Talk:Kara Hultgreen

message: This article seeems a little biased to me, as if to conclude she really wasn't competent enough to fly. I'm not saying that it's not true, but it certainly made me think so after reading this article. Maybe a slightly more NPOV would be warranted. AceTracer 08:30, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I added a link to show that she was indeed unqualified to fly according to the rules of the military. She had 4 "downs," or major errors. One or two "downs" is enough to permanently disqualify anyone from being a military pilot. But she was allowed to continue, because the military wanted more female pilots. Grundle2600 22:05, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Grundle2600's edit. -- 119.31.121.84 (talk) 12:58, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

text: While I can see that both statements have supporting information, it seems that it would be appropriate to rephrase the Reaction section to be less ambiguous. I also got the perception that the sections was stating two contradictory statements, rather than explaining both points of view. Meltonkt (talk) 21:34, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Article is completely biased and untrue.  Many aviators have gone through training with "downs".  Having 4 doesn't mean she was unqualified - those downs are complete in the next few flights.  Here is a link stating three "downs" sends a student to a PRB to determine if they can continue training.  http://www.newtotalitarians.com/index_files/TheWrongStuff.htm    — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.83.5.252 (talk) 06:37, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

text:  I will be removing the POV tag.  I am sorry if the facts lead people to conclude that she wasn't competent enough, the article is fair.Mantion (talk) 04:30, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Neutrality

message: Why has all mention of Hultgreen's competence (or lack thereof) been scrubbed from this page? Her death is of noteworthy importance precisely because of the questions it raises concerning affirmative actions, and certain groups not being permitted to fail Solicitr (talk) 22:48, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You could almost make a counter case that the Navy set up a situation which was designed to fail. It was a clear case of something being rushed through before it was properly resolved and it put the case for female combat pilots back 10 years. Certainly, the evidence that Hultgreen's skill was not up to the task needs to be highlighted but this is an article about her as an individual and not a rage against political correctness.Flanker235 (talk) 00:46, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why the whitewash? 

message: In December 1994, the Navy's salvage teams were still trying to raise the aircraft, a month after they'd found and recovered Hultgreen's body. Anyone know if they ever succeeded?
Philadelphia Inquirer report on the unsuccessful attempt to raise the Tomcat.
Just curiousWiseguyThreeOne (talk) 13:45, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Salvage of the aircraft 

message: During her training, Hultgreen had accumulated four "downs," or major errors. Normally, having just one or two of these "downs" would be enough to permanently prevent someone from being a military pilot. However, Hultgreen was allowed to continue, because the military was using affirmative action to try to get more female pilots.Costly Affirmative Action, Walter E. Williams, professor of economics, George Mason University, May 24, 1995
Chucky Cheerio (talk) 18:52, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Link is broken, and I can't find the paper from the suggested author and title (though it does sound like the sort of article Walter E. Williams was apt to write).  Can you (or anyone else) give a working link or a more precise citation?  109.255.211.6 (talk) 05:57, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I doubt if this is a conversation we need to have, for the same reason we don't need to include a treatise on the earth being flat in a discussion about the globe. Not being dismissive here. I just don't see that it brings anything helpful to the table. YMMV. Flanker235 (talk) 11:16, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  I added the following 

message: The Death and Investigation sections do not contain any references. (One that may or may not have previously been good is now a dead link, and there seems to be nothing on their site about Hultgreen.)
Material in the introduction apparently is intended to summarize the material in the two sections mentioned above. Because it is ultimately unreferenced, I have removed it. It can, of course, go back in if proper references are cited. Lou Sander (talk) 02:25, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I tracked down the page in the Internet Archive and found it back at its updated location. --75.157.40.169 (talk) 17:06, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Good work on tracking it down! However, it doesn't seem to contain anything that supports the assertions in the Investigation section. There are no references at all that back up the assertions about the MIR. Since the newly-recovered citation doesn't apply to the content of the section, the section is once again truly unreferenced. I won't restore the tag at this time, since people seem to be working on the problem. Lou Sander (talk) 23:33, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  Your Walter Williams reference is very useful, and I was unaware of it until now. I missed seeing it because it showed up as a mysterious bulleted point at the end of the page. I've fixed that. At the moment, it seems to be a self-published comment, but it looks like it may have been published in a reliable source long ago. Can you help by identifying the place it was published? Lou Sander (talk) 13:26, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

text: Good get! It is useful, verifiable information, but certainly doesn't support all the detail in the "Death" section. Somebody needs to redo that section to make it match the reference. If nobody does it before then, I'll do it myself when I find the time. Lou Sander (talk) 17:32, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unreferenced material 

message: I found a text document on the internet, it was claimed to be the leaked report of her fatal crash. The link is  However, if it's a leaked document, we can not know for sure whether it is genuine. :(
JW19335762743 (talk) 10:00, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, as I understand these matters, even if it is genuine, it is a primary source, and must be used with great caution. In the past, great leaps have been made between what appears in this primary source and what is claimed in the article. It might be OK to list the link to the MIR in the External links section, but I'm not real sure that it is allowed or wise to do so. We surely want all sides of the controversy over her death to be covered in the article, but only if they are all meticulously sourced. The record on that in this article hasn't been very good, IMHO. Lou Sander (talk) 22:01, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Navy's Mishap Investigation Report (MIR) for Hultgreen's crash 

message: I have deleted the entire Investigation section, due to its long and continuing inclusion of bad and missing references, and due to the recent addition of references incorrectly claiming to support the claim that "The Mishap Investigation Report (MIR) came to a different conclusion, however, citing pilot error as the primary factor." 
The references are both identically worded, and their content includes the specific and unambiguous words "And the more recent document, called a Mishap Investigation Report, stops short of blaming the crash on pilot error" (emphasis mine). Primary factor, indeed. 
There are certainly legitimate questions about the causes of the crash and Hultgreen's death. The article should cover them. But it can't do so with original research or by making a claim and supporting it with references that say the exact opposite thing. Maybe some capable editor can restart a properly referenced Investigation section. Lou Sander (talk) 20:47, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Investigation section 

message: It is my experience that no one who goes through OCS has a single college credit; everything is rubber stamped.  Talk about her earlier college degree should be verified.  There should have been an easier way for her to get her wings than enlisting as an E-1.  Looking at her picture, she doesn't look like the smartest girl. Lord Milner (talk) 14:50, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Your experience and your assessment of a woman's intelligence from her picture are not reliable or usable sources;  whereas the supplied source and (for example) The L.A. Times ("Hultgreen, a graduate of the University of Texas") are.  Having a degree on entry to AOCS seems to be the norm -- in fact I believe it's part of the usual requirements.  Or do -- let's say -- Erik Prince's degree and Susan Kilrain's two attract your skepticism too?  I don't see the basis of the "enlisting as an E-1" comment;  AOCS candidates don't occupy that paygrade at any time, as far as I can determine.  Your comment is also in spectacularly bad taste and extremely ill-advised, it should go without saying.  109.255.211.6 (talk) 04:44, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Officer Candidate School 

message: I reverted parts of a recent good faith edit. "She crashed" does indeed put things into active voice, but there is considerable doubt and contention about the pilot's responsibility for the crash. Looking at past material on the talk page, there have been efforts to have the article blame her for the crash, supported by primary sources and by distortion of the meaning of sources. Given this controversy, it seems best to say that the plane crashed, rather than that the pilot crashed it. I also reverted the British English "centreline" to the American "centerline". Lou Sander (talk) 14:06, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  "she crashed" 

message: I deleted a claim about the Navy's opinion that was based on reference #6, "Safety last?" That reference is a Letter to the Editor, and really isn't a reliable source except for the words of its writer. Lou Sander (talk) 23:33, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sourcing not so good 

message: R.I.P Kara --91.47.18.65 (talk) 03:16, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Hauptseite/Archiv/25._Oktober_2019 Still in mind] 

message: There seems to be pretty extensive coverage of the CMR issue in RS. I don't see any reason to cut this material given the amount of discussion it clearly generated. 37.245.79.127 (talk) 14:41, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: You are not restoring "pretty extensive coverage of the CMR issue in RS" you're restoring links to those fringe sources yourself... We can't use CMR or Accuracy in Media at all here, even for primary because the information is about a third party. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:46, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  There's sourcing to the Chicago tribune and UPI which are perfectly good sources for the content included94.57.66.254 (talk) 16:11, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: UPI is not a WP:RS, its owned by the fringe Unification Church. I missed the Tribune source in the middle there, thanks for pointing it out. Can you explain how my text was "not an NPOV summary of the WAPO source"? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:21, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  Fringe ownership does not automatically make a source non RS. The WaPo source says nothing about a smear campaign, just that the incident is being used as argument against women flying fighter jets. We need a source that calls it a smear campaign to phrase it that way94.57.66.254 (talk) 16:36, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: "The Navy returned to flight status yesterday the female fighter pilot it grounded two years ago in the midst of a smear campaign by civilian activists and naval aviators opposed to allowing women to fly fighter aircraft." Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:38, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  CMR