Template talk:Infobox aircraft occurrence

First Aircraft - Override description

In a recent article, it is not possible to easily and intuitively differentiate the two aircraft involved in a collision because the two aircraft are the same make and model. The term, "First Aircraft" and "second aircraft" does not tell us anything about the colliding aircraft. Which one is first when they both collide at the same time?

I think it would be preferable to allow the editor to override this and add more contextual information about each aircraft. For example, arriving helicopter instead of "first helicopter". See 2023 Gold Coast mid-air collision for why this is could be useful for some articles. Hrbm14 (talk) 15:17, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Crew names

In small helicopter crashes, it might be useful to allow an editor to specify the name of the pilot of each aircraft. This may further help readers identify the two or three aircraft involved in an accident. Hrbm14 (talk) 15:17, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

I would question the idea that the name of the crew is relevant enough to warrant inclusion in the infobox. The box is already more-than-enough crammed with information. Besides, I'm not sure why 'small helicopter crashes' should be treated any differently from other air accidents, once it is agreed that they deserve their own article. --Deeday-UK (talk) 23:08, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree. Lists of non-notable people are non-notable and don't belong in the infobox. Also pretty close to WP:NOTMEMORIAL as well. - Ahunt (talk) 23:52, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

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.wikipedia.org/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)