Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Trigana Air Service Flight 168

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. (X! · talk) · @259 · 05:12, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Trigana Air Service Flight 168

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This accident does not seem to meet any of the criteria at WP:AIRCRASH, double engine failure is not an uncommon cause.

According to the article for the type of aircraft there have been 21 hull losses of ATR 42 aircraft since it was introduced in 1985, including this one (according to the ATR 42 article, but not the accident article, which doesn't say).
At least two of the other hull-loss accidents resulted in significant death tolls (37 in the 1987 accident, and 46 on Santa Barbara Airlines Flight 518 in 2008), whereas this accident resulted in no deaths and just 2 serious injuries (broken legs).
Information about the crash already exists on the ATR 42 and Trigana Air Service articles, where WP:AIRCRASH would suggest to merge information to, so this is not necessary.
Although our article about the operator lists only this accident, AirDisaster.com lists fatal accidents in 2002 and 2006.[1]
The article does not give a clear location of where the accident actually happened, nor how short of the airport the plane diverted to it was, but unless it was at or in the immediate environs of the airport merging any significant content there would not be appropriate (it is not currently mentioned in the articles about the departure, intended destination or intended diversion airports, and per the previous sentence I don't think it really needs to be mentioned at either of the first two.)
Indonesia generally has a poor safety record for airlines, as the articles in Category:Aviation accidents and incidents in Indonesia show, so this is not the most significant accident in the country.
The principles section of WP:AIRCRASH duplicates WP:N and Wikipedia:News sources with it's first two points. Even though the accident is less than a week old, I cannot find any continuing reporting on the accident, suggesting that this was nothing more than brief news story with no lasting historical significance. Thryduulf (talk) 11:11, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Indonesia-related deletion discussions. Thryduulf (talk) 11:12, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. Thryduulf (talk) 11:12, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't usually hear of a double engine loss on a twin engine airliner. Seems pretty catastrophic and should warrant a very thorough investigation.--Oakshade (talk) 15:57, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I'll deal with each point raised in turn:- 1) Why should it be mentioned in this article how many ATR 42 hull losses there have been? Not overly relevant to the accident itself. 2) Notability is not necessarily established by the death toll (or lack thereof - US Airways Flight 1549, British Airways Flight 38). 3) As I'm voting keep there is no need to argue for merging of info. WP:AIRCRASH is an essay, not policy, see current discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Aviation/Notability#When to end beta testing? 4) WP:SOFIXIT applies here. 5) This info is covered in Trigana Air Service Flight 168#Accident. 6) Indonesia does have a poor safety record, which means we get to write more articles about accidents in Indonesia. 7) Only a week on from the accident is nowhere near enough time for an investigation to take place. A realistic timescale is 18 to 30 months.

Further comments: A twin-engined airliner is expected to be capable of flight on one engine. A shutdown and diversion with a safe landing is fairly "run of the mill" and not notable Wikiwise. The failure of the second engine, and subsequent landing in a paddy field several miles short of the diversion airport leading to an airliner being written off should be notable enough to warrant an article. Mjroots (talk) 19:22, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In reply to your points. 1: I wasn't suggesting that the number of accidents should be mentioned in this article, I was saying that this article doesn't say that this article resulted in the aircraft being written off. The number of accidents is just illustrating that this is not the first or most significant in that regard. I could have added it to this article, but why should I spend time improving articles that I think should be deleted?

2. Indeed not, but death toll is one measure of the significance and there have been at least two far more significant in this regard than this accident, thus giving further evidence that it is not the first or most significant accident for the type of aircraft.

3. I don't understand why you felt the need to comment on this, but as I cannot predict how individual people will !vote in AfDs, and it is not inconceivable that someone would suggest a merger, I noted that there is nothing to merge.

4. This was not a criticism of that article, but point out that this is not the first or most significant accident for the airline, and thus WP:AIRCRASH criteria A3 does not apply. I probably should have added it to that article though.

5. When I nominated this article for deletion, there was no mention in the article how far short of the runway the crash happened nor of any location more specific than the general area in which it happened. My comments were saying that it isn't covered in articles about the region, and I don't really think it ought to be - do we agree on this point, I'm not certain?

6. This point was written to show that this is not the first or most significant accident in the area, per WP:AIRCRASH L3.

7. There is a reason I didn't comment about the lack of an investigation - I know they take months or years to complete and that the presence or absence of one is not relevant to Wikipedia's notability criteria, precisely because they take so long. As I have repeatedly argued on multiple AfDs, predicting that an investigation will find something significant violates WP:CRYSTAL, if it does then in 18-30 months we can spin this off into a separate article should it become too large for a section at the article about the airline or aircraft type. If you will read my comment again, you will see I specifically referred to reporting - there is no continuing news coverage of the accident that I could find (and I searched hard) - indeed I could find no English-language coverage in reliable news sources from even the day after the accident. Well established WP:N and Wikipedia:News sources guidelines, as well as the principles section of the WP:AIRCRASH guidelines, make it clear that Wikipedia is not a news source (see Wikinews for that) and that subjects of Wikipedia aritcles need to have demonstrated lasting significance to merit an article. If news coverage does not even span into a second day, that is hardly demonstrably significant. Any predictions that it will become notable are crystal ballism that Wikipedia does not deal in.

re your further comment, I strongly disagree that a non-fatal accident that happens to mean the aircraft is a write off is an automatic case of notability. Equally the significance of two engines failing has got to be demonstrated in the reliable sources, and based on what is in the article now, what was there when I nominated the article, and what I can see when looking for sources is all speculation and original research. Taking everything I've said together, I cannot see a case for more than a section in a more general article and you have not made a convincing case otherwise. Thryduulf (talk) 00:45, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thryduulf, we've each had our say. Let that be the last from either of us unless we are asked a direct question by another editor. Neither you or I will be closing the debate, so let's give others their chance to have a say and leave the decision to the closer. Mjroots (talk) 06:48, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete -- We would not even think of having an article if thsi was a car crash; so why for an air crash? Peterkingiron (talk) 19:53, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I find it interesting that one engine failed, then the other a while later. Most (if not all) articles in Category:In-flight airliner loss of all engines resulted as either the plane running out of fuel, or some other factor that affected all engines, with them failing more or less at the same time. Martin451 (talk) 20:01, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You might find it interesting, but I cannot find any reliable sources that state it is significant? I can see some uniformed speculation in non-reliable sources, but nothing suitable for Wikipedia. Thryduulf (talk) 00:45, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. People expressing an opinion here may like to compare this accident with Tuninter Flight 1153, a notable accident involving a similar type of plane (ATR 72) that also involved double engine failure. Thryduulf (talk) 10:01, 20 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I wasn't going to say any more on this, but as Thryduulf has commented, I'd like to point editors towards this discussion on hull loss accidents in relation to WP:AIRCRASH. Mjroots (talk) 07:23, 21 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep for now. Until the investigation (which has been announced) generates some results we don't know if this should merge to the carrier, the airport, the aircraft or the engine article. We simply can't guess if it was bad fuel (airport), bad maintenance (airport/carrier), pilot error (several possibilities), or a design problem. Given that the a/c came down in a rice paddy, it will take them some time to extract it so they can begin to examine the physical evidence. They've sent the recorders for analysis. Why jump the gun? User:LeadSongDog come howl 21:32, 21 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.