event", where X may not be the same world wide, but you can't have everything, and this is a relatively minor issue. Crum375 23:42, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Parameter adjustment

Why not move the "Survivors" parameter to right after the "Injuries" parameter? Shouldn't the number of Fatalities, injuries and survivors all be one atop another. As it is now, the survivors is the last parameter. Just a suggestion.--MONGO 08:44, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Some injuries or fatalities can be to people on the ground, while some are among the passengers/crew of each aircraft, in a multi-aircraft collision. 'Survivors' only makes logical sense when applied specifically to the occupants of one of the involved aircraft, as arguably every person on Earth is a 'survivor' of each crash. Crum375 12:49, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't buy it. I see "58 Fatalities" and think, how many people were on the flight? How many of those were on the ground? The spread of passengers-crew-survivors-fatalities-injured over both parts of the box make this info hard to discern. I can see putting the passenger/crew info into the Aircraft box, because that info is particular to the Aircraft, but I think the Injured/Fatalities/Survivors info should be grouped together. And maybe a separate parameter so that the reader can distinguish between injuries and fatalities to those on the ground vs those that were on the flight. I could also argue that the passenger number be including in the Summary portion, since that number obviously changes flight to flight. Not so obviously, the crew number does as well. In other words, if there's Crew and Passenger numbers in the Aircraft portion of the infobox, then those should indicate Standard Crew Size and Maximum Number of Passengers that the aircraft type allows -- not the numbers on the specific flight. Heresiarch ^Yo 17:56, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I also want to point out that some pages add a parenthetical after these numbers, eg "Fatalities: 10 (8 official)", in those exceptional cases where additional information is needed. -Heresiarch —Preceding unsigned comment added by Heresiarch (talk • contribs) 18:01, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Infobox colour

please change to a less-bright colour. I think white or some sky grey-blue should do better. --TheFEARgod (Ч) 12:49, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

The reason we use the orange is because it represents the International Orange color code, which relates to aviation safety and accidents. IMO it reminds people that many (if not most) of these accidents are mostly due to violations of safety principles and are largely avoidable. The reason we and all other media present these safety articles is not only to describe the accident as a news story, but to prevent recurrence by exposing the safety violations. Having the brighter orange color that connotes safety helps convey that message better than some sedate blue, IMO. Crum375 03:46, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Having said that, if there is consensus for some other color I would accept it - this is not a critical issue. Crum375 03:49, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

according to the article on International Orange, the code is #FF4F00 so please let it be precise. --TheFEARgod (Ч) 13:35, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

At least on my machine, #FF4F00 comes out fairly bright red, which is very distracting and makes the writing hard to read. So it seems we need the more subdued orange #ffcc99, as we have had for a long time now. Crum375 19:36, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

If anyone does not mind, the text within that orange color should remain black. That "linen" color made it a bit difficult to read within the orange color. KyuuA4 19:51, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

The symbolism that strikes me is that of the bright orange used on flight recorders. --GregU 19:08, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Image size

I thought that 210px was too small for the image size. Most infoboxes that I've seen allow images to be sized up to around 300px. I changed it to 250px. Cla68 03:00, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Ship name

Is the word "ship" used for airliners also ? Jay 11:03, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes. AKRadecki^Speaketh 17:48, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Another rename?

Since this box is becoming more and more commonly used for all aviation crashes, including military ones (see B-52 aircraft crash at Fairchild Air Force Base for example), I suggest renaming to the existing {{Aircraft accident}} redirect, since when you look at the box in an article in edit mode, "Aircraft accident" is what it shows it being called. AKRadecki^Speaketh 17:48, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Can I suggest, to prevent ambiguity but maintain accuracy, this is renamed "Infobox aircraft accident" or something similar? (we might want to mention incidents as well, though I personally feel that isn't nescescary). Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:06, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Works for me. AKRadecki^Speaketh 18:08, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Changes and merger with Template:Infobox Mid-air accident

I’ve been thinking that this template should be combined with Template:Infobox Mid-air accident. But I would also like to see some minor changes to parameters.

• I think that the “ship name” should be completely removed as most aircraft that crash do not have a nickname. It’s also difficult to find, and isn’t that notable.
• I believe it would be more concise to just have the origin of the aircraft (where it took off from) and the destination (where it was supposed to land). There’s really no reason to list the last stop-over, it would just be the “origin” if there were one. It would be better if these were listed as airports instead of cities.
• Perhaps there should be accommodations made for fatalities on the ground, but the existing format suits me fine.

As for the merger of the templates this is what I have to say:

• More than two aircraft can be involved in a collision (Ramstein airshow disaster) and it would be easier if it were possible to allow for more aircraft (maybe four or five, just in case).
• The new template would be called “Infobox Aircraft incident”. – Zntrip 14:49, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Agree in principle with most of the above. As for the origin, though, there are times that an intermediate stopover for fuel is made (ie, Gander) but that really shouldn't be listed as the origin, as it's not the point of origin for most/all of the folks onboard. Granted, this doesn't occur that often, but I'd like us to be clear on that. AKRadecki^Speaketh 20:07, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I also agree, although we may need set rules for apropriate use of that stop-over thing if we decide to keep it. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 00:53, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Are there any suggestions for the "last stop-over" parameter? How about we leave it as an optional parameter? – Zntrip 04:47, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

(General comments) "Ship name" is probably more relevant for the early days of aviation (e.g. "The Hindenberg"; "Lituanica"), and should be kept. Please write "guidelines", not "rules". Yes, parameters like "stop over" should be kept, and optional. Please be sure to retain the hCalendar microformat mark-up, or drop me a line on my talk page if you need my assistance in that regard. Cheers, Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 10:09, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't want the infobox to be cluttered. If you are looking at the article for the Hindenberg, you would know the name of the ship from the article, the infobox doesn't have to have everything. – Zntrip 17:10, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

The infobox won't be "cluttered" by including relevant information. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 22:03, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I must say it doesn't take up too much space or look cluttered as-is, IMO. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 22:32, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

The ship name is not relevant to the infobox. The infobox is about an event involving the aircraft, not the aircraft itself. It doesn’t matter what the aircraft was called. And if your talking about the Hindenberg and Lituanica, then the name is in the article’s name and it would be redundant to list it in the infobox. That's why I think it should be ommitted. – Zntrip 00:25, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

"The ship name is not relevant to the infobox" - that's a subjective opinion, and not a fact. I disagree, an I don't think you could make a logical argument to support it. AS for the name of the aircraft being n the article; so is most or all of the other information in the infobox. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 06:37, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I don’t have time for this. Of course it’s an opinion, but I gave you my reasoning. You haven’t supported any of your comments other than saying you disagree. Explain to my why the name of the ship is just as important as the other parameters and why it’s more important than things not in the infobox. – Zntrip 17:06, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the merge. But do we really need a third one and migrate every user from the two old ones to the new one? Why can't we just make backward compatible change to the one that is closer to the desired form, and then extend? --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 02:44, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Also, I'd like to point out an often overlooked issue. What about inter wiki? de is the same for both, es isn't. And every other language has only 1 version. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 02:46, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

An easy way to do the merge would be to rename this article and switch all the pages with Template:Infobox Mid-air accident, since there are only 24. – Zntrip 06:15, 25 August 2007 (UTC)