Talk:Turkish Airlines Flight 1951

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altimeter[edit]

It has been confirmed that altimeter had some problem,due to which crash occurred.User:Yousaf465 (talk)

Already added to the investigation section. Your term "due to which" is too strong, though it certainly reads as having contributed it is too early to say if crew response could have avoided the accident.LeadSongDog (talk) 17:42, 4 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There are at least five altimeters in the cockpit, so any discussion about a faulty one should leave no doubt as to which one is being referenced. Had the crew responded promptly, when the thrust was automatically reduced to idle and the speed of the plane was beginning to decay below Vref, then indeed the crash would have been prevented. That is a no-brain-required conclusion. However, I do agree that it is premature to say the crew should be blamed, in the article page----at this time. We need a lot more information from the investigation, as to why the crew failed to observe the decay in power and speed, or if they did observe it, why they failed to promptly respond. It looks like "human factors" and "human interface with automation" will be a significant part of the discussion in the final accident report. This has the same smell about it, that came out of the investigations into at least three final approach Airbus Crashes (Air France A-320, June 26, 1988; Indian Airlines, Feb 14, 1990; and Air Inter A-320, on January 20, 1992.) EditorASC (talk) 15:46, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I heard the blame was placed on the pilots for not noticing the retard setting, but isn't it a bit peculiar the onboard systems still follow just the one (pilot side radio altimeter) even though there had to be a big discrepancy between this altimeter and the 4(?) other ones. Not even a warning the reading may be inaccurate? Tkteun (talk) 22:38, 14 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
See the final report of the investigation, as cited in the article. LeadSongDog come howl! 03:43, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Labor union dispute[edit]

Is there a source which claims there is evidence that the labor union dispute was a reason for the crash? If not, we should consider removing the section per WP:SYNTH, or at reduce it to a fraction of its current size. In my opinion, labor unions are not a credible source in matters like these. They are always making negative comments about the employers. In any case, I don't think this deservers its own subsection as long as there is no evidence for the claims. Offliner (talk) 09:19, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed the labour/labor dispute and some other speculative bits that have been recently added. Article is not the place for various groups to air pet theories and blame others. We can wait for the investigation to report. MilborneOne (talk) 19:34, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, that the comments about the labor union dispute should never have been put in at all. Whoever put it in, originally did so under the section entitled "Background." I protested those statements being included in the "Background" section:
"On February 18th, one week before the crash, the Turkish Civil Aviation Union accused the airline of "inviting disaster", by "ignoring the most basic function of flight safety, which is plane maintenance services". "The company administration does not understand the consequences of ripping people from their jobs and inviting a disaster" they added.[4]
In response to these accusations, Turkish Airlines issued a statement saying it takes safety seriously and that it followed all "maintenance procedures of the plane manufacturer, national and international authorities directives" for the plane.[4]
According to Turkish Airlines, two days before the accident the pilot of this plane reported a failure with the "Master Caution Light" while taxiing. The part was replaced by the maintenance team and the aircraft had eight take-offs and landings without any problems, until the accident occurred."[4]
With all the warnings that we are not to speculate about the cause of the crash, why are such statements permitted in the main article? Clearly, they are political allegations as to Airline policies being the cause of this crash, without a shred of evidence to support such wild allegations. The mention of a previous repair of a Master Caution light is not relevant to anything. It seems it has been put there to leave the impression that the Airline management was somehow cutting safety corners. EditorASC (talk) 05:57, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

The only response was someone putting in a subsection, labeled "Maintenance History." I then responded by changing that sub-label to "Labor Union Dispute," since that is what the original statements really amounted to:

I changed the sub-label of "Maintenance History" to "Labor Union Dispute," because that is what the information in that subsection was really about. I have no problem with having a REAL "Maintenance History" somewhere in the article, if it is filled with objective data about the actual maintenance history of that particular aircraft. But, posting wild political allegations of a labor union against management, during an ugly contract dispute, and calling it "maintenance history," amounts to pure fiction and doing so turns Wiki into a spam propaganda forum for an angry labor union. EditorASC (talk) 14:03, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, glad to see that finally brought some attention to that mis-labeled, political propaganda section, which shouldn't have been there at all. EditorASC (talk) 14:07, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"highest number of hours in the world on an F-4E" claim[edit]

I couldn't find such a thing as "highest number of hours in the world on an F-4E" on the website it is referenced from, [1] it should be deleted Esper (talk) 23:19, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agree but it wasnt really notable to the accident, removed. MilborneOne (talk) 23:24, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
His hours were listed at this Turkish article and others. Not sure about the claim for the record though.LeadSongDog (talk) 04:26, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WN article[edit]

I've again removed the link to the WN article the headline of which attributes a finding of pilot error. While WN standards for original research may accept editors drawing that conclusion, WP standards do not.LeadSongDog (talk) 03:39, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

However, WP has WP:SISTER, which supports adding sister project links where possible. As I responded on the talk page, the OR was more to illustrate the culture clash; I maintain that everything in the article is sourced properly. I did, in fact, avoid using a quote from one news aviation analysist (from ABC) who said "You can hear it, and you can feel it. It's rather astounding that this crew was so fixated on running a check list or whatever else they were doing that they did not pick this up. They were not aware of it. The actions of the crew here bespeak a cockpit culture, at least at this point, that really is substandard with what we know of how to get a good result out of every single landing." If he can say that, which I think is pretty harsh considering we don't yet have any indication why the mistake was made, I think the words 'pilot error' are perfectly acceptable. The link I don't think should be there is Engine failure may have been factor in Amsterdam plane crash; speculation from reputable sources can be carried in the news, but WP mostly has little or no need of it. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 11:29, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
News articles from reputable sources attributing the crash to pilot error (ask me if you do need more):
  • ABC News: [2]:(link from User:Blood Red Sandman above)
  • Times Online: [3]:(Turkish Airlines pilots ignored faulty altimeter before Amsterdam crash)
  • Elsevier.nl (in Dutch): [4] (Translated: Pilots Turkish Airlines were not paying attention)
  • Trouw (in Dutch): [5] (Translated: Pilots Turkish Airlines acted too late)
  • De Morgen (in Dutch): [6] (Translated: Pilots Turkish Airlines made big errors prior to Schiphol crash)
These are all perfectly fine secondary sources, all quoting the research report as a primary source. There are many more. I think mentioning the possiblity of pilot error is, given all these sources, perfectly acceptable. --Reinoutr (talk) 10:47, 9 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Aside from the technicality that "Pilot error" is an obsolete finding (no longer produced in modern investigations) is the basic error: the investigation did not yet make the finding the headline claims. For all we know at this point they may have correctly followed a defective procedure. To be absolutely clear, I too fully expect that the eventual finding will come close to saying the pilots botched the job, but it has not yet done so and it is wrong to attribute to the board something that comes from a collection of pundits trying to read the tealeaves. LeadSongDog (talk) 12:38, 9 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Drawing that conclusion by simply ignoring these reports is as much original research as mentioning pilot error as definitive fact. I suggest to include something along the lines of the following:
"Based on the preliminary report and it presentation by van Vollenhoven, the media have speculated that errors made by the pilots during the landing might have contributed to the cause of the accident [insert a few refs].".
But, its open for suggestings and tweaking. --Reinoutr (talk) 13:54, 9 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That would certainly be less of a problem. I'd even be fine with saying something like "After release of the 4 March preliminary report, press observers (including WikiNews) concluded that pilot inattention caused the accident, though several Turkish news publications continued to blame the air traffic controllers." Of course with suitable referencing. Just so that we don't misrepresent it as being the content of the official report.LeadSongDog (talk) 14:29, 9 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I like LeadSongDog's wording, though I would either list more examples than just Wikinews, or simply not mention specific examples in the article text and leave it for the refs alone to handle. Do we have a consensus? Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 17:18, 9 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I am fine with that wording, although I would not specifically name Wikinews in this case. Just include it as one of the references for the first statement (together with a few of the ones I mentioned above). Can you supply references for the second statement? --Reinoutr (talk) 18:30, 9 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Glad we could find a way ahead. How about these sources for the latter point: [7] [8] [9]LeadSongDog (talk) 18:40, 9 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A suggestion then (references to be finalized later): After release of the 4 March preliminary report, Dutch [10][11] and international press [12][13][14] concluded that pilot inattention caused the accident, though several Turkish news publications still emphasized other possible causes[15] [16] [17]. Any comments? --Reinoutr (talk) 21:44, 9 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good, except I'm not sure treating ABC as International is exactly right. Boeing is still mainly a US firm, though it seems a pretty balanced treatment.LeadSongDog (talk) 22:17, 9 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Done, but I left out the expatica reference, which was actually a story from before the report was released. --Reinoutr (talk) 07:59, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
press concluded that pilot inattention caused the accident, though several Turkish news publications still emphasized other possible causes. We don't need opinions here - just state the facts and the reader can form their own opinion. As usual, it was a series of factors which caused the crash not one single one. 84.9.32.6 (talk) 00:51, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Nonsense, we report what seconday sources report, not our own reading of a primary source. I am readding that information. --Reinoutr (talk) 20:23, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh dear. You have made a real mess of the section now - loads of information is now duplicated and it repeats itself. I suggest that you revert the edits you just made. An opinion of secondary sources should NOT be included here - it breaks Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view, let's just stick to the facts. Many of these opinions have a bias towards an American manufacturer or Turkish national pride. The report is freely available and quite clear about what happened. Quoting it in the article isn't our "own reading" of the report - it's a DIRECT QUOTE which has much more value than an opionion by some secondary source. 84.9.35.85 (talk) 23:34, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh dear. You removed much more than the sections that were duplicated, I readded the information that was not duplicate. And no, the direct quotes from the primary sources are not clear at all to people who know nothing about airplanes, which is in general why primary sources can be problematic and why we choose for secondary sources instead. And since you seem to like policy, this is what I am referring to: Wikipedia:No original research (quote: "Wikipedia articles should rely mainly on published reliable secondary sources"). --Reinoutr (talk) 09:59, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Investigation[edit]

I've tried to read this sentence about ten times, but I couldn't comprehend it: "While on final approach for landing, the aircraft was reported to be "fast and high on the glideslope", and at about 2,000ft (610m) above ground. The throttles were pulled to idle thrust while fast and high, and the autothrottle reverted to "retard" mode." Like most of the readers, I don't know anything abour aircraft jargon. What does this mean? Did the plane suddenly slow down? Did the autopilot hit the brakes? Aecis·(away) talk 23:00, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The glide slope is I believe the optimum path for a descent to a runway, so the inference would seem to be it was coming in too high too fast. Other than that, yes, I have no clue what is being said here. MickMacNee (talk) 23:05, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's pretty close. If I've got it right it goes like this: An aircraft in the middle of the glide slope (it's an acceptable range, in this case centred on a 3 degree angle from 2000 ft on to touchdown) has the ideal amount of energy (speed and altitude) for a good landing. The slope is marked on the navigation charts for each airport. You can see this chart at this site if you scroll way down. Because the aircraft was higher than the ideal position and moving too fast it needed to slow down while descending( a little steeper than usual) to get into the centre of the glide slope range. The autothrottle would normally react to this situation by reducing thrust to minimum (called retard mode) so that aerodynamic drag could slow the aircraft. This happened as expected. It would normally be an unremarkable adjustment, except that it was one of the last in the sequence of normal events prior to the altimeter malfunction. LeadSongDog (talk) 03:16, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, retard mode is only for the last moment of a fully automated landing, and would set the autothrottle back to idle after the pilot releases the throttle for a moment of added thrust. What is described above (where the plane would need to slow down and increase descent rate), would just be an idle setting. Rysz (talk) 15:30, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
So (just for clarity) "retard mode" means "automatically return to idle when manual throttle inputs cease overriding the autothrottle"? Can we quote a line from a manual?LeadSongDog (talk) 16:24, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, those statements are not accurate. The AT retard mode is supposed to activate only when the plane goes into the landing flare mode. During an autoland approach, that is supposed to happen at a radar altitude of no more than 50ft (could be slightly less, depending on the model of plane). As long as the plane has not reached that landing flare altitude, the throttles will not go lower than the "flight idle" RPM, which is higher than the "ground idle" RPM. As long as everything is working properly, the auto-throttles will not remain at inflight idle thrust, if the required airspeed begins to fall below the target approach speed. They will immediately advance, to ensure the target approach AS is maintained. When something does fail, the pilots are supposed to take over immediately and fly the plane manually. That means they fly a fully automatic landing approach, with one hand on the control yoke, and their thumb next to the AP disconnect button, while the other hand is on the thrust levers, so that they can immediately disconnect the AP, if necessary. Obviously, the pilots in this accident were not operating in a SOP manner. EditorASC (talk) 04:20, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Where do we read this SOP? How do we know these pilots were supposed to be following it? LeadSongDog come howl 06:27, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It is in the FOMs of each airline, the sim instruction manuals, the flight systems manuals. All airline pilots are aware of them, since they have to adhere to those rigid SOPs to pass their annual sim checks.
In this accident, the airspeed continued to decrease well below the target approach speed, yet the pilots sat there, apparently in la la land, doing nothing in response. As I said, the pilot flying is required to have his hands on the controls, with thumb at the ready, next to the AP disconnect switch (one switch on each pilot yoke), while the other pilot crosschecks and calls out altitudes, position markers, etc. The pilot not flying, is supposed to call out each mode as it engages, including the "flare mode" when it engages, and is required to call out any deviation from glide slope and target airspeed (plus or minus 5 kts), or any sink rate that exceeds 1,000 ft. per minute. All SOP that is MANDATORY, during an autoland approach. The rollout mode has to be announced too, once the plane is on the runway and tracking the ILS localizer. The AP has to be disconnected, before the plane can turn off the runway.
You can find out about required callouts, by the pilot not flying, in many of the NTSB accident reports (whether or not they were conducting an autoland approach). Those usually get discussed in great detail, when the pilots fail to carry out those required SOPs, and the plane crashes. I fully expect you will find several paragraphs of discussion on that precise point, when this accident report is finally completed and released. It will probably be part of the "probable cause" finding, either directly, or as one of the contributory factors. This was an accident that should never have happened, and it wouldn't have if the pilots had been doing their job as required. EditorASC (talk) 10:44, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We don't have a WP:CRYSTAL ball. If you can provide a citation for the FOM or SOP that was in effect for that date, that airline, and that aircraft type, it would be very helpful to do so. LeadSongDog come howl 21:57, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think you can find that kind of information on the Internet. We will just have to wait until the official accident report is released, then we will have the required citation source, and can then add that kind of information to the article, if anyone desires to do so. EditorASC (talk) 13:38, 12 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

PrelimReport 28 April 2009[edit]

This amends the earlier description of the altimeter malfunction, now saying that the recorder showed the maximum 8191 ft from the captain's radar altimeter all the way down to 1950 altitude, then suddenly showed -8 ft. While they don't say as much, this sounds like either a failed analog to digital converter circuit or an operational amplifier circuit that had failed in a nonlinear mode, but that's just my speculation. They also clarify the autothrottle misbehaviour, saying that at 144 kt the crew selected thrust to maintain that speed, but the autothrottle did not do so, instead returning to idle. The reason for this behaviour is still under investigation. Investigation into the prior altimeter failures also continues: they will want to understand why no maintenance action was taken.LeadSongDog come howl 16:56, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dramatization[edit]

I quote: The story of the disaster was featured on the tenth season of Canadian National Geographic Channel show Mayday (known as Air Emergency in the US, Mayday in Ireland and Air Crash Investigation in the UK and the rest of world). The episode is entitled '2009 Schiphol Disaster.' - I just watched that very episode of Air Crash Investigation this last Saturday and in fact, it is entitled 'Who's In Control?' (at least, in the Euro version of ACI). True, this episode was recently extensively billed on NatGeo both in Belgium and the Netherlands as '2009 Schiphol Disaster', but right at the start of the episode, the show very clearly displays an overlay of 'Who's In Control?' in all uppercase letters and with the question mark. This is in fact confirmed by Wikipedia itself at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mayday_episodes#Season_10_.282010.29 78.20.145.31 (talk) 21:05, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Boeing Company guilty" line[edit]

Though am not able to read Turkish, this sentence seems very inaccurate: The Boeing Company was found guilty with 80% on Chicago Federal Court.[51] Using Google Translate it seems that the article is saying that there is a case in Chicago Court that alleges that the crash can be contributed for 80% Boeing's error, which has been postponed till may 2011. This is also supported by this english article about a possible case against Boeing: http://vorige.nrc.nl/international/article2352852.ece/boeing_faces_lawsuit_over_turkish_airlines_crash_at_schiphol . I am unable to find anything about the conclusion of this case, so I have removed the quote. 82.157.63.229 (talk) 17:16, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Investigation files[edit]

English:

Dutch:

WhisperToMe (talk) 16:50, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Turkish airlines files[edit]

English:

Turkish:

WhisperToMe (talk) 16:55, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Dutch Safety Board is considering reopening the 2010 Inquiry[edit]

"Boeing Refuses to Cooperate With New Inquiry Into Deadly Crash", here; [18] and "Boeing refuses to play ball as Dutch MPs reopen 2009 crash involving 737", here: [19] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.144.50.147 (talk) 09:07, 9 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Occupant, etc. numbers[edit]

Perhaps someone can reconcile / correct the occupant, death, and injury numbers in the infobox (that includes 135 total occupants) versus the numbers contained under the ‘Passengers’ section (that includes 125 total occupants)? Quaerens-veritatem (talk) 08:09, 11 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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