Wikipedia:Peer review/Pan Am Flight 7/archive1

Pan Am Flight 7

Looking for a peer review to identify issues or objections that would be brought up during a Feature Article nomination. It has been nearly two years since it has been promoted to a Good Article. In that time, I have periodically revisited it to give it a critical read to see where it can be improved. At this point, I think it is ready. Do you? Thank you. RecycledPixels (talk) 07:17, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Comments by Zetana

I'll look at this sporadically over the day, right now I will just be doing some minor copyediting. If you disagree with any of the changes I've made, please feel free to revert them. I'll post some more detailed comments later today. Zetana (talk) 21:42, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

I started going through and editing for prose, but I realized a lot of the edits were rather significant. So I've rolled them back. I will just focus on content issues for now, and will take a look at the prose afterward. Zetana (talk) 22:12, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Okay, here's what I have so far. Overall I think it's pretty good! Zetana (talk) 22:27, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

1. The week-long hunt became the largest search and rescue operation in the Pacific Ocean at the time. Later, you write in "Search" that The week-long search for the missing plane eventually became the largest search in the Pacific Ocean to date. I would just like to ask if you know if there has been a larger S&R operation or not.

   That's a tough one to answer. The phrase "largest search and rescue operation" was used by the press at the time in describing the operation, but it's not very clear what is meant by "largest". The largest in terms of the number of searchers? The costliest? The largest area searched? I've tried to do some searches for the largest search and rescue operations and get bogged down by the precise definition. I worry that trying to further refine that statement would dive pretty far into OR. It generally seems to be agreed that the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is bigger in just about every respect, but it didn't happen in the Pacific Ocean.

2. The last paragraph of "Flight" seems like it would fit better in the "Search" section as it's talking about the searches conducted on the first day.

   I agree, and moved it.

3. In that incident, all 31 passengers had been rescued... and flight crew as well?

   I reworded that unclear statement to indicate that all 31 people on board were rescued.

4. Was there any information on how the William Payne life insurance situation resolved?

   The judge in the case was harshly critical of the insurance company's attempts to avoid paying on the policy and forced them to pay the total amount. I added a statement and reference about that.

5. Often with crash articles I will see a section that details what changes in the airline industry were made as a result of the investigation, and would just like to know if you came across anything of that sort while researching the topic (aside from the CAB suggestion for a a reassessment of the airline's maintenance practices.

   I haven't found anything. The stratocruisers were all phased out by 1961, but that was more due to its general unreliability and uneconomical operating costs than any one particular incident, plus the transition to jet aircraft.

I appreciate you taking the time to take a hard look at the article, and provide the feedback that you have. RecycledPixels (talk) 18:54, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Of course, no problem! I haven't time today or tomorrow to take another look, but I will get back to you with feedback on prose over the weekend. Zetana (talk) 00:13, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

@RecycledPixels I apologize for the late response, I haven't managed to have time until now to take another look at the article. Re: prose-- here's what I'll do. I'll copy over a version of the article to my sandbox, then I'll make my prose changes there. I'll show you before and after diffs, so you can pick and choose which changes you want to include and which ones to exclude. Ideally I'd just print out the article and do markup on paper but alas mediawiki isn't the best for this kind of thing, so this is the best workaround I can come up with for now. I should be done with this by tomorrow... hopefully.. Zetana (talk) 07:56, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Alright, I copied the current version of the page (looking at 1052395032) and made a number of prose changes. Here's the before-and-after comparison I made in my sandbox. If you have the visual diff comparison on, it might be easier to see what I changed (I think it's in Preferences --> Beta). Again they're just suggestions, it's how I would write if I was the main author, but it's your work so edit as you see fit. I also have a number of additional comments below:

1. More than 90 minutes later, at 8:11 p.m... the math seems off here, since the previous timestamp was 6:42 p.m.

   Good catch. In this case it was two newspapers giving slightly different times, so I've just changed it to "approximately 90 minutes".

2. ...military authorities were asked to prepare additional planes and ships... asked by whom?

   I spent some time trying to hunt this down, but couldn't find an answer. I suspect it was the US Coast Guard, which an article had said had taken over command over the search, but none of the news sources specifically stated that the Coast Guard called in the Navy.

3. A Pan American pilot en route... there's a stray quote mark at the end of this sentence, was it supposed to indicate a quote here?

   I think it has subsequently been edited out, because I can't find it.

4. Rear Admiral T. A. Ahroon, commander of the Philippine Sea, reported that there was no evidence that a midair explosion had occurred, but the Navy also found that many of the pieces of debris bore distinct evidence of fire damage. The "but" is implying some sort of relevant relation/disconnect between the explosion theory and fire damage evidence, just checking if this is intentional

   Yes. The fire damage on the debris definitely introduced an element of confusion and seemingly contradictory statements, but by the time the investigation results came out it was apparent that the fire damage occurred after the debris was in the water.

5. Jack Gilberg Graham Graham's page says he conducted the bombing in 1955, but was convicted in 1956

   Nice catch.

6. The following year, it was revealed that the Western Life Insurance Company... who revealed this? a news agency?

   Yes. Clarified.

7. CAB investigators said that laboratory examination of the plane's wreckage had ruled out the possibility of a bomb explosion of any kind aboard the aircraft. It seems like this should also be noted in the CAB investigation section

   It is, second paragraph.

8. There's also a lot of use of had been, where "was" or another past tense verb could be substituted, I didn't look too much into it while I was reviewing but would recommend a double check on this to free up the phrase variety

Additionally, if you haven't considered it already, a FAC mentorship would probably be very useful and increase the chances of a successful nomination. I'm not very familiar with the FAC process but the mentorship should help smooth things over. Zetana (talk) 07:04, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your help with this article. I haven't had a chance to look any of your suggestions over yet, but I plan to as soon as possible. Unfortunately, at the moment, it looks like it will be a week or two before I will have an opportunity to spend any significant time on it, but it is at the top of my list. RecycledPixels (talk) 08:27, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

That's totally fine, just let me know if you have any questions. I'm pretty busy right now, so I'm not checking things as frequently, just ping me if you need anything. Zetana (talk) 19:24, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

@RecycledPixels: are you still working on this article? If not, can we close this PR and you can open a new one once you have addressed the comments above? Thanks. Z1720 (talk) 15:49, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm always working on the article, but sometimes real life gets in the way of my editing opportunities. I have no objection to closing this PR if you would like. Zetana has offered some assistance that I am still planning to address when I get some quiet time, but I can continue that conversation privately when I get a chance. RecycledPixels (talk) 08:04, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

@Zetana:. Thank you for all the copyedit suggestions you made in your sandbox version of the article. Most of them were definite improvements to the article, some others were already in place from the other suggestions, and a couple I tweaked in a different way. I appreciate the feedback and comments above, which I've responded to in italics. Sorry it took so long to get back to this. RecycledPixels (talk) 00:07, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Comments by Gerald Waldo Luis

Ironically, I have a peer review on an article about the beauty of flying; I guess beauty comes at a cost. You are welcome to put comments there; no pressure though. At a quick scroll this looks like a decent FAC. Comments below. Non-body covers the lead, infobox, notes, refs, and below. GeraldWL 22:39, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

@Gerald Waldo Luis: Thank you for the feedback, and I apologize for not noticing this right away. I have responded to some of your comments with indented italics without signing every line. Everything else I have changed in the article. Let me know if you see anything else, or disagree with my reponses. RecycledPixels (talk) 22:45, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Non-body

• Many aviation accidents/incidents articles have an "In popular culture" section where Mayday, Seconds from Disaster, as well as other works of art referencing the flight are listed. Is there a reason this is not in the article?

  I personally don't find those sections helpful and they often fall afoul of WP policies along the lines of what is stated in MOS:POPCULT.

• Should the "a" in "around" be removed per the link's title, "Round the world ticket"?
• Link [[acific Ocean]
• "The final report from the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), who conducted the investigation, stated, "The Board has insufficient tangible evidence at this time to determine the cause of the accident."" I suggest paraphrasing the quote to well summarize the conclusion. Perhaps "The final report from the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), who conducted the investigation, stated there are no evidence to determine a cause."
• No need for "(CAB)" as there's no multiple mentions in the lead
• Suggest summarizing the Insurance investigation section.

  I didn't do this one because the insurance investigation is a very minor aspect of the overall event and the surrounding events.

• Images need alt text.
• Link all the city names to the airport names in Note A; for cities with more than one airports, either link to the specific airport or just link to the city article.
• "newspapers.com" should be "Newspapers.com"
• Move "Aviation Safety Network" to publisher
• "National Public Radio" --> "NPR"; move to publisher
• Move "Civil Aeronautics Board" to publisher
• "Air & Space Magazine" --> "Air & Space/Smithsonian"
• "McFarland" --> "McFarland & Company"
• Template:Portal should be Template:Portal bar in this case, as the current makes a weird blank space on desktop.

Body

Background - Flight

• Link Pan American World Airways and add "(Pan Am)". All subsequent mentions of the airline thus must be changed to "Pan Am"
• "San Francisco" --> "San Francisco International Airport"
• "Philadelphia" --> "Philadelphia International Airport"
• "on November 8, 1957, Pan American Flight 7 left San Francisco" --> "on November 8, 1957, Flight 7 left San Francisco"
• "to Honolulu, Hawaii" --> "to Honolulu"

  Linked it to the airport instead to maintain consistency.

Search

• "the Coast Guard ordered all ships" --> "the USCG ordered all ships"

  I changed it to U.S. Coast Guard. I don't think USCG is an obvious enough abbreviation.

• "somewhere over the Pacific" --> "somewhere over the Pacific Ocean"

  We already linked Pacific Ocean in the lead paragraph as suggested above.

• "the Navy" --> "the United States Navy (USN)". All subsequent mentions of "the Navy" thus must be changed to "the USN"

  I don't feel that substituting USN for "Navy" or "the Navy" improves readability, similar to the Coast Guard suggestion above.

• Link San Diego
• "the last two numbers of the missing aircraft's tail number"-- would be helpful if the actual tail number is stated

Aircraft

• "The missing aircraft was a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser, serial number 15960, registered N90944" --> "The missing Stratocruiser had a serial number of 15960, and was registered N90944"
• "Investigations by the CAB" --> "Investigations by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB)"

  The CAB abbreviation is established in the lead section.

• "involving the Boeing Stratocruiser" --> "involving the Stratocruiser"
• Link Oregon
• "A company inspector"-- what company?

Pax and crew

• "flight's next stop in Tokyo"-- which airport specifically?
• "At the Honolulu Airport" --> "At Honolulu's Daniel K. Inouye International Airport"
• "in the Boeing 377" --> "in the Stratocruiser"
• "on the Boeing 377" --> "in the Stratocruiser"
• "Second officer"-- Link Second officer (aviation)

CAB

• "cellulose acetate movie film" --> "cellulose acetate film"
• "Earlier in the year"-- what year?
• "and identified several possible ways it could have happened." Remove the reference after that as it is duplicate citation. As well as for the refs after "turbocharger disks into the fuselage", "and caused serious flight control difficulties", "any of the other scenarios", as well as "if it had been subjected to extreme heat".
• "The investigators concluded" --> "Investigators concluded"
• The "— Civil Aeronautics Board final report" bit of the quote is not needed as we already know who wrote that quote. Suggest moving reference to the end of the quote.

Insurance investigation

• Link Helena, Montana
• Other than that, this section looks great!

@RecycledPixels: to ensure that they saw the above comments. This PR has been open since August: are you ready to bring this to FAC? Z1720 (talk) 21:55, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

@Z1720: Thank you for the ping, I had not seen the other comments. I will make my way through them all in the next couple of days. RecycledPixels (talk) 19:11, 31 January 2022 (UTC)