Emerging incidents policy
Emerging incidents policy
When an airliner crashes or has a serious incident, the first reports come from journalists, passengers and people on the ground. Some of what is said in the first hours turns out to be wrong. Official information follows in stages over the next days, months and sometimes years.
We publish a page early, and we label it so you can always see how solid the information is. Every incident page carries one of the four levels below, near the top of the page.
The four information levels
Level 0: Emerging
LEVEL 0 EmergingThe incident is being reported, but no official body has said anything yet. Everything on the page comes from news reports and witness accounts, and any of it may turn out to be wrong.
At this level we only show basic facts that at least two established news outlets report: the flight, the airline, the aircraft, the place, the time and the number of people reported hurt or killed. Each fact names the outlet and links to its report. We don't report causes or theories about causes, and we don't name crew members or victims.
Level 1: Officially confirmed
LEVEL 1 Officially confirmedAn official body has publicly confirmed the incident. That may be the airline, a government, a police force, a regulator or the accident investigation authority. Each fact on the page names who said it, for example "Airline statement" or "Investigator (AAIB)", because these sources don't carry equal weight. An airline statement is not an investigation finding.
Level 2: Preliminary findings
LEVEL 2 Preliminary findingsThe investigation authority has published factual information: usually a preliminary report, which many investigators release within about 30 days. This level also covers interim statements, which the investigating state should publish on each anniversary of an accident if the final report isn't ready, and factual material such as the NTSB's public docket.
Preliminary findings describe what happened. They rarely say why, and they can change.
Some investigations stay at this level for years. Where a final report is late, our pending final reports page shows when the next official update is due.
Level 3: Final report
LEVEL 3 Final reportThe investigation authority has published its final report, with its findings on causes and contributing factors and any safety recommendations. The page is updated to rest on the final report.
Other countries involved in an investigation sometimes formally disagree with a final report. Where that has happened, the page says so and links to their comments.
How we label each fact
Pages move up the levels over time, but the information on them doesn't all arrive at once. A page at Level 2 may still include a passenger's account that was reported at Level 0. Any fact that comes from a lower level than the page itself carries its own label, so you can tell it apart from the official record.
When official information contradicts something reported earlier, we don't delete the earlier report. We mark it as superseded, show what replaced it and link to the official source.
What we never publish
- Causes or blame before the investigation authority has published findings.
- The names of crew members or victims at Level 0.
- Anything reported by a single outlet, or only on social media, without a second established source.
Corrections
If you think something on a page is wrong, please suggest a correction. Corrections are checked against the sources before anything changes, and changes are recorded in the page's revision history.