How this works

Reports on this site are written automatically, but not from articles. The pipeline first extracts individual facts from published coverage, and every extracted fact must carry a short verbatim quote from the article that supports it. That quote is checked against the article's own text; if it does not appear, the fact is discarded rather than published.

The report is then written from the surviving facts alone. The writing step never sees the original articles, so it cannot repeat a claim that was not verified first.

When sources disagree

Casualty figures in breaking coverage are provisional and are revised, often more than once. When sources report different figures, no figure is chosen: both are kept and the report gives a range naming who reported what. A report is marked developing for as long as the event is still being updated.

Causes

No cause is reported unless an official investigation has published one. While an investigation is open, the report says the cause has not been determined — even when sources speculate. Details from a preliminary report are labelled as preliminary.

Corrections and revisions

Every version of every report is kept and listed on the report itself, with a note describing what changed. Corrections are made by updating the underlying facts and reissuing the report, so a change is always visible rather than silent.

Aircraft and location data

Where a tail number is known, aircraft details are looked up in public registries. This is reference data, not reporting, and is labelled as such. A registered owner is the owner of record only — frequently a leasing company, a bank, a trust, or a private individual with no connection to the flight, and almost never the pilot. Registry records can be out of date.

• Aircraft data: OpenSky Network aircraft database
• Airport data: OurAirports (public domain)
• Geocoding and place names: © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL
• Terrain elevation: Open-Meteo
• Accident records: NTSB aviation accident database

Source articles

Reports are written from extracted facts and short quoted spans, never by reproducing a publisher's text. Every source behind a report is listed and linked on the report page.