Talk:Boeing 787 crashes into Indian medical school, killing hundreds

Neutrality concern: Boeing whistleblower paragraph

The final paragraph, which references Boeing 737 MAX whistleblower allegations and the death of one whistleblower, raises neutrality and relevance concerns.

As written, the article does not cite any source that links those prior allegations to the current crash involving the Boeing 787-8. Without such a connection, the inclusion of this paragraph risks implying guilt by association and may mislead readers into drawing conclusions not supported by the cited sources. Ending with the phrase “was later found dead” particularly risks introducing a sensational tone to an otherwise factual article.

Unless a reliable source is added that explicitly connects those earlier safety concerns to this crash or aircraft type, I recommend removing the paragraph. If retained, it would need clear attribution and contextual justification to meet WN:NPOV and avoid misleading implications.

I might have time tomorrow morning PST to perform a full review of the article if another reviewer hasn't gotten to it by then. —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 02:17, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

I don't happen to agree but I believe in shared authorship. If you sincerely believe it needs to be removed, go ahead and remove it. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:43, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Not ready for review

In the lede I found an unsupported statement regarding 294 fatalities. None of the sources mention it took off from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, though that may be obvious enough to not need support. In the second paragraph, the mention of the Meghaninagar neighborhood is unsupported. The third paragraph attributes Hindustan Times but they are not listed in the Sources section.

Please go through the article and ensure every statement is correctly cited per WN:Source. Consider using {{verify}} to ensure you have verified every statement and to help the reviewer locate sources for all statements.

Also consider the section above about the whistleblower paragraph. —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 14:38, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

Actually, that is in there already:

Guardian source: "crashed minutes after taking off at 1.38pm local time"/"Ramesh, who still had his boarding pass, told the Hindustan Times." The whistleblowers are in the BBC and CBS sources.

I see the Guardian source has changed the spelling of the neighborhood to "Meghani Nagar."

The only thing that doesn't appear to be here is the name of the airport, which I took from one of the source images, which appears to have been modified since I last viewed it. That I will remove, but no I did not infer it or take it from a source not shown.

I see you added text indicating "242 passengers." Those numbers don't match. The Guardian source says that "242" is the total number of people on board. There were a pilot and crew as well. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:56, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

I see you added text indicating "242 passengers." Those numbers don't match. Good catch, and thanks for correcting it. —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 22:48, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

 todo item: fix the "The third paragraph attributes Hindustan Times but they are not listed in the Sources section." concern. Gryllida 10:25, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

 todo item: fix the concern about dead whistleblower. if there is no connection to the current event, remove it. Gryllida 10:25, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

 todo item: merge content from Vishwash Kumar Ramesh solely survives Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner airplane crash at takeoff in Ahmedabad, India into this article. Gryllida 10:26, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

HT: Already addressed; see above. Listing Hindustan Times in the source section would indicate that I used the Hindustan Times as a source directly, and I didn't. But if you disagree on that point, go ahead and add HT yourself. DW: If you want to remove it, go ahead. I don't think it needs doing, but if you do, I'm not going to fight you on it. Merge: That's optional. This article can be published without the merge. The other one can be published if refocused. The merge is merely one possible solution. My choice is to err on the side of being two days after the event instead of three or four. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:47, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining the issues and for the hidden citations. They were helpful.

I'm not sure if we've handled the secondhand quotes correctly. The Chicago Manual of Style recommends against using them in favor of using the primary source.[1] It is verifiable for the readers as written and attribution is clear and accurate. Heavy Water, are you aware of a norm or a previous case in which we've come across this? —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 14:34, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

CMoS is a very widely respected standard. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:08, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Yes merge is optional. Would be nice to have. Now in under 24 hours ... Gryllida 22:23, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Thanks to the @Darkfrog24 refusing the opportunity to merge from another story prior to the review taking place, a reviewer was available, published the story, and is now gone. Additional effort (separately) will be required to sight my edit. If I give you 16 $50 bills, and ask you to count them. Is it easier to do it in one go, or count the first 10, leaving 6 uncounted, and leave these 6 for some other time?

You need to understand that if I asked you to do it, it means I was busy. I needed to disrupt my weekend and leave 3 adults offended by my behaviour to get these edits implemented, and now multiple reviewers whom I have reached out to sight the edit.

Please do not dismiss edits as "optional" in the future. This is very disruptive for both the quality of output, workload on reviewers -- and, as a result, for personal lives of other users as they may have to sacrifice a part of their life to shove an edit into an article. Gryllida 23:16, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

If you are too busy to make changes that you do want, then consider that I might be too busy to make changes that I don't want. The whole U.S. just had a big, big day.

"Optional" is not a dismissal. It's a recognition. Merging is literally one of our options. We can 1) merge the articles, 2) not merge the articles and publish one of them, or 3) refocus one or both and publish both. Please look at the proof in front of you that you the changes in question were not necessary for publication and that that is part of why I said no.

We have shared authorship here. I don't own the articles I draft. You want your vision in there? Go ahead. But, yes, you have to do your work yourself. You may decide that that is not the kind of work-donation you want to make to Wikinews on any given day. But then remember that I get to make those same decisions for myself. You seem to be making the assumption that you have a social life and a weekend to disrupt but I somehow don't. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:44, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

Please add a "yes, I will do it" or "No, I will not do it" when you say something is optional. If you say "No, I will not do it", please include a reason. Without this, saying "is optional" reads like an uncooperstive dismissal. Gryllida 11:37, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

I did: "My choice is to err on the side of being two days after the event instead of three or four." You have a language barrier, Gryllida. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:10, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

I disagree with you that draft writing means that you only write what you want. This approach is the opposite of collaboration. Collaboration requires willingly, and often, doing something someone else asked. Gryllida 11:39, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

In that specific scenario, I had a night and you had a day. Having the edits done during your day would be a big help. It is not only about social life it is also about time zones. Gryllida 11:40, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

Gryllida, you need to get your head on straight: Wiki rules require everyone who submits changes to take responsibility for those changes. I don't get to say, "I was only humoring Gryllida" if something goes wrong later. That is one of many very good reasons why I or any editor might choose not to make a change, especially an unnecessary one.

We've both been on Wikinews for a long time, and it's clear we have different visions for how this place should work. Whether you want to call your model "pretend-boss-pretend-paid-employee" or something else, you should know by now that I'm not going to go along with that scenario. You have had literally years to see this for yourself. Please accept that my ideas are different from yours and move on. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:35, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

I ran it through Toolforge just now: [2]. Most of what the system is reacting to is the two attributed quotations from the survivor and witness. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:22, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

I know just giving a heads up @Darkfrog24 thanks BigKrow (talk) 19:25, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

I already told you of this before. If you do choose to provide a heads up, you need to provide a summary of the issue.

Providing a heads up without summarising the concern is disruptive and needs to stop. Gryllida 10:21, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

It was a little annoying but I wouldn't go that far.

My personal preference is that if you see something that you believe is a plagiarism issue, hit the edit button and fix it yourself. Hang on, are you talking about BigKrow's choice of talk page header? Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:44, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Apologies you two I got ahead of myself. @Gryllida, @Darkfrog24 BigKrow (talk) 16:22, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

I was responding to the talk page message content. It is a false alarm. False alarms are distracting. Very bad for a news site where work needs to happen quickly. Gryllida 22:26, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Bad choice of wording, apologies im not trying to stir things up by the way. @Gryllida, @Darkfrog24 BigKrow (talk) 22:37, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Wording is fine. False alarm is not. The earwig software is unbelievably dumb if it does not understand that quotes in "" are plagiarism. You are more clever than earwig; you can differentiate. Gryllida 23:07, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Ok??? BigKrow (talk) 23:11, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Review of revision 4863748 [Passed]

Revision 4863748 of this article has been reviewed by Michael.C.Wright (talk · contribs) and has passed its review at 13:42, 14 June 2025 (UTC). Copyright: Passed Newsworthiness: Passed Verifiability: Passed NPOV: Passed Style: Passed Comments by reviewer: Some minor changes were made during review; see the edit history for details. I decided to remove the whistleblower paragraph after further consideration. Since the cause of the crash is unknown, including it risked creating undue prejudice. If Boeing is later found at fault, that would warrant a separate article. Thank you for your edits and for the hidden citations—those are extremely helpful, especially for secondhand quotes. The reviewed revision should automatically have been edited by removing {{Review}} and adding {{Publish}} at the bottom, and the edit sighted; if this did not happen, it may be done manually by a reviewer.

Revision 4863748 of this article has been reviewed by Michael.C.Wright (talk · contribs) and has passed its review at 13:42, 14 June 2025 (UTC). Copyright: Passed Newsworthiness: Passed Verifiability: Passed NPOV: Passed Style: Passed Comments by reviewer: Some minor changes were made during review; see the edit history for details. I decided to remove the whistleblower paragraph after further consideration. Since the cause of the crash is unknown, including it risked creating undue prejudice. If Boeing is later found at fault, that would warrant a separate article. Thank you for your edits and for the hidden citations—those are extremely helpful, especially for secondhand quotes. The reviewed revision should automatically have been edited by removing {{Review}} and adding {{Publish}} at the bottom, and the edit sighted; if this did not happen, it may be done manually by a reviewer.

Major changes after publication

I just looked at the article history and it looks like at least one user has made significant changes to it after it was reviewed and published. I'm not sure this is a good idea. Merging this article with the other draft about the event was an option before review, but I had figured there was a cutoff. The details added are mostly good, but we could instead repurpose the other draft. Our source publications are likely to release more information about the crash's details and causes as it becomes available. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:51, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

As long as they're here, they and the readers deserve proper scrubbin'. I looked into "where he visited family," and it seems the survivor was in India to visit family. He was not going to England to visit family. He had visited them in India and was going home. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:02, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

Cutoff is 24 hours after publication. Gryllida 11:34, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for citing policy and precedent. When you're right, you're right. Darkfrog24 (talk) 18:13, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer-involved post-publication edits

Wikinews articles are intended to be accurate at the time of publication and are not meant to be updated afterward. As stated on Meta[3]:

We cannot rely on the wiki process to improve articles after they are published... Articles must be accurate and legal at the time of publication.

While minor corrections such as fixing typos or factual errors are allowed during the 24-hour grace period after publication, major changes or content additions are not standard practice. Once an article is marked with {{review}}, it is considered by the author(s) to be ready for publication as-is. Improvements should be completed before the article is published.

In this case, a reviewer merged content from another article into the published version, introducing unsupported statements that had to be corrected by another contributor. The same reviewer then sighted all post-publication changes.

This is contrary to Wikinews:Reviewing articles policy, which states that "all articles must be reviewed by a user who was uninvolved in the development of the article," including post-publication edits.

The essay Wikinews:Tips on reviewing articles reinforces this point:

After publication, edit the article, submitting improvements for another reviewer to review. [emphasis added]

The same essay advises reviewers to consider how changes may be received by the original author. As noted in the section above titled #Major_changes_after_publication, the original author did not support the changes as written.

Post-publication edits involving reviewer privileges must follow established policies to maintain neutrality, trust, and editorial integrity. —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 20:42, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

Good article....

A horribly sad event, but good news coverage.--Bddpaux (talk) 14:34, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Reversions

@Michael.C.Wright: I request a second look at two of the edits you reverted today.

1. I believe "on board" and "onboard" are not always interchangeable. I think this one should stay because it is a simple typo fix.
2. I believe "Vishwash was on his way to the United Kingdom from Leicester, England" should be modified in some way. The text as it stands is factually impossible, given that England is already in the United Kingdom. `Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:36, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

You are right. I corrected #1 as no content was changed and issued a correction for #2 but left it unsighted.

Please provide feedback on the verbiage of the correction and if it isn't sighted by another reviewer shortly, I will self-sight (barring any proposed changes of course).Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 18:27, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

"On board" is good. The Leicester sentence still contains the same logical impossibility.

I just hit CTRL-F in all our sources. One source mentions Leicester, and it only says that the family lives there. They may have been changed since we published or they may not have. I think our best bet is to say, "Vishwash was on his way back to the United Kingdom after visiting family in India." Darkfrog24 (talk) 17:55, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

I think we have the correct correction now. I'm not sure why that sentence has become such a pain to work through. After being placed, it was touched three more times. For future reference, this deep link supports the correction statement.Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 18:56, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

@Darkfrog24, thank you for sticking with it and making sure we get it right.Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 18:57, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for taking initiative. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:17, 9 December 2025 (UTC)