Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Peer review/Air France Flight 447

Air France Flight 447

This article is very long. My opinion is that it is a very well-written article. With some tweaking (including reorganization, copyediting, expansion, etc), I believe that this article can become an excellent good article candidate. I would like an uninvolved opinion on how this article can be improved further. HeyMid (contribs) 16:15, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

SteveStrummer

I like this article very much: it's lush with detail and annotation, very nicely done! My modest advice would be to trim the lede section down to a summary level. The three middle paragraphs could be summarized briefly in one, and the info incorporated into the body of the article. On the other hand, the final section ("Media") could be expanded: its two current entries seem unbalanced and not strongly connected. I would suggest converting the bulleted list to concise prose, adding more media topics, and perhaps even spinning off the BBC documentary into a subsection. Good job, SteveStrummer (talk) 22:25, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Mukkakukaku

While I do a lot of work on commercial aviation accidents, I haven't actually worked on this specific article. (My purview is mostly the US.) I suppose I'm about as uninvolved as you can get without not being involved in accidents at all.

You're right, this article is much longer than a standard GA candidate. Then again it hasn't even passed B-class review. I sincerely apologize in advance for the sheer length and nit-pickiness of this review, but in my defense, the article is rather long.

Lead

• The lead should summarize, not introduce new material. Therefore it should not include any references. See WP:LEAD. The GA reviewers love to harp on this.
• Sentences switch between tenses frequently, even within the same paragraph. Ex: "The investigation ... is hampered....", "[t]he search was called off....", and so on.
• Overall, the lead is extremely long and could be pared down some. Of course, the article itself is very long, which means that a good executive summary might need to be longer than usual, but frankly the lead as it is seems to be much too in-depth for some parts (timeline of investigation/search/rescue) and neglects other parts (results of investigation along the lines of legislation, Airworthiness Directives, and so on.)

Aircraft

• Could probably be expanded with information about the pilots and crew — who they were, how many of them were there, and so on.
• This paragraph is extremely dense and seems to overuse the {{convert}} template.

Disappearance

• The originating airport should be wikilinked.

Subsection: Automated messages

• Dates need to have the year. Ex. "An Air France spokesman stated on 3 June 2009...."
• Paragraph 3, which talks about the pitot-static system mentions TCAS. This is the first (and only) appearance of that acronym in the article and it should be spelled out -- Traffic Collision Avoidance System.
• Paragraph 3, mentioned previously, includes a lot of technical jargon that is wikilinked. While it is linked, which is good, it does not at the least mention what any of it means. For example, I have no idea what it means that flight mode switched from normal law to alternate law. I'm sure that if I followed the wikilinks I'd learn, but I should be able to at least understand the gist of it from this article.
  • Addendum: One way to fix the jargon issue would be to indicate what the different subsystems are when they are mentioned. For example, consider the sentence: "Among the ACARS transmissions in the first minute is one message that indicates a fault in the pitot-static system (code 34111506)." One rewrite might read as follows: "Among the ACARS transmissions in the first minute is a message indicating a fault in the pitot-static system, which determines the aircraft's airspeed, Mach number, altitude, and altitude trend." (Yes, I just took the first sentence from the pitot-static system article and used it as an appositive.)
• Paragraph 4, which starts "The remainder of the messages....", contains a lot of information but I ended up thinking, "So what?" A bunch of fault messages were sent, they are described vaguely in the article, and the section ends. What does it mean? I remember reading somewhere else that there was a lot of contention about exactly what some of the messages meant; if I'm not misremembering a different incident, that might be worth including in this section. (Or, at the very least, making it a bit more clear what these "fault" messages mean.)

Subsection: Weather conditions

• For the most part, this section is ok. Except the last sentence, which has absolutely nothing to do with anything else mentioned in that section. I speak of "According to news sources, 12 other flights shared more or less the same route that Flight 447 was using at the time of the accident." This has nothing to do with weather, and should probably be moved elsewhere, possibly Investigation. Also "more or less" is vague and unencyclopedic; try "approximately".

Search and recovery

• This section needs an introduction, and shouldn't just leap into a sub-section. An introduction might include information about what organizations and countries were involved in the search, when the search started, when the search was called off, how many searches there were, if a search was ongoing, how much was actually recovered (bodies, luggage, detritus, etc.) Just basic overview of the subsequent subsections.

Subsection: Search effort

• Once again, dates need years.
• Did the Brazilian Air Force immediately begin their search, at 2:20 UTC on June 1st? Or did they begin later? Ambiguous.
• There's a lot of mention of facts like "Ship A arrived on this date, ship B arrived on this date," and so on, but there's little mention of what those ships actually did, how long they stayed. Tons of ships are involved in search and rescue operations like this; there's no need to mention all of them. Even "notable" ships with articles on Wikipedia need to be mentioned unless they actually make some meaningful contribution. For example, the Caboclo.
• Should probably mention some high level statistics. How many countries, how many ships, how many people, how many planes, how long, how wide an area, and so on. I noticed that the plane disappeared in or near Senegalese air space, but no Senegalese vessels of any kind are mentioned in search efforts. Did they not participate?
• Overlinking: Fernando de Noronha, Air France (previously linked).

Subsection: Search results

• The first two sentences don't seem too be too NPOV to me; consider using the formula "on June 4 the air force announced it had recovered some debris, but the statement was retracted on June 5."
• The dates are funny too on the first two sentences -- June 4 debris "claimed" to be found, June 5 debris found on June 2 is not relevant; ok, so what about the debris on June 4?
• Frankly the first paragraph has no business being the first paragraph. This section needs a good leading paragraph to introduce the search results.
• Avoid the passive voice in the second paragraph. "...it was reported that the Brazilian Air Force had located ..." Reported by who? Better: "... the Brazilian Air Force reported locating ..."
• Why was the debris reportedly found? Was it found or not? If there is any doubt, we need a citation.
• Of the 50 bodies found by 17 June, 49 had been transported to shore. What happened to the last one? This is immediately followed by the sentence "Another body was recovered on 16 June". Is that body from 16 June included in the 17 June number? Or was it 51 by 17 June?
• The 26 June announcement that the body search was finished needs a citation (last sentence, paragraph 5).
• The image is a a color bathymetry relief map of the relevant section of ocean floor, but it is never referenced in the section. Where did this map come from? The note linked from the caption talks about the types of bathymetry used to make this map, but not who made the map. Was it made by a ship involved in the search efforts? Is that why this picture is here? Frankly it seems like way too much emphasis is made on this image and its ambiguous origins rather than the actual image of the recovered stabilizer further down the page.
• Frankly this entire section is a mess. There paragraphs of information with little to no common thread between them. Every announcement is not important.
• Overlinking: Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago, Constituição, Bosísio, Fernando de Noronha (all linked in previous subsection)
• And just a personal peeve: "In November 2010, French officials announced that a fourth search would start in February 2011, using the most sophisticated technology currently available." What were they using previously? substandard technology? (Not really something that needs to be changed; it just seems a poor choice of words.)

Investigation

• This section should, at the least, open with information about who is investigating. What agencies, what countries, and when did these investigations start. It definitely needs an introductory paragraph.
• The sentence stating that the pitot probes are suspected to have contributed to the crash needs a reference.
• The bullet points must' go away. Especially since the sentence says that the French government has started two investigations, and yet there are three bullets. With sub bullets. Really. This is an encyclopedic article, not random data in list form.
• There is a BEA press release quoted in its entirety. I'm not too sure of copyrights related to French government documents, since I'm from the US myself, but this smacks of WP:COPYVIO.
• "The main task currently occupying the investigators ..." Which investigators? The article just finished telling us there are three different French government agencies investigating. Also, this sentence is in present tense, which indicates that this is still the main task of these mystery investigators. I don't know if this is the case, but even so it looks like a good place for WP:AO.
• Some tense switching is evident in this section (present tense/past tense.) The majority of the rest of the article is in past tense, so this section should be changed to comply.
• The list showing the BEA findings could just as easily be written in paragraph form. Frankly, by the looks of it, it used to be in paragraph form and somebody just inserted bullets. I'm not sure which would be better, but this article already has a serious problem with misusing lists.

Airspeed inconsistency

• The wikilink on F-GZCP is a self-reference to a previous section and must be removed. (self reference)
• This section uses a lot of technical terminology and expect the reader to be somewhat familiar with the pivot-pitot system. As I mentioned previously, the casual reader cannot be expected to already know this, and should not have to wander off to another article entirely to learn what is going on, so some overview must be provided in this section of what, say, pitot probes are before haring off to talk about similar incidents involving malfunctioning pitot probes.
• ADIRS is mentioned in this section without ever explaining what the acronym stands for (Air Data Inertial Reference Unit). Since the acronym is never used again in the article, it should only be mentioned by full name here.
• More issues with tenses here. Ex. "The NTSB is investigating....", whereas the rest is past tense.
• This section has a lot of quotations from people that could just as well be summarized.
• Mr. Arslanian is mentioned so many times by name or by quotation it's distracting. Three times within five paragraphs is a bit much. The section is running the risk of violating NPOV.
• "Three similar reports are on file at the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), with two incidents relating to Airbus A330s with flight computer problems, plus one which involved a Boeing 777." The reference of this sentence is a ATSB report from 2008, which makes me think this sentence is original research. The accompanying note, which lists other flights, has no reference, which seems to support this original research hypothesis.
• "In July 2009, Airbus once again advised A330 and A340 operators to change the old Thales pitot probes to newer Goodrich ones." This is the first time the manufacturers of the "faulty" pitot probes are ever mentioned. If they are "once again" advising, then Airbus must have previously advised, so the article should have mentioned this previously.
• Need links: European Aviation Safety Agency, FAA, Airworthiness Directive, Goodrich,

Passengers and crew

• Frankly that chart is an eyesore. Every country should have its own row and be listed alphabetically. Consider the chart in Pan Am Flight 103, section Victims. This will allow the chart to be sortable. And it will be neater in the long run. Done. Mûĸĸâĸûĸâĸû (blah?) 12:25, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
• Crew information should probably be mentioned earlier. I think I mentioned this in the Aircraft section above. This way, when they start talking about the pilot by name in the Search section, readers will already have been introduced and know who he is and so on.
• This is not the place to talk about compensation, but I have no idea where else to place it.

Subsection: Notable passengers

• Generally these "notable" sections get a lot of grief, because people start asking what makes this fellow notable but not another fellow. Sometimes it's better to just incorporate these sections into the general fatalities section, but this listing seems to be pretty well thought out.
• Generally speaking, however, a person who is not notable does not have their own Wikipedia biography. So it is therefore generally accepted that unless a person is notable enough to merit such a biography, they are not notable enough to be listed as a "notable" passenger. Keeping this in mind, Mr. Anastacio of Michelin and Ms. Walls need to be removed from the listing.
• Some overlinking -- Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro.

Flight number

• It is something of standard operating procedure to change the designation of flights involved in deadly accidents. The fact that it was changed is minor and does not require its own section; the sentence saying that the particular route is now served by Flight 445 can be added to another section, perhaps Aircraft.
• The incident involving the later AF445 flight encountering heavy turbulence and invoking a mayday in the same area that AF447 disappeared is completely in the wrong place. It should, at the least, be moved to the Investigation section. And unless the references specifically make the comparison that 447 disappeared in the vicinity of the severe turbulence, and unless the references themselves actually make the parallel between the flights, the entire incident mention should be removed.
• The changes above make the entire section empty, so it can be removed.

Media

• This smacks of trivia, which should be avoided. (WP:TRIVIA). The bullet-list format does not help matters.
• Frankly this section doesn't even give an overall depiction of media coverage of the event, but rather two documentary/speculation-type shows about the crash. Needs to be either significantly expanded or removed altogether.

See also

• This seems to list a series of (seemingly arbitrary) flights. I say this because I have not followed the links; the listing should be updated to include why the reader should also see this other article. Something along the lines of "Some Airline Flight 9, a similar A330 crash in Some Place, Somewhere on December 1, 1999."

References

• The references need some severe consolidation. For example, this same reference "INFORMATION ON SEARCHES OF THE AIR FRANCE FLIGHT 447". Brazilian Ministry of Defense. 2009-06-10. Retrieved 2009-06-12. seems to be linked four or five separate times.
• There are 10 dead linked references.

External links

• Press releases need better formatting. Title, date issued, language.
• Frankly, external links should be formatted like references. Each listing needs to include who published it, the title, the author, and the publish date (if known).
• The footer templates of "lists relating to aviation" and "lists of aviation accidents and incidents" are not appropriate. This is an article, not a list.

Conclusions
Frankly, this article is a mess, and I say this in the nicest way possible because it is obvious a lot of research went into it. Unfortunately the search and investigation sections look like a mishmash of dates and names. Reading it through the first time, my first thought was, "Did someone just set up a news alert on some international press website and just add information piecemeal as it was reported?"

This problem is especially prevalent in the search section, which frankly reads like a textual timeline. I'm not entirely sure that splitting the section into "efforts" and "results" subsections was the best move; I had a hard time keeping track of who arrived when, from where, and did what. A better alternative might be to split the Search section into sections based on the actual recovery phases -- for example, "Body recovery" and "Flight data recovery."

Also there is a serious problem in this article of overuse or misuse of the {{convert}} template. This template is used when it is necessary to give equivalent measures in another measurement system, for example: 12 feet (3.7 m). In a given article, its use should be consistent. So if you're giving areas in nautical miles and providing the equivalent in square kilometers, you shouldn't have some areas in nautical miles with equivalent square miles and square kilometers. And so on. This template can very easily make an article or section very, very messy, such as the Aircraft section in this article.

If you're really serious about working this article up to GA standards, I have to caution you that this is a momentous task and, by the looks of the talk page (and its archives) you're not going to have an easy time of it. You may want to consider finding a related WikiProject who has an active "Article of the Week/Month" improvement drive and suggesting this as a candidate, because this is, well, crazy big.

Either way, good luck. And if you'd like a second opinion after fixing it up some, do leave me a note on my talk page and I'll do a re-review. (For clarity's sake, however, you might want to consider responding, if you do respond, in a subsequent reply so that my already-messy review doesn't become unreadable.) --Mûĸĸâĸûĸâĸû (blah?) 03:07, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Addendum: Link checks

• The link check tools have revealed the following problems:
  • The link to Counterpunch is a disambiguation link and needs to be properly forwarded.
  • The link to Juliana de Aquino redirects back to Air France Flight 447 and is therefore a circular self-reference.
  • The link on the airbus.com site called "Air France Flight AF 447" is dead.
  • The link on marinebuzz.com called "Black Box: Locating Flight Recorder of Air France Flight 447 in Atlantic Ocean" errors out.
  • Plus a lot more dead links. See tool results (takes long to load).
• Also consider the results of the Automated Peer Reviewer Tool

-- Mûĸĸâĸûĸâĸû (blah?) 03:21, 12 January 2011 (UTC)