Talk:EgyptAir Flight 804

Conflicting Reports -- but BEA's is Correct

Admiral Cloudberg has an excellent summary of the EAAID and BEA investigations. The two reports contradict each other, with EEAID suggesting an explosion and BEA identifying an oxygen leak as the cause. But, the EEAID report is sloppy, unreliable, and contains major flaws, such as that no sound of an explosion is recorded by microphone. The BEA's conclusion is clearly the correct one. I don't say this as a partisan, it just seems clear from reading the two reports. This article should be restructured now that the investigation has concluded and released its report. But I'm not sure how the article should reflect the two conflicting reports. Andrew Keenan Richardson (talk!) 05:07, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

I think the current wording of the article is fine - it records that there is a disagreement between the two AIBs. Terms like "sloppy", "unreliable" and "just seems clear" have no place in a Wikipedia article. DaveReidUK (talk) 07:25, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

No one is saying that we should use those exact words. We should simply give each report its due weight, which we are not doing currently. We are giving them a 50-50 default and this is not right considering that the EAAID is not providing any evidence supporting their claims. Essentially, EAAID gives a theory, BEA gives an explanation supported by the evidence. Tvx1 14:05, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

This appears simply to be a re-run of Topic 1: "Cause of the Accident", with nothing new to add. All national accident investigation bodies have equal standing in terms of Annex 13, and any organisation affiliated to an investigation is free to file a difference from the official report. It's not ICAO's, or Wikipedia's job to decide who is correct. Let's just leave it at that. DaveReidUK (talk) 12:24, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

No, it’s Wikipedia’s job to give each side its due weight. And we are not bound by “Annex 13” for that, which only deals with the determining the authority to conduct investigations and publish reports anyway. It doesn’t attest to the correctness of the report published by any organisations. As I said before one side gives a theory, the other an explanation supported by evidence. And that’s how we should represent it to our readers. Tvx1 17:45, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

The reports are primary sources for the investigation. We need high-quality secondary sources that reflect the relative credibility of them. I think they should be easy to find. John (talk) 18:05, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't have any problem with citing secondary sources and reporting their assessment of credibility, though good luck in finding them. Absent those, any discussion of the "due weight" that assorted Wikipedians care to give to the respective reports is both presumptuous and pointless - we're talking about a national accident investigation organisation here, not about a bunch of Flatearthers. DaveReidUK (talk) 19:08, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

For crying out loud, read the source in the OP's post. It's beyond believe even how far the EAAID went in their desperation to make their theory the only viable one. Their explanation as to why their is no recording of an explosion on the CVR is the most ludicrous. Just because they are a "national accident investigation organisation" it doesn't mean that their findings are by definition correct or even impartial. The source explains very clearly how much the Egyptian government influenced the EAAID's investigation. They were all but forced to find a conclusion that exonorated Egypt in any way. Meanwhile, the BEA actually found themselves at arms with their own government through considering their loyalty to the integrity and the objectivety of the investigation and to the other parties involved in it more important than their loyalty to their own government. The EAAID set out to find evidence to support a pre-decided conclusion, while the BEA set out to collect and analyze evidence and information and ultmately drew their conclusion at the end of the entire sequence of analyzing all the collected evidence. Lastly, Egypt has a history of trying to shift the blame away from them and not conducting such investigations in an impartial manner. (Personal attack removed) Tvx1 21:00, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

(Personal attack removed) DaveReidUK (talk) 21:37, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

Tvx1, let's keep it on topic please. This is not the place for your judgement on other editors. Let's talk about how we improve the article. John (talk) 09:57, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

"This is not the place for your judgement on other editors".

Although a judgement that a fellow editor is "incredibly naive" is apparently acceptable and allowed to remain ???

Double standards at work here ... DaveReidUK (talk) 10:06, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Read what I wrote. I've reminded the other editor not to do that again. Now, can we please get back to the actual discussion? John (talk) 10:13, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I've removed Tvx1's offensive remark directed at me, as is my right under WP:NPA. Happy to draw a line under the affair now. DaveReidUK (talk) 10:24, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

This seems to purely be original research based on your opiniated analysis. Unless you're actually providing proof (e.g: sources), I doubt your comment (which included a personal attack) is really going to be considered. Aviationwikiflight (talk) 11:02, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

The sources were already provided by the OP. I literally referred to it in my post. This is not my analysis at all.Tvx1 19:07, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Admiral Cloudberg's analysis can't be used because it's self-published. Wikipedia doesn't count self-published stuff. In the case of MS990, William Langewiesche wrote an article in The Atlantic on assessing the viewpoints on MS990. One can search French newspapers to see if such an analysis was done in the press regarding MS804 in that country.... WhisperToMe (talk) 04:38, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

@WhisperToMe: I’m unable to find any sort of analysis of the accident from reliable sources after both reports were published. So how would one go about writing the article? Would it be a 50-50 split between the Egyptian CAA report and the BEA’s report? Aviationwikiflight (talk) 07:33, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

I think for now, perhaps a 50-50 split. Then we should be on the lookout for any analyses from newspapers and from technical and academic books. I'm sure somebody will write a published article about it, and/or perhaps someone will publish Admiral Cloudberg's analyses... WhisperToMe (talk) 01:17, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

No. That would give the Egyptian report undue weight given the lack of evidence supporting its conclusions. Tvx1 02:20, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

That’s an incorrectly strict representation of Wikipedia policy. Moreover, the reports are just as self-published.Tvx1 02:26, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reliable_sources states: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications." Has Cloudberg had any content published in academic books, Le Monde, The Atlantic, etc. or has their content only been self-published on Medium?

I am aware that the Egyptian aviation authorities don't have the most stellar reputation in accuracy. Unfortunately, the responsibility for the investigation was delegated to them under international law, so it kind of forces the article to talk about their conclusions. While their reports are technically "self-published" (and same with the BEA), the reality is they are the government authorities, and much of the controversy revolves around their conclusions.

I can't imagine that aviation safety journals won't talk about this event, and I would think that Le Monde would have some form of analysis published about MS804's reports.

WhisperToMe (talk) 03:09, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Final accident reports

The English version of the EAIID report states that the Arabic version is the original and it takes precedence over the English version. However I checked the accident report listing in the Arabic page and it links to only an English version... WhisperToMe (talk) 04:33, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

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