Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Seems to be consensus to keep. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:00, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Uncited paragraphs, some of which have been tagged with "citation needed" since September 2020. Z1720 (talk) 19:24, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Z1720: Thanks, I was actually taking a look at this earlier before you nominated for GAR. I think it's unlikely that we are going to find the exact references used for many of these statements, for example:

The search and rescue (SAR) operation was code-named Operation Persistence and was launched immediately by Joint Rescue Coordination Centre Halifax (JRCC Halifax), which tasked the Air Command, Maritime Command and Land Force Command of the Canadian Forces (CF), Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) and Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary (CCGA) resources.

I can find quite a few sources for Operation Persistence, but they each reference different agencies, some of which aren't even listed above. I think some re-wording and copy-writing is appropriate for cases like these. FozzieHey (talk) 22:13, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Z1720: I've managed to cite Swissair Flight 111 § Safety recommendations and a sentence of Swissair Flight 111 § Search and recovery operation. I've managed to find a few other sources for the "Post-crash response" that I'll add to later. Aviationwikiflight (talk) 08:59, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Aviationwikiflight: The aircraft details are excessive, tending towards WP:CRUFT, in my opinion. Here is the key paragraph, with my suggested edits.

The aircraft involved was a seven-year-old McDonnell Douglas MD-11, with serial number 48448, and registered as HB-IWF. It was manufactured by McDonnell Douglas in 1991,[3]: 21  and Swissair was its only operator. It bore the title of Vaud, in honor of the Swiss canton of the same name. Until 1992, the aircraft bore the title Schaffhausen, after the canton of Schaffhausen and the town of the same name.

1. Serial number; as I have recently explained on my Talk page, the link to registration takes you specifically to a full article on aircraft registrations. In contrast, the link to serial number takes you to bank notes, firearms, smartphones, and military aircraft serials, none of which apply to this Swissair MD-11. WP:AIRMOS, and specifically WP:REGISTRATION make it clear that the preference is for the registration wherever possible, not both forms of identification.
2. Name; it barely matters that this aircraft was named Vaud; it certainly does not matter that it bore a different name before that. These aircraft fleet names are mere decoration, and not in the same league as "The Spirit of St Louis" or "Enola Gay".
3. Age; I am sure that the remaining words could be straightened out to bring seven-years-old and 1991 together in a concise manner, but that is just fine-tuning.

Hope this helps. WendlingCrusader (talk) 13:05, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the name of the aircraft, whilst I agree it is not the most relevant addition to the article, the name Vaud is included in the infobox. I've shortened the original phrase from It bore the title of Vaud, in honor of the Swiss canton of the same name to It bore the title of Vaud.^[1] (previously uncited). If not, I've addressed your points. The section now reads as:

The aircraft involved, manufactured in 1991, was a seven-year-old McDonnell Douglas MD-11 and registered as HB-IWF. The aircraft was powered by three Pratt & Whitney PW4462 turbofan engines and the aircraft had logged 36,041 airframe hours before the accident. It bore the title of Vaud. The cabin was configured with 241 passenger seats. First and business class seats were equipped with in-seat in-flight entertainment (IFE) systems from Interactive Flight Technologies. [...]

Aviationwikiflight (talk) 15:25, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Most excellent! (And yes, I reluctantly accept that Wikipedia quotes these fleet names in every case, but I'm not sure that was the original intention when the Infobox fields were set up; however it's way too late to argue that point) WendlingCrusader (talk) 20:35, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@FozzieHey, Aviationwikiflight, and WendlingCrusader: It looks like the entire article is now cited – are there any objections to closing this as keep? If anyone is looking to improve this further and needs access to Swiss sources, let me know and I'll get them for you. Toadspike [Talk] 08:56, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies, but I have just noticed that three time zones are referenced, two of them very similar in presentation, hence easily confused. As with most/all air crashes, UTC is provided as a datum. After that, we come to the real problem.

1. Firstly we have 20:18 EDT (00:18 UTC), local time at JFK at take-off.
2. The main text refers to ADT, which is a variation of AST, neither of which are particularly well-known. Indeed, the United States National Hurricane Center's official advisories typically report AST and UTC when tracking storms in the Caribbean that threaten the U.S., but acknowledge that this may confuse the mainland public not familiar with the time zone designation.

Meanwhile the article on the Atlantic Time Zone states that various Canadian provinces have differing legal or official positions, but generally observe AST in practice, so there is that to consider.

I came across a similar problem with a recent event, Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243, which took off in one time-zone, was (allegedly) hit my a missile in a second time zone, but then flew on to crash land in a third time zone. That was a bit of a nightmare too! In that case, once the edit-warring had settled down, in addition to the abbreviations AZT, MSK and AQTT, the names of each of the time zones were added in full, together with a separate table that listed everything together under one specific time zone.

The guidance on time zones MOS:TIMEZONE mentions the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as another classic example, with events encompassing the exact timing of the declaration of war (in Washington D.C.) versus the actual timing of the events in Hawaii. Perhaps you should consider how that article deals with the differences, in terms of the events in Washington being ranked incidental to the main action in Hawaii.

In this respect, I would identify the timing of the take off in New York as 20:18 (New York local time), linking it to EDT but avoiding using that specific acronym because of its similarity to ADT. The addition of UTC provides the necessary continuity.

(further apologies for rambling on at length)

WendlingCrusader (talk) 15:09, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think if we clarify what each time zone is relative to UTC (UTC-4 and UTC-3) we can expect the readers to do some of the math in their heads, rather than listing everything in two or three time zones. Only the first use and most important points need side-by-side conversions. In this article, that means nearly everything should be ADT alone, and after the first ADT time we don't need to put the letters "ADT" after each time. Toadspike [Talk] 21:41, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• I took an in-depth look at the references in a couple of small sections of this article, and made some small adjustments. I did leave a {{citation needed}} tag on the statement about the in-flight system being the first of its kind installed on the aircraft, since the attached source stated that the accident aircraft was the eighth MD-11 from Swissair alone that had the system installed, and doesn't include any sweeping statements about it being one-of-a-kind. That statement is probably safe to just remove if a citation isn't found for it. While I only looked at a couple sections, the spot check left me with the overall impression that the references are pretty accurately represented in the article, and don't leave me with any criteria 2b worries. RecycledPixels (talk) 20:34, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]