Talk:Plane crashes into office block in Austin, Texas

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Situation[edit]

I turned on the news approximately an hour after it happened. I have access to local news feeds and recording News 8 Austin. - Stillwaterising (talk) 17:48, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Plane is NOT stolen according to police, please do not report as factual. -Stillwaterising (talk) 18:54, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Review of revision 960299 [Passed][edit]

Review of revision 960321 [Passed][edit]

Broadcast report[edit]

While watching a news conference on CNN, a Austin PD said that the plane was not stolen. A CNN reporter said that a DHS official confirmed this. IRS confirms that they had offices at the building, they had 190 employees. A suicide note has been located form Mr. Stack. Cocoaguytalkcontribs 18:45, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Jerry Cullen[edit]

Full interview of pilot/instructor/eye witness Jerry Cullen was just replayed on News 8 Austin. He claims to have 4300 hours flying light aircraft and that the plane was at or near full-throttle and was "screaming" as it descended into impact. - Stillwaterising (talk) 19:21, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Replayed News8 feed and reviewed interview carefully. Revising source statement.
Full interview of pilot/former instructor/eye witness Jerry Cullen was just replayed on News 8 Austin. He claims to have 4800 hours of flight time flying light aircraft and said "when you train in those airplanes you train to slow down when you are in trouble, you put them in glide mode and you want to land them slowly, that plane wasn't traveling slowly, that plane screaming." The pilot was in the parking lot of Marie Callender's north of the building across HWY183 at time of impact. - Stillwaterising (talk) 19:21, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Where's the Draft versions?[edit]

I'm new to Wikinews (but not to wikis) and I'm having trouble keeping track of where the draft versions go after being written. Is there a link for them? - Stillwaterising (talk) 19:47, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The draft versions become the "live" version after they are sighted/flagged by an editor. It's part of flagged revisions. (I assume that's what you're talking about?) Tempodivalse [talk] 19:52, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's all in history. Basically, the latest version of the article is the current 'draft' if it hasn't been sighted. Once it is sighted, it stops being a draft and goes live. Everything is in the history, like other wikis. Obviously, FlaggedRevs is new to you but I take it you know the basic theory? Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 19:53, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Embeddedart.com link down[edit]

The host for embeddedart.com took down the site in light of the crash. We might want to add a caption, or remove the link altogether.

Let's simply state that it went down. Still said xe had a copy saved, I believe? Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 19:53, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Stillwaterising, you said you saved the text of the suicide letter. Can you paste it into Plane crashes into office block in Austin, Texas‎/Suicide note? I'm happy to write a fair use rationale for the text. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 20:19, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How would you like it, email? - Stillwaterising (talk) 20:37, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I would, but my webmail's down. Can you just create the redlink above and bung it in there? I'll deal with it after that. I know there are likely one or two mirrors around but if the FBI is bullying people into removal I want us to have a local copy. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 20:39, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I 100% expected that to happen and that's why I save it. Will do. - Stillwaterising (talk) 20:45, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, that's great. I'm going to say this counts as Original Reporting since we released the document ourselves - I'll add the template. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 20:59, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Up or down, this isn't a source and, who says it is the pilot's words? If it belongs, put it in ext. links and be quite clear who says it is the pilot's ramblings. --Brian McNeil / talk 21:41, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm inclined to believe the FBI. Yes, I know, that's slightly stupid of me, but even they can't throw together hoaxes and lies that fast. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 22:03, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, Bawolff and I have been on a verification mission.

  • The pseudosource currently links to a forum. That forum is clearly connected to T35.com. A user linked directly to the forum, and hence to T35 (as opposed to a random member of the public) has posted there regarding the letter
  • T35.com appears to be T35, a legitimate and real hosting company


  • There is no reason a for-profit would make up that the FBi requested removal; the only publicity possible is negative
  • The FBI can be trusted to have likely got this one right.

Therefore, I can conclude that we are looking at the real deal with that note. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 22:10, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Plane registration[edit]

News 8 Austin just reported that the plane was registered to Joseph A. Stack as was the house. - Stillwaterising (talk) 20:13, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments[edit]

As I'm in a very early start and long commute training course I am not getting much time to keep an eye on things. Here's some of what I've see with this:

  • Sources incorrectly cited, at least in terms of date format
  • Use of a blog as a source. Yes, the pilot's note apparently; but, there was no attempt to form a better way of citing it. Fortunately, someone kept a copy (or dug it out of cache) so, when it was taken down, a local copy could be uploaded. There needed to be original research into domain registrations, subpage owner details - where available, and a documented effort to confirm or not that it was the pilot's writing.
  • A source dated ahead of this article was cited as related news; this should not be done. I always consider related news as a "sources from Wikinews" section.
  • A keen new contributor, who probably got a bit of a rough deal. Partly me being protective of Wikinews and not having enough time to do so well - but also because an aspect of me doing that was concern some editors weren't doing due diligence in citing changes.

I've been informed I won't, as a Data Protection Act-related measure, be able to have any mobile phone in the cube farm; further measures to ensure data doesn't leak include only operating a site/page whitelist. So, my contribution here is going to be significantly cut back for quite some time.

I've poked some – ahem – 'contacts' to get me access here from work, that'll be via a nonprivved account, I'll declare it, use a different password, and only request editor. For transparency I'll not be able to go via the secure interface - there will be data protection people trivially able to get the account password, so I can't use my 'crat/checkuser account.

Anyway, thanks to our newest(?) contributor again, sorry we seemed to clash; even if you're from WP, go through WN:ARTICLE. You might can come up with a better way to cite the pilot's note; I think the source template is inappropriate for stuff like that, it wasn't well enough verified, once a couple of mainstream sources start thinking its credible, then mention it (and back it up). Just, please, no "See also", keep that evil from Wikipedia outta here. Put it in external links. As now, a cut/paste from a downed site, it is a samizdat of a censored page, although local it should be under external... And a copy on Wikileaks too! --Brian McNeil / talk 17:57, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What is the perpetrator's actual name?[edit]

I have found different results for this guy's name on about 100 different news websites. On here, it's Joseph Andrew Stack (III), but on Wikipedia, its Andrew Joseph Stack (III). Which one is it? A p3rson (talk) 20:56, 21 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I found Andrew Joseph Stack (III) from the tax records on his house. The FAA registration says Joseph A. Stack. Whatever the FBI is using is probably correct. - Stillwaterising (talk) 17:27, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've changed his name in Wikipedia and added redirects here for variations of name back to this article. I feel bad that we got it wrong in Wikipedia. Early on the tax records were found, which are a primary source, which had the name as Stack Andrew Joseph III. However, this tax record is an uninterpreted primary source and while other sources did not agree with this initial determination it did get changed until now. - Stillwaterising (talk) 17:58, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

New discussion here and a recent news article says that his name is Andrew Joseph Stack III. - Stillwaterising (talk) 07:12, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]