Talk:Sriwijaya Air Flight 182

Edit war

Saschaporsche, please bring your further grievances, if any, on the infobox summary here, because the dispute is disturbing the article's stability. Also pinging Ahunt for courtesy. GeraldWL 05:16, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

"Summary" in infobox

The summary in the infobox should shortly state the main reason why the accident happened.

In this accident there was a technical failure (autothrottle failure) which led to an "out of control" (see: Loss of control (aeronautics) / Aircraft upset) situation which was never improperly recognised and the upset was not recovered.

To simply state "autothrottle failure" is incomplete! The autothrottle had failed on this aircraft multiple times during previous flights, and this problem never led to an accident. (see the accident report Final report),

However User:Ahunt disagrees with this and simply reinstates "autothrottle failure". and states ""Accident causes are often several and complex: they should be left for the article body. Cherry-picking some of them for the summary (e.g. pilot error) is likely to breach neutrality."

However i'm not "cherry picking", i do want to state the main reason.

For reference i quote the accident report Final report. In section 4.2 there is clearly stated as a recommendation in bullitpoint 3 and 4 : Sriwijaya Air Issued the following notice to pilots on 20 January 2021:

• Awareness of aircraft position, attitude, aircraftsystems by active monitoring the state of aircraft on every phase of flight.
• Awareness of aircraft configuration, thrust lever position/power setting and flight control system modes, anytime airplane deviate from its intended state must be corrected immediately.

This clearly points to the main reason why this accident happened; loss of control . Therefore my suggestion would be to state "loss of control due to autothrottle failure" or simply "loss of control".

I do hope that we will see more opinions on this, since it is important that the main reason why the accident happened should be stated in the "summary". Kind regards Saschaporsche (talk) 14:44, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

The documentation at Template:Infobox aircraft occurrence is very clear that we don't do that. It says: Brief summary of the occurrence. State the fate of the aircraft, if not obvious from the title (e.g. crashed, disappeared etc) and any relevant circumstances. Accident causes are often several and complex: they should be left for the article body. Cherry-picking some of them for the summary (e.g. pilot error) is likely to breach neutrality. The actual article, if you read the whole thing, makes it clear that the direct cause was an autothrottle failure, but that there were complex and longstanding maintenance issues, a suspected erroneous spoiler sensor, damaged spoiler linkage or improperly rigged sensor, inadequate pilot training leading to a sub-standard flight crew reaction and subsequent handling and finally a widespread culture issue at the airline, including a failure of the Quality, Safety and Security Department. To change this to "loss of control due to autothrottle failure" or "loss of control" is doing exactly what the documentation says not to do, cherry picking one small part of the causes.- Ahunt (talk) 14:57, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

So stating "autothrottle failure" is not cherrypicking?? Indeed, there were several issues that led to this accident, but the ultimate reason why it happened was that the aircraft never recovered from the unusual attitude it got into.

If we can't reach agreement on this i do suggest to leave the summary box blank. Saschaporsche (talk) 15:17, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

"Autothrottle failure" is actually the most direct summary, but let's see what the other editors watching this article have to say. - Ahunt (talk) 17:13, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

I concur with "loss of control due to autothrottle failure" because factors other than the autothrottle also contributed. Carguychris (talk) 17:56, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

I am happy with the very simple summary - a summary should describe simply the whole situation. Summaries that try to introduce too much information fail to be useful. I could be convinced to add "Mishandled" to "autothrottle failure" or maybe even more simply "loss of control" Both of these describe the whole situation in a general way. The summary field of the template is a summary field not a place to describle the blame or a cause of an accident. Maungapohatu (talk) 03:46, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm not an avid reader of investigation reports but I'll make my opinion on what I read.

In this article's "Final report" sub, it wrote "It concluded that the crash had been caused by asymmetrical thrust setting due to a faulty autothrottle system. [...] Lack of upset and recovery training contributed to the pilots' inability to prevent and recover from the upset condition." Clearly two main factors stand out here: mechanical error and improper training. Indeed the final report wrote about what future pilots could do better on this, but there's also an undisputed autothrottle failure. Our lead even says "On 10 November 2022, the NTSC published the final report of the investigation, concluding that the crash had been caused by a combination of a faulty auto throttle and pilot error."

Clearly there's a misunderstanding on what the template documentation meant by "complex". One example I can point out is in Alaska Airlines Flight 261, whose GAN I reviewed. There are three causes of crash posited by the NTSB: "Alaska Airlines' extended its lubrication interval", "Alaska Airlines's extended the end-play check interval", and "The absence of a fail-safe mechanism". There are "maintenance, regulatory oversight, and aircraft design issues" in play. The summary is "Loss of control caused by jackscrew failure due to improper maintenance".

It is a very good encapsulation covering the three key themes that led to the crash. It was improperly maintained. Improper maintanance causes jackscrew failure. Jackscrew fails, plane loses control. It goes to the root of the problem, then stated what made the aircraft crash. Additionally, I would also reference Pan Am Flight 7, a fresh FA, which summarized: "Crash, cause undetermined." Two elements here: crash, and cause undetermined.

In this case I agree with Saschaporsche. We are too focused on the "cherrypicking" aspect, but forgot to acknowledge the first sentences of the template documentation: "Brief summary of the occurrence. State the fate of the aircraft, if not obvious from the title and any relevant circumstances." What is the fate of the aircraft? It lost control. It definitely wasn't obvious from the title; not all flight articles concern crashes. What "Brief summary" meant is a well-shortened synopsis of the crash, like a TL;DR version of a Reddit post. Loss of control is not cherrypicking, because it is the main event. And then, what caused the loss of control? Autothrottle. In this case, "Loss of control due to autothrottle failure" makes for a really good summary.

While I understand where Ahunt comes from, I do not think Saschaporsche has ever concerned those other minute factors like the spoiler issue, which were included under the umbrella factor of autothrottle. They were not included in the investigation's bottom line. What was included is autothrottle and inadequate pilot training. A more accurate summary actually would be "Loss of control due to autothrottle failure and lack of pilot training", or something similar but shorter if possible.

Of course, I'd like to hear more on this discussion, so we can figure out what is in the article's best interest. GeraldWL 04:30, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

conclusion

After hearing more opinions i do have the impression that there is a majority (3 - 1) here that agrees that simply stating "autothrottle failure" is not the correct thing for the summary. Suggestions to change it have been:

• "Loss of control due to autothrottle failure and lack of pilot training"
• "loss of control due to autothrottle failure"
• "a combination of a faulty auto throttle and pilot error"

Can we agree on one of these statements? If so, which one? Kind regards Saschaporsche (talk) 16:43, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

The problem with all of those proposed is that they are all too long for the infobox which is supposed to be a very brief summary, and once again "cherry pick" which cause factors you want to use. If you want to capture the most important point of all of them, that would be "deficient company safety culture". - Ahunt (talk) 16:53, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

What do you guys think about an RfC? It seems that with only this many people the discussion will just circle around. GeraldWL 03:45, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

This requires a bit of technical expertise in the subject area, so I am not sure a general RfC will be helpful. I think asking WP:AIR editors to participate might bring about a more useful consensus, though. - Ahunt (talk) 11:06, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

I've made a thread there: here. GeraldWL 04:51, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Gerald, hopefully more people will give their opinion on this. Saschaporsche (talk) 16:46, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Can we come to a conclusion on what to put in the infobox? kind regards Saschaporsche (talk) 15:37, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

I dont see a problem with the current summary, its not the place to go into detail, the loss of control is explained in the article. MilborneOne (talk) 15:55, 20 August 2023 (UTC)