Talk:List of accidents and incidents involving military aircraft

Notable criteria

Like over at the corresponding list of Commercial incidents and accidents, I propose that the primary criteria for notability to be listed here is that the incident/accident be deemed notable enough to have its own wikipedia article. Agree? Disagree? Akradecki 22:13, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't mind seeing more entries added here for incidents that haven't had articles written for them yet. Maybe it would encourage the writing of new articles to cover some large gaps I'm seeing in the chronology, especially the earlier years. The earlier years also have a deficit in non-U.S. incidents, as well. - Itsfullofstars 08:26, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

The list criteria is somehow aweful, the canadian H-3 deck crash is listed whilest the two Royal Navy Awacs helicopters colission is missing , there are plenty of more examples. Jor70 14:28, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Add missing incidents as you see fit, even if they do not have articles for them (yet). What are the particulars about the AWACS collision, for example? I'm not familiar with it. - Itsfullofstars 02:24, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Maybe I'm being too cavalier in my "sure, why not?" attitude about adding incidents to the list that don't have articles yet. I just read for the first time the talk page for the corresponding list of Commercial incidents and accidents, and there's definitely controversy on what is notable enough to include. I was unaware of this. Although I still personally don't have a problem with seeing red-linked noteworthy incidents added to the list before there is an actual article, I've come to realize the definition of 'noteworthy' is not a simple matter to nail down. - Itsfullofstars 04:52, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Although I agree that the notability criteria should be the same as the civil list (and some of the entries already would not make that list !!). Restricting it to entries with articles would be a problem because military accidents are not covered in the same fervour as civil ones in Wikipedia. Might incourage us to write some !!. Should we start removing entries from this list before it gets to big to handle ? MilborneOne 12:51, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Why was the 15 July 1996 incident in Eindhoven (NL) removed while there is actualy a Wikipedia entry about this incident here: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herculesramp or are only incidents with US mil involvement notable enough ? Rhagman 15:47, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Just because there is a wikipedia entry does not make it notable - but I would agree that it is notable due to the loss of life, but we have to be carefull as there have been a lot of military aircraft losses over the last sixty years or so. I would suggest we need to define a set of guidelines we can work to. If you exclude aircraft on combat missions unless there was a high level of civilian loss that would remove a lot of candidates. MilborneOne 18:01, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree, and although I've only contributed one segment to this article, I'll take a stab at the criteria. My initial ideas:

• Accidents occuring outside the theatre of combat that result in a significant loss of civilians or military personnel who are not directly involved in the operation of the aircraft. For instance, a bomber that is hit by shrapnel while conducting a raid does not count; a transport full of paratroopers that strikes a hillside outside the combat zone does.
• Accidents that kill a significant number of people on the ground, again, outside the theatre of combat. Using the previous example, if the crippled bomber comes down in a populated area and kills civilians, it still does not count because the incident is directly combat-related.
• Accidents involving battle-damaged aircraft attempting to return to friendly areas may be included if the accident itself was caused by pilot error (such as a navigational mistake or a hard landing) or by a mechanical failure not directly related to the damage.
• Accidents that kill historically notable or famous people, military or civilian.
• Accidents that directly result in historically significant changes in military policy, strategy, or tactics. This could include accidents that result in a notable commander being demoted or transferred to other duties with significant historical impact. Such accidents need not be fatal or even particularly serious taken by themselves.
• Accidents that directly cause the cancellation and/or failure of a historically significant military operation that otherwise may have succeeded. The helicopter crash that scotched Operation Eagle Claw is a prime example. Again, using the above criteria, the accident must not be directly caused by combat damage.
• Accidents that garner an unusually large amount of media coverage, political controversy, and/or historical attention.
• Fatal accidents during public exhibitions.
• Accidents causing serious damage to a significant military asset that was not involved in air operations, or to a civil landmark. The B-25 that crashed into the Empire State Building is a perfect real-world example. A hypothetical example is a naval vessel being struck by an aircraft that was not attempting to land on it at the time.
• Midair collisions that kill more than 4 people (more than the crew of a pair of 2-person aircraft), excluding those that occur during a dogfight. I include these simply because they are so unusual.

These are my thoughts... feel free to critique or contribute. Carguychris 03:23, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Good work from Carguychris, nothing that I can see wrong with it as a starting point. MilborneOne 11:21, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

A few more ideas after further consideration...

• Causes for accidents may obviously include weather.
• Accidents involving prototypes may be included if other criteria are met. Not all prototype crashes should be included because the whole purpose of building prototypes is to test their limitations, which often involves crashing them; including every single prototype crash would needlessly clutter up the list. Good candidates for inclusion are the famous XB-70 crash, due to the airplane's historical significance, and the various V-22 Osprey crashes, due to the political controversy regarding the viability of the entire V-22 program.
• Accidents involving an attempted landing on a naval vessel may be included if the damage to the vessel is sufficient that it has leave the theatre of combat and miss a historically significant combat operation.
• Accidents resulting directly from a serious maintenance mistake, or from a serious inherent design flaw affecting an entire fleet of aircraft.
• Accidents that result in the capture or temporary or permanent loss of a nuclear weapon or a top-secret piece of military hardware. The hardware may be the aircraft itself, i.e. a "successful" forced landing resulting in an intact technologically advanced aircraft falling into enemy hands.
• Accidents that result in a historically notable or famous person being captured by the enemy.

That's it for now... Carguychris 17:03, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Possible Innaccuracy on deadliest disaster listing on Globemaster

NOTE: I have no sources to site, but I am hoping someone can locate a source and more accurate information: I remember hearing (I think on a discovery channel wings episode) that an ME 321 Gigant glider full of troops was involved in an accident using during a triple tow (probably three BF-110) where two of the three tow planes collided shortly after takeoff causing the loss of all 4 aircraft killing all aboard. I also seem to remember that this accident was the deadliest in aviation history until the Tenerife Disaster in 1977. Assuming a full load on the ME 321 of 130 troops and two crew plus the crews of the tow planes (probably at least 2 each) may have totalled as many as 138 dead. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 198.31.184.166 (talk) 19:59, 27 April 2007 (UTC).

The Dec. 20, 1952 Globemaster crash is cited as the deadliest in aviation history in an Associated Press article that ran in the Dallas Morning News on December 21, 1952. I assume that the same article ran in many other newspapers. The article says that the previous record holder was the March 13, 1950 Avro Tudor crash in Cardiff, Wales that claimed 80 lives. Although I do not know anything about the ME-321 crash, my guess is that its death toll could not be confirmed by sources available to newspaper writers in late 1952; given the fact that the C-124 crash occured only 7 years after World War II, it's possible that information about the ME-321 crash was classified at the time. I will add the word "confirmed" to the Moses Lake blurb. The statement can be removed if a solid source can be found for the ME-321 crash. Carguychris 02:24, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

On a whim, I looked up the newspaper article on the June 18, 1953 Tokyo C-124 crash, and the AP article claims that this crash surpassed the Moses Lake disaster as the deadliest in aviation history. I have added this claim to the article, with a "recorded" disclaimer. Carguychris 02:43, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Chuck Hansen's authoritative "The Arms of Armegeddon" which lists all publicly known nuclear accidents makes no mention of nuclear materials on the Moses Lake C-124 crash, so I must assume that it is either (a) not true, or (b) not currently verifiable, although I tend to lean towards (a). Mark Sublette (talk) 06:16, 22 July 2008 (UTC)Mark SubletteMark Sublette (talk) 06:16, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Black Hawks in Somalia

The two Black Hawks shot down with RPGs are listed under 1992, but I didn't bother moving it to 1993 (the correct year) since, by the above criteria, the incident does not even seem to belong here - they were shot down in combat (Battle of Mogadishu). Comments? Muad 04:59, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

You're right, this was not an accident, it was the result of enemy action. I have removed the incident from the main article. Carguychris 13:33, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if they were shot down or not. The page isn't exclusivly accidents, per the wording of the title. – Zntrip 05:33, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Before we start an edit war, the meaning of the word "incident” should be clarified as it relates to this list. Refer to aviation accidents and incidents for the following definition of an aviation incident: an occurrence other than an accident, associated with the operation of an aircraft, which affects or could affect the safety of operations. This page is intended as a mirror of the Wikipedia article list of notable accidents and incidents on commercial aircraft. It is not intended as a list of “incidents” as they are defined in international relations, i.e. diplomatic doublespeak for an outbreak of active hostilities between two opposing parties. In my humble opinion, including combat losses would cause the list to rapidly balloon to an unmanageable size and stray from its original intent. Military aircraft that crash as the result of enemy action deserve their own list. (I further suggest that the list should be broken down by conflict and/or decade to make it easier to manage.) However, I will wait for some consensus before re-deleting the 1993 Black Hawk incident.Carguychris 21:37, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I would support deleting them as per discussions earlier on this page, this is for notable accidents and incidents not for combat losses. I would agree that they could be in a separate list, but I suspect that would be unmanagable and probably most of them are not really notable. I wouldnt like to think how many combat losses they were in the first or second world wars!. Perhaps combat losses that have their own wikipedia articles (and therefore notable). MilborneOne 15:12, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Not all combat losses have to be added, only the “notable” ones. There are some accidents on this page that I don’t think are necessarily notable (the German aircraft that crashed in 2007 would be an example). Incidents like the Black Hawks in Mogadishu are notable even though they were caused by enemy fire. Why not have all notable incidents on this page? There is no list of military aircraft downed by enemy fire… so I think being inclusive in this list is the best thing here. – Zntrip 21:48, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

What constitutes a "notable" combat loss? This question is difficult to answer. Tens of thousands of aircraft have been lost during the history of aerial combat, and trying to determing which ones are "notable" would be a project of immense scope. While I agree that the 1993 Mogadishu Black Hawk shootdown is historically notable, the total length of such a list is potentially staggering if you include the World Wars. Furthermore, this list has a straightforward and specific topic- incidents and accidents. I agree that Wikipedia should be inclusive, but it's easy to create a new page.Carguychris 02:41, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Case in point: Aircraft losses of the Vietnam War. The article is quite long, despite the fact that North Vietnamese aircraft are not tabulated in great detail. Keep in mind that only a small number of aircraft were lost in Vietnam compared to World War II. Carguychris 02:49, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I still don’t understand. All notable military aircraft crashes, shoot downs or not, should be on this list. The “Black Hawk Down” incident is notable, others are not and they shouldn’t be added. A good qualification for notability is if the incident is mentioned in an other article. Since the “Black Hawk Down” is mentioned elsewhere it can be agreed on that it is notable. We could link to the Vietnam, Iraq, etc. lists under the “see also” section for those interested in more detailed lists. – Zntrip 03:34, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Keep in mind that anyone can create a Wikipedia article about anything at any time. Using the existence of another article as justification for "notability" is a circular argument because it's easy for a user to create the article in order to justify the incidents' inclusion in this list. Once again, including combat losses in this list could make it staggeringly huge and unmanageable- a hypothetical "List of notable Luftwaffe Combat Losses during 1943" would be huge and unmanageable in itself! Combat losses are outside the scope of this topic. In order to appease your desire to see the Mogadishu shootdowns listed somewhere, I have created a list of notable military air combat losses of the 1990s. Edit away. No hard feelings. Carguychris 16:44, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

That's good. No hard feelings here either. The only thing that I still have to say is that there should be a discription at the top of the list to destinguish accidents from combat losses. There should also be links to all these other articles. – Zntrip 00:12, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

We still have some combat losses in the article - did we come to a concensus on their inclusion or not? MilborneOne 18:03, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Reflist

There is something seriously wrong with the reflist after footnote 6, but I am not sure that I know enough after the footnote formatting to go about fixing it. Anyone? Mark Sublette (talk) 05:27, 22 May 2008 (UTC)Mark SubletteMark Sublette (talk) 05:27, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks like this has been fixed DPM 18:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Green Ramp Disaster

I think should be included. There were many fatalities. I could do it but I don't particularly want to. DPM 18:32, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Format

The first three images, left justified, do not work at all. They

cause

successive

years to indent

which is very ugly indeed. Suggest you __NOTOC__ the page since users can easily enough scroll down to find new dates; and right justify the images. In other news, fwiw, I think the list would be best in reverse date order, most recent first. Thus new content would always be on top. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:31, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanx for the input. I have a FIOS high-speed connexion and I was unaware of the download difficulty. I have moved the three offending pix to the right. Mark Sublette (talk) 07:02, 24 July 2008 (UTC)Mark SubletteMark Sublette (talk) 07:02, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

As for reversing the order of dates, I have just been using the format that was originally established for the article, and am not really game for trying to flip the entire project. If someone else wants to undertake such a mission, I have no personal difficulty with it, but, historically speaking, I prefer the chronological order. Mark Sublette (talk) 07:11, 24 July 2008 (UTC)Mark SubletteMark Sublette (talk) 07:11, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Bot report : Found duplicate references !

In the last revision I edited, I found duplicate named references, i.e. references sharing the same name, but not having the same content. Please check them, as I am not able to fix them automatically :)

• "Mueller" :
  • Mueller, Robert, "Air Force Bases Volume 1: Active Air Force Bases Within the United States of America on 17 September 1982", United States Air Force Historical Research Center, Office of Air Force History, Washington, D.C., 1989, ISBN 0-912799-53-6, page 237.
  • Mueller, Robert, "Air Force Bases Volume 1: Active Air Force Bases Within the United States of America on 17 September 1982", United States Air Force Historical Research Center, Office of Air Force History, Washington, D.C., 1989, ISBN 0-912799-53-6, page 227.
  • Mueller, Robert, "Air Force Bases Volume 1: Active Air Force Bases Within the United States of America on 17 September 1982", United States Air Force Historical Research Center, Office of Air Force History, Washington, D.C., 1989, ISBN 0-912799-53-6, page 123.
  • Mueller, Robert, "Air Force Bases Volume 1: Active Air Force Bases Within the United States of America on 17 September 1982", United States Air Force Historical Research Center, Office of Air Force History, Washington, D.C., 1989, ISBN 0-912799-53-6, page 245.
  • Mueller, Robert, "Air Force Bases Volume 1: Active Air Force Bases Within the United States of America on 17 September 1982", United States Air Force Historical Research Center, Office of Air Force History, Washington, D.C., 1989, ISBN 0-912799-53-6, page 397.
  • Mueller, Robert, "Air Force Bases Volume 1: Active Air Force Bases Within the United States of America on 17 September 1982", United States Air Force Historical Research Center, Office of Air Force History, Washington, D.C., 1989, ISBN 0-912799-53-6, page 391.
  • Mueller, Robert, "Air Force Bases Volume 1: Active Air Force Bases Within the United States of America on 17 September 1982", United States Air Force Historical Research Center, Office of Air Force History, Washington, D.C., 1989, ISBN 0-912799-53-6, page 5.
  • Mueller, Robert, "Air Force Bases Volume 1: Active Air Force Bases Within the United States of America on 17 September 1982", United States Air Force Historical Research Center, Office of Air Force History, Washington, D.C., 1989, ISBN 0-912799-53-6, page 97.
  • Mueller, Robert, "Air Force Bases Volume 1: Active Air Force Bases Within the United States of America on 17 September 1982", United States Air Force Historical Research Center, Office of Air Force History, Washington, D.C., 1989, ISBN 0-912799-53-6, page 15.
• "Maurer" :
  • Maurer Maurer, "Aviation in the U.S. Army, 1919-1939", United States Air Force Historical Research Center, Office of Air Force History, Washington, D.C., 1987, ISBN 0-912799-38-2, page 163.
  • Maurer Maurer, "Aviation in the U.S. Army, 1919-1939", United States Air Force Historical Research Center, Office of Air Force History, Washington, D.C., 1987, ISBN 0-912799-38-2, page 174.
• "Willis" :
  • Willis, David, "''Martin B-57: The American Canberra''", International Air Power Review, Volume 21, AIRtime Publishing Inc., Westport, Connecticut, 2006, ISBN 1473-9917, page 125.
  • Willis, David, "''Martin B-57: The American Canberra''", International Air Power Review, Volume 21, AIRtime Publishing Inc., Westport, Connecticut, 2006, ISBN 1473-9917, page 126.
• "Lake" :
  • Lake, Jon, "''P-47 Thunderbolt Part 1: Early development and combat in the ETO''", International Air Power Review, Volume 1, AIRtime Publishing Inc., Westport, Connecticut, Summer 2001, ISBN 1473-9917, page 143.
  • Lake, Jon, "''P-47 Thunderbolt Part 1: Early development and combat in the ETO''", International Air Power Review, Volume 1, AIRtime Publishing Inc., Westport, Connecticut, Summer 2001, ISBN 1473-9917, page 144.
  • Lake, Jon, editor, "Grumman F-14 Tomcat", AIRtime Publishing Inc., Westport, Connecticut, 1998, ISBN 1-880588-13-7, page 16.
  • Lake, Jon, editor, "Grumman F-14 Tomcat", AIRtime Publishing Inc., Westport, Connecticut, 1998, ISBN 1-880588-13-7, page 18.
• "Bodie" :
  • Bodie, Warren M. "The Lockheed P-38 Lightning". Hayesville, North Carolina.: Widewing Publications, 1991, ISBN 0-9629359-5-6, pages 72-74.
  • Bodie, Warren M. "The Lockheed P-38 Lightning". Hayesville, North Carolina.: Widewing Publications, 1991, ISBN 0-9629359-5-6, pages 33-42.
  • Bodie, Warren M. "The Lockheed P-38 Lightning". Hayesville, North Carolina.: Widewing Publications, 1991, ISBN 0-9629359-5-6, pages 166-167.
• "Vaeth" :
  • Vaeth, J. Gordon, "They Sailed the Skies: U.S. Navy Balloons and the Airship Program", Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 2005, ISBN 1-59114-914-2, page 101.
  • Vaeth, J. Gordon, "They Sailed the Skies: U.S. Navy Balloons and the Airship Program", Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 2005, ISBN 1-59114-914-2, pages 32-33.
  • Vaeth, J. Gordon, "They Sailed the Skies: U.S. Navy Balloons and the Airship Program", Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 2005, ISBN 1-59114-914-2, page 132.
  • Vaeth, J. Gordon, "They Sailed the Skies: U.S. Navy Balloons and the Airship Program", Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 2005, ISBN 1-59114-914-2, page 128.
  • Vaeth, J. Gordon, "They Sailed the Skies: U.S. Navy Balloons and the Airship Program", Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 2005, ISBN 1-59114-914-2, page 125.
  • Vaeth, J. Gordon, "They Sailed the Skies: U.S. Navy Balloons and the Airship Program", Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 2005, ISBN 1-59114-914-2, page 17-18.
  • Vaeth, J. Gordon, "They Sailed the Skies: U.S. Navy Balloons and the Airship Program", Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 2005, ISBN 1-59114-914-2, page 96.
  • Vaeth, J. Gordon, "They Sailed the Skies: U.S. Navy Balloons and the Airship Program", Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 2005, ISBN 1-59114-914-2, page 112.
  • Vaeth, J. Gordon, "They Sailed the Skies: U.S. Navy Balloons and the Airship Program", Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 2005, ISBN 1-59114-914-2, pages 22-23.
  • Vaeth, J. Gordon, "They Sailed the Skies: U.S. Navy Balloons and the Airship Program", Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 2005, ISBN 1-59114-914-2, page 13.
  • Vaeth, J. Gordon, "They Sailed the Skies: U.S. Navy Balloons and the Airship Program", Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 2005, ISBN 1-59114-914-2, pages 95-96.

DumZiBoT (talk) 23:27, 11 August 2008 (UTC)