Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2010 Israeli Air Force Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion crash

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Does appear to be a news event. While a tragedy, there's no indication it inspired a declared national day of mourning, or other lasting consequence. While the numbers are more or less even, the delete !votes make a more compelling argument. Shimeru 22:44, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

2010 Israeli Air Force Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion crash

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WP:NOTNEWS- no lasting notability, no historic significance. There are dozens of these types of crashes every year, particularly in theatres like Iraq and Afghanistan but they don't have articles but they're not notable. This is better suited to Wikinews. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:44, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. —Anotherclown (talk) 17:15, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I have notified Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation/Aviation accident task force because I don't believe there was ever created a notability guideline for aviation accidents specifically. Without taking a view myself, I will point out that comparing this incident to the accidents in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars is unfair when comparing the size and capabilities of the IAF to the USAF & allies, and that a training mission does not compare to actual combat operations. bahamut0013^words _deeds 19:54, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep - Eugen Simion 14 (talk) 20:32, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - sorry but just another military aircraft training accident one of many, would have to have other factors like the involvement of civilian deaths to approach notability. MilborneOne (talk) 20:44, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete As List of accidents and incidents involving military aircraft (2000–present) and similar articles demonstrate, fatal accidents in military aviation are frequent, and few qualify as historically notable. As a matter of necessity, Wikipedia has to take a harsh policy against memorializing deaths, even those of brave people who died in service to their country, whether in combat or in an accident. Mandsford 21:21, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep--DAI (Δ) 21:52, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Because.... HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:45, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

..it has grown in size since afd and is notable enoug, more than "other crap"--DAI (Δ) 14:11, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep-- or also delete 1997 Israeli helicopter disaster and 1977 Israeli CH-53 crash. And if this had happened to an American helicopter, would it even be on AfD? -- RM (Be my friend) 23:14, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yup. If it was an American helicopter, it would most certainly be at AfD. As for the rest of your comment, WP:OTHERCRAP? That aside, those incidents killed 73 and 54 respectively. This killed 7. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:35, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm fairly certain that virtually every American training accident that has ever happened is here. Also, it is very notable in the fact that this happened during a major military excersise, Blue Sky 2010, and killed victims of multiple nationalities. Also, there is now a joint effort by Israel and Romania to recover the bodies and wreckage, so this is a significant event in Israel-Romania relations, and it is also raising questions in Israel about the country's aging helicopter fleet.--RM (Be my friend) 23:55, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Your assumption that American training accidents get covered isn't borne out by looking at List of accidents and incidents involving military aircraft (2000–present) (the April 8, 2000 accident that killed 19 U.S. Marines isn't on here) or List of accidents and incidents involving military aircraft (1975–1999). Mandsford 01:39, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Such as? Point some out to me and I'll AfD them- American, Romanian, Israeli.. I'd suggest the moon, but the sheer novelty would probably make it notable! ;) If this is "significant" in terms of international relations, then relation between those 2 countries must be very boring. If the military exercise is notable, wrote an article on it and merge this article there, but this crash is not notable enough to sustain its own article. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:16, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See the Wikipedia Categories for Accidents and incidents involving United States Air Force aircraftAviation accidents and incidents in Israel]], and Aviation accidents and incidents in Romania (too many to list here). All of these crashes appear to have been considered notable, many of them are even more obscure than this one. And this is also notable not just in military relations between the nations (doesn't matter if they're boring), but is also a significant event in the history of the CH-53, as questions about its reliability and safety are again raised.--RM (Be my friend) 00:25, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I went through that category and didn't find any training accidents and I found 2 FAs. I did, however, nominate a few more articles for deletion, but it doens;t change the fact that your argument is based on WP:OTHERCRAP. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:49, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's your opinion, not a fact. We'll see what consensus has to say about that.--RM (Be my friend) 02:27, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep-- I don't think military aviation accidents are SO OFTEN like MilborneOne implied. It is an aviation incident that involves two countries, where 7 people died, and which is considered a tragedy by now. You don't hear of crashing helicopters every day. (Gabinho^>:) 23:23, 27 July 2010 (UTC))[reply]
- Sorry I just need to refute the comment not that often! try just March 2010 and just military helicopters:
  - 3 March 2010 - United States Coast Guard MH-60T destroyed
  - 3 March 2010 - South Korean Army MD-500 destroyed (2 killed)
  - 7 March 2010 - Uganda Police Air Wing Agusta A119 badly damaged
  - 11 March 2010 - Kazakhstan Civil Defence Mil Mi-8 destroyed (8 killed)
  - 11 March 2010 - Brazilian Army helicopter destroyed, four killed
  - 17 March 2010 - Russian Mil-2 badly damaged
  - 19 March 2010 - Turkish Army prototype T-129 destroyed
  - 23 March 2010 - Turkish Army S-70 destroyed
  - 25 March 2010 - Chilean Army HU-53 destroyed
  - 29 March 2010 - United States Army UH-60 destroyed
  - I suspect that eight destroyed in one month counts as often if you also count at least 12 military fixed wing aircraft destroyed in the same month. MilborneOne (talk) 15:09, 30 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:NOTNEWS. There often seems to be a race or competition to create an article about a current event; I wish there was a way to stop people from creating articles as soon as something takes place and wait a few days; I am sure that fewer articles would be created. Anyhow, will we look back on this in a couple of months' time and think of this as a notable event: I doubt it. Military aviation operations are intrinsically more hazardous than civilian; is the crash of a military aircraft on a training exercise notable: No. Is the crash of a military aircraft rare: No. Is the number and nationality of people killed notable: No. Is there anything unusual about "questions about [an aircraft type's] reliability and safety" being raised following a crash: No. While I agree that WP tends to be USA-centric in some areas, Wikipedia:Other stuff exists applies; and to rebut the claim, an article about a US Navy aircraft crash that killed three was deleted just a few days ago (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2007 USS Harry S. Truman E-2C crash). If other "obscure" air crashes have articles, that may be because they haven't been noticed yet or may be because of failure to apply policy consistently; when you come across them feel free to PROD them or take them to AfD. YSSYguy (talk) 02:58, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

comment its really unfortunate to see wp editors who are hopeful that the encyclopedia will NOT grow. I wonder why you edit if you wish fewer articles existed... 66.220.101.210 (talk) 07:03, 29 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Apart from any other consideration, surely the fact that the crash was that of an Israeli military aircraft in Romania, makes the incident notable. Davshul (talk) 09:40, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. International incident highlighting cooperation that ordinarily receives little attention. The CH-53s have also been in service for 4 decades now, this will raise a few questions about their continued service and possible succesors. I'm not just crystal-balling this, Haaretz agrees. Poliocretes (talk) 09:54, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete What next, an article on every car accident in which someone dies? Of course, this is newsworthy, but I can't see how it is encylocpedic beyond being worth a mention in the articles on the helicopter, the IAF, list of crashes, and Israel-Romania relations. пﮟოьεԻ 5 7 10:15, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Neither the ownership of the aircraft, nor the location of the crash, make this notable. Questions about the models continued service seems better suited to Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion#Israel. If the cooperation between Israel and Romania is notable, then it deserves an article of its own, not to be shoehorned in as an argument for keeping this article. --Andrensath (talk | contribs) 10:32, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: WT:Israel has been notified of this discussion, though it has not been listed on WP:DISRAEL. --Andrensath (talk | contribs) 10:36, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Israel-related deletion discussions. —Davshul (talk) 13:00, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The incident has been widely covered by mainstream sources. The PM of Israel has declared a national day of mourning from what I understand. The fact that crashes are more frequent and costly (body-count wise) doesn't negate the notabilty of this specific event. If Barack Obama made a huge deal every time a squad of troops were shot down, and leaders of foreign nations offer their eulogy, then perhaps there would be more articles. Take the flotilla event. 7 dead and yet there is an article larger than the moon dedicated to it. The article exists because important countries, world statements and the United Nations have spent thousands of hours scrutinizing the event. If the death of 10 US troops in a training accident received the same attention as flotilla, wikipedia would host an article. we as editors don't get to decide what is relevant - reliable sources do. Wikifan12345 (talk) 11:26, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- 9 deaths on the flotilla raid, I think you'll find, though WP:OTHERSTUFF/WP:OSE is not a reason not to delete, and I fail to see the relevance of the flotilla raid to this article. Also, could you provide a cite for the national day of mourning? --Andrensath (talk | contribs) 11:45, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Something I heard, this article includes a lot of tearfulstatements by Netanyahu. We don't determine notability Andre - reliable sources do. The sheer loss of life and actual damage in the flotilla raid is irrelevant compared to a day of death in Iraq or Afghanistan - yet rarely will articles be created for every time a squad of US soldiers gets ambushed by Taliban druglords. Unless the UN or international figures make a big fuss about it, it won't qualify under notability guidelines. But here we have an incident were major figures have released statements and now there is an no-going international operation between Romanania/Israel in investigating what happened and recovering the bodies. Wikifan12345 (talk) 11:55, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I've seen the Haaretz article before. It says absolutely nothing about any national day of mourning, as can be verified by a quick grep for 'national' or 'mourning' on that page. Also, we *do* determine notability; we have 11 guideline pages for determining whether specific topics are notable or not (WP:EVENT, in this particular case). I don't think either the flotilla raid or the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are particularly relevant to this event, and, to the best of my knowledge, neither Israel nor Romania are involved in either war. On a separate note, I prefer not to have my username shortened by people I'm not well acquainted with; please refrain from doing so in future. --Andrensath (talk | contribs) 12:16, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I was leaning towards delete, but then I came accross: Category:Helicopter accidents... ? Chesdovi (talk) 15:01, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That doesn't mean that all helicopter accidents are notable. What it does mean is that there are some accidents, many of them involving civilians, that receive coverage beyond the news. As with many news articles, I think that this one is going to end up as a no consensus. Although I appreciate the need to remind editors to consider the long term when deciding whether to make a brand new article for a news story, one of the hazards of nominating such an article while it's still news is that people are going to have lots of proof that it's being discussed right now (it just happened the day before yesterday). A few months from now, and probably even a few days from now, it probably won't be mentioned at all, at which time there would be little support for. While it should be mentioned within other articles, there's no policy argument I can see in favor of making a page of its own. Mandsford 16:56, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"That doesn't mean that all helicopter accidents are notable". Well, what are the guidelines here? What makes some notable, and others not? There have been over 9 helicopter crashes in the past month:

Jul 29, 2010 Arizona: Helicopter Crash Kills 3
Jul 28, 2010: 5 killed in Iraq helicopter crash
Jul 25, 2010 Police: 5 Dead In Japan Helicopter Crash
Jul 25, 2010 Authorites identify pilot in fatal helicopter crash near Rochester
Jul 24, 2010 Investigators probe deadly Okla. helicopter crash
Jul 23, 2010 Two foreign soldiers killed in Afghan helicopter crash: NATO
Jul 23, 2010 S.Africa helicopter crash kills seven police
Jul 7, 2010 Washington: 3 Dead in Helicopter Crash
Jul 2, 2010‎ Helicopter crash in Hong Kong injures thirteen

What is the policy here? Chesdovi (talk) 13:08, 29 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Delete. From the first glance it would not meet the notability guideline of aircraft accident. SYSS Mouse (talk) 16:43, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Per WP:NOTNEWS and per Mandsford. Pilot flew into a mountain and 7 people on board died, during a training flight. If he had been driving a van at night and went off the road and killed 7 on board. it would not need a permanent encyclopedia article, and neither does this. Edison (talk) 17:12, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep: If the van was flying at 4000ft in the air and the van driver was a trained airman with hours and hours of practice and a career based on flying I guess it would gain the same attention as this accident did. I never heard of a national day of mourning following a van crash, but this accident get one. For as I am concerned, any accident involving huge aircraft like civil planes, heli or militar should have an article on Wikipedia. (Gabinho^>:) 06:55, 29 July 2010 (UTC))[reply]

There's the "national day of mourning" thing again. That all started when one of the participants in this discussion said that it was "something I heard" but didn't have a source for, but I haven't found anything in the news about it. It would be relevant if it happened, since it would be a sign of the significance accorded to the tragedy by the government, and at that point, the discussion would move beyond our own personal assessments of what should be notable; but even the person who inadvertently started that rumor wasn't certain about it. Mandsford 12:45, 29 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Flying helicopters is a dangerous business, almost as dangerous as driving a van ;) Crashes of military aircraft are quite common, for obvious reasons, I don't see any reason to single this one out above the many other that occur. Physchim62 (talk) 09:45, 29 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Based upon the coverage in the Israeli press for the last three days, one would think nothing else had happened in the World. It has dominated the front page and several inside pages of newspapers, emphasizinng also the difficulties in recovering the bodies, in light of the difficult terrain. A van accident would certainly not have attracted such coverage. Davshul (talk) 11:37, 29 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. What matters is whether the news coverage of this incident suggests that it is a notable incident, and not if we can rationalize whether it should be an important enough fact to mention on Wikipedia based on the raw facts of the incident. Otherwise, one can easily argue that the World Trade Center bombing for which the blind Egyptian Sheik was jailed in New York was a very minor incident. If you compare that to the terror attacks that happened in Iraq after the US led invasion, you see that it was indeed a very minor incident. But arguments like this completely ignore how the (local) people feel about this (which is often irrational). So, the best thing to do is to read the local news coverage and make a judgement based on that. Count Iblis (talk) 22:00, 30 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the discussion should be closed for the time being, since there's no consensus here. Although my opinion is that this will not be historically notable, my opinion is no less a speculation than that of anybody else. In some instances, we can make a good guess on such things based on experience, and in others, the first week after the event can be too early to tell. In a couple of months or so, we'll have something to go by. In the meantime, this does need to be mentioned permanently on List of accidents and incidents involving military aircraft (2000–present) #2010 regardless of the outcome here. Mandsford 16:03, 31 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per WP:AIRCRASH. bahamut0013^words _deeds 02:31, 1 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Have you even read that essay? Your rationale is more one for deletion than keeping since this incident doesn't meet any of those criteria! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 03:05, 1 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In fairness to Bahamut, WP:AIRCRASH has changed quite a bit from what it looked like even a year ago. There have been times that I've quoted what I recall something to have said (such as WP:ATHLETE) and discovered that it had been revised. Basically, the revisions of AIRCRASH boil down to some incidents meriting their own article, while others are supposed to be mentioned in an existing article, such as one about the airline or the nation's military aviation article, or the nature of the accident. I gather from the discussion that some people believe that the delete voters are trying to eradicate any mention of the tragedy, which isn't the case at all. Mandsford 21:30, 1 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well I've no opposition to a merge to an appropriate article, but there's nowhere near enough notability for this one incident, tragic though it was, to merit its own article. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:36, 1 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Your snarky response is not appreciated; of course I've bleep read it or I wouldn't be citing it. I'm saying that I feel the criteria have been met. It's obvious that you disagree since you nominated this, you need not badger me simply to repeat your opinion. bahamut0013^words _deeds 16:11, 2 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So which of the criteria in that essay does it meet? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:21, 2 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Under M1 and M3, considering that this is one of the deadliest and more significant incidents of the Israili Air Force, and under P1, given the international implications. bahamut0013^words _deeds 01:10, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well right above those criteria is a note in italics that says If the accident or incident matches criteria only in this section, then coverage should normally be on the article about the air force, conflict or operation. Also, M1 says Incidents solely involving training flights [...] are rarely notable enough for their own article. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:19, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Although I support the retention of the article, I strongly object to the use by User:Bahamut0013 of vile language in this and any other discussion. It has no place in Wikipedia, and certainly in no way helps his argument. I have personally removed the text in question. JackJud (talk) 17:04, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

No surprise too see this article deleted with no CONSENSUS whatsoever. Some editors have power beyond limits. It has articles in two other languages... I thought Wikipedia was a FREE encyclopedia (Gabinho^>:) 16:55, 8 August 2010 (UTC))[reply]