Talk:American Airlines Flight 320

Untitled

Much of the probable cause is taken word-for-word directly from the Civil Aeronautics Board's Aircraft Accident Report on Flight 320. This is a U.S. Government work and is therefore in the public domain.

Actually, it was a mixture of word-for-word and paraphrasing, which is not a proper way to do it. Therefore, I changed it to nothing but an accurate and complete quoting of the PROBABLE CAUSE (it is in caps in the report), and then improved the link to the report so that one click gets the downloaded PDF CAB Accident Report file. It looks different than the usual link in Wiki, but what the hell, it works! 66.81.53.26 (talk) 00:45, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

NYT quote?

My guess is that the five paragraphs that start with a quote mark are actual quotes from the NYT source. If that's the case, this needs to be formatted correctly, perhaps as a block quote, or better yet paraphrased with a proper reference. If not, those stray unclosed quote marks should be removed. Kendall-K1 (talk) 16:35, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Coffeeandcrumbs (talk) 07:36, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that even though the captain of American Airlines Flight 320 was considered one of the most experienced pilots in the world, he was blamed for its fatal crash in 1959? Source: South Bend Tribune, 4 Feb 1959,(AP) p.1 ,"American Airlines Officials said DeWitt was 'one of the world's most experienced commercial pilots.'"
  • ALT1:... that the crash of American Airlines Flight 320, a Lockheed L-188 Electra turboprop aircraft, occurred less then two weeks after the airline starting using the type of aircraft? Source: Chicago Tribune, 20 January 1959, p. 26
  • ALT2:... that even though the surviving pilots of American Airlines Flight 320 insisted that the cause of the crash was defective altimeters, investigators eventually concluded that the pilots were at fault? Source: Chicago Tribune, 26 Feb 1959, p.1 for co-pilot's statement, CAB report for investigative conclusion.

• Reviewed: 4 DYK credits, no QPQ required

5x expanded by RecycledPixels (talk). Self-nominated at 06:25, 5 June 2020 (UTC).

• Article was 5x expanded in the last 7 days (9,833b to 55,858b). QPQ is not needed yet. Primary hook is interesting, cited, and short enough for DYK. References behind paywall accepted in good faith. Mccunicano☕️ 09:24, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Mangled sentence

It's not clear what is intended by: affected the opening various equipment. catslash (talk) 00:13, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

@Catslash: This isn't a super fast response, but... thank you for your feedback. I looked at the source to see what I was trying to write at the time and have reworded that. Sorry I didn't notice your comment earlier. RecycledPixels (talk) 07:42, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:American Airlines Flight 320/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: GhostRiver (talk · contribs) 17:46, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Hello! I'll be reviewing this article to help reduce the good article nomination backlog and to gain points in the WP:WIKICUP. Although quid pro quo is not required, if you fancy returning the favor, I have a list of articles in need of review here. — GhostRiver 17:46, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

Infobox and lede

• "mistakes by the flight crew, the flight crew's inexperience flying the type of aircraft, and poor weather conditions were the causes of the crash" → "the crash had been caused by mistakes from the flight crew, the crew's inexperience with the type of aircraft, and poor weather conditions"

Accident

• Link "the company's" to American Airlines
• Also link Midway Airport and LaGuardia Airport at first mention, and capitalize the respective A's in "Airport"
• "had delayed the departure" → "delayed its departure"
• "Eastern time" → "(EDT)"
• "fifty four" → "fifty-four" per MOS:NUMERAL
• "68 passengers and 5 crew members" → "Sixty-eight passengers and five crew members" per MOS:NUMERAL (don't start sentences with numerals and don't use numerals for values less than ten)
• "Climb out of Chicago" feels a little slang-y
• "was uneventful" → "were uneventful"
• What was operating on automatic pilot? The subject of this sentence is "The climb"
• Use conversion template for cruising altitude
• "the current weather conditions" per MOS:REALTIME
• "with a 400 feet ceiling with a 1.25 miles visibility" → "with a ceiling of 400 feet and a visibility of 1.25 miles" to reduce repetition and fix the subject-verb disagreement created by the conversion template
• Should "runway" be capitalized in "runway 22"? I can't view the source

  The original source does not capitalize it (it uses the phrase "LaGuardia's runway 22") and the CAB Accident report uses lowercase to refer to the runway. ("...crashed into the East River while attempting an instrument approach to runway 22 at La Guardia Airport." page 1, paragraph 1).

• Link East River
• "he thought the aircraft hit at" → "he thought it did so at"
• "the whole belly" also feels non-encyclopedic
• "sounded like" → "sounded as if"
• Delink "Lockheed L-188 Electra" in the last paragraph, it was already linked

  Items in this section are addressed, with one comment added to the runway question. RecycledPixels (talk) 20:52, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Aftermath

• "when the boat's crew" or just "when its crew"
• "lighting up" → "illuminating"
• "All eight of the survivors of the crash" → "All eight who had survived the crash"
• "were saved" → "were rescued"
• Link "Coast Guard" to United States Coast Guard
• No comma needed after "and the police"
• Do we know how many "some" is in some of the initial survivors died of their injuries?

  I couldn't locate where I got "some" from the source, it only mentions one, so I've reworded that portion. I left in that the survivors were taken to the two hospitals and in the next paragraph noted that one of the nine survivors died of her injuries. I seem to recall reading that others died en route to the hospital but can't locate that in any of my clippings at the moment.

• Why is "twenty-foot" not used with the conversion factor?
• "section of the fuselage the largest intact section" way to rephrase to reduce repetition of "section"?
• "two-and-a-half" → "two and a half"
• Delink "turboprop", linked above
• The association also called for the installation of a more comprehensive instrument landing system that would have provided altitude guidance to flight crews landing on runway 22 in addition to the existing system that provided horizontal guidance Very long sentence with confusing syntax
• Which two airports were those?

  New York International airport, now named John F. Kennedy International Airport, and Newark Metropolitan Airport, now called Newark Liberty International Airport. I didn't include which airports they were because I thought it added clutter, but I've now added a footnote in case someone is curious.

  I have now addressed or responded to the items so far in this section. RecycledPixels (talk) 21:45, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Aircraft

• Delink all of "Lockheed L-188 Electra turbine propeller", as all was linked above
• Comma instead of semicolon after "catastrophic structural failures"
• "the loss of" is a MOS:EUPHEMISM
• Split last sentence into two for greater readability

  Done. RecycledPixels (talk) 22:03, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Passengers and crew

• "Included in the passengers who died in the crash" → "One of the crash victims was"
• Comma after "Kukla, Fran and Ollie"
• "that was broadcast" → "which was broadcast"
• "flying for the Thompson Aeronautical Corporation"?
• Comma after "Mishawaka, Indiana" and "Wilmette, Illinois" per MOS:GEOCOMMA
• "a broken jaw and pelvis, and two broken legs" → "fractures to his jaw, pelvis, and both legs"

  Done. RecycledPixels (talk) 22:03, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Crash investigation

• At first blush, this section is very long and dense and can probably be broken into level three subheads
• Within two hours of the accident I assume this is two hours after the crash and not a different qualifier like authorities arriving on the scene?

  I'm not sure I understand this question. The private interview between Cook and an "aviation official" took place "within two hours after the accident [sic]", according to the Chicago Tribune article.

• Use the conversion template for "one-hundred-foot increments"
• "as the weather conditions permitted"
• "and fifty percent" → "and 50 percent" per MOS:NUMERAL
• Link Northport, New York
• "The nose section and cockpit was" → "The nose section and cockpit were"
• "as temporary only"
• When the FAA is first mentioned, put "FAA" in parentheses afterwards, and then use the aconrym whenever you use Agency afterwards
• "that displayed hundreds of feet" → "that displayed altitude in increments of 100 feet"
• "by an unnamed Government body" → "by an unnamed government body"
• had made 10,000-foot mistakes Unclear what this means to a layperson
• Comma after "several times during the flight"
• Link first instance of Newark, New Jersey
• Flight engineer Cook Looks awkward with Flight capitalized but Engineer not
• Link "shock" to Shock (circulatory) (I believe)

  I'm not sure. He had just been fished out of an icy river, so it's possible he was experiencing Shock (circulatory), but he had also just been in a plane crash where a lot of people had just died, so Acute stress disorder is just as likely. Since I don't know which one he meant when he said he was in a state of shock, I'm not going to try to link to one or another.

• "when he would switch" → "at which point he would switch"
• "Chicago Tribune" should be italicized as the name of a publication
• Comma in "1000 feet" of "1000 feet above ground pressure level" for consistency
• "only of forty or fifty feet" → "of only 40 or 50 feet" for flow and per MOS:NUMERAL
• The last paragraph ends somewhat anticlimactically; we hear that the first officer hoped the airline would protest the report, so did that happen?

  I don't know. I've never been able to find anything. If it did, it might not have been reported, but no amended report was ever released by the CAB.

  All other items in this section are addressed. RecycledPixels (talk) 07:12, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Additional investigations

• Comma after "On February 6, 1959," per MOS:DATECOMMA
• "that if the LaGuardia runway had been equipped" → "that had the LaGuardia runway been equipped"
• "Midway airport" → "Midway Airport"

  Done. RecycledPixels (talk) 06:00, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

References

• When using Template:Rp for page numbers, you don't need to include "p." or "pp."
• When using Newspapers.com references, it would be nice to clip the page to just the article you're using so that those wanting to reference the information can easily find it
• Angel on the Wing doesn't look at first glance to be particularly reliable as a self-published book, but since it's a subject-matter expert (a crash survivor), I'm ok with it

  I have no idea why i used the "p" and "pp" in the {{rp}} template. I know it isn't needed. Thanks for the catch. As for the newspapers.com, it's something that I've had raised on the Pan Am Flight 7 FAC page. As I explained there, most of the larger articles don't snip well on the site, the text is so tiny that it's unreadable. The only time it's of any use is on the really short articles, (or obituaries, which is what that feature was most designed for). So providing snips of those few small articles isn't all that helpful. On my end, I literally use the screen snipping tool to cut and save the article as one or more image files on my computer so I can go back to refer to them, and some of those article snips take many images to save. Ultimately, the source was a printed newspaper, that happens to have a convenient web access as well, and I post the link for convenience for those who can access it. There are other ways to do it. As far as the book, I agree completely; and used it as a source only sparingly to describe the weather delays at departure, and her knowledge of the crew members. I've corrected the rp template, other issues in this section are done. RecycledPixels (talk) 05:58, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

General comments

• Image licensing looks good, checked against the original Flickr
• No stability concerns in the revision history
• Earwig score looks good, the high match is properly attributed public domain

Putting on hold for now. Please feel free to ping me with questions, and let me know when you're finished! — GhostRiver 20:30, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

@GhostRiver: Thank you for all the time you've spent taking a look at this, and for the improvements you have suggested. I have addressed your sections, let me know if you spot anything else or have any other questions. RecycledPixels (talk) 07:13, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for making those changes, and for your patience – a window fell on my hand the other day and I have some soft tissue damage. Everything looks good, the comments still not quite addressed are ones that are beyond you (i.e. "two hours after the accident" is per source). I would still recommend clipping the newspapers when possible. In either case, everything satisfies GA, so happy to pass! — GhostRiver 22:04, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Linking the final accident report

@RecycledPixels:

Hi! About this edit, I linked the accident report in the external links specifically to highlight the final report. I am aware that the report is cited in the list of references, but having to wade through a sea of references will turn off a lot of casual readers (especially readers who don't know how to use CTRL+F). The final accident report is the most important external link there is for a given aviation accident, and in my opinion it needs to be linked prominently.

What can be done, however, is make the citation just a page number, and under references (for a general list of books rather than the list of inline cites), include the full citation of the accident report. See Air_France_Flight_447#Works_cited and Japan_Air_Lines_Flight_123#Bibliography which show the final accident report prominently as a list of cited references.

WhisperToMe (talk) 12:30, 3 July 2023 (UTC)