Great question, and not an easy one to answer. The identity of the people involved in accidents is usually completely irrelevant to the aviation interest. I say "usually" because it seems like there are some incidents that are investigated more thoroughly than others. If Harrison Ford had died in his recent crash, would we have removed his name from the question and answers, even - or perhaps especially - if he had been shown to commit suicide? And why is the pilot's name important here?

Of course, you can say that celebrities or some high-profile accidents are special cases, but then you introduce an inconsistency that's hard to resolve: "I usually wouldn't mention who it was, but in this case..." My suggestion is to leave it up to the people who post questions and answers: if they post the names that's their decision, but I don't think there should be a systematic policy to remove them. Otherwise, it will always end up in an argument about who is (in)famous enough to mention and who isn't.

And finally, there's also an argument that there will always be accidents where people search by pilot's name, flight number, aircraft model, or other 'irrelevant' criteria. In those cases, we might as well help them to find a good answer, rather than the speculation that exists on many other sites but that SE is explicitly designed to avoid.

Great question, and not an easy one to answer. The identity of the people involved in accidents is usually completely irrelevant to the aviation interest. I say "usually" because it seems like there are some incidents that are investigated more thoroughly than others. If Harrison Ford had died in his recent crash, would we have removed his name from the question and answers, even - or perhaps especially - if he had been shown to commit suicide? And why is the pilot's name important here?

Of course, you can say that celebrities or some high-profile accidents are special cases, but then you introduce an inconsistency that's hard to resolve: "I usually wouldn't mention who it was, but in this case..." My suggestion is to leave it up to the people who post questions and answers: if they post the names that's their decision, but I don't think there should be a systematic policy to remove them. Otherwise, it will always end up in an argument about who is (in)famous enough to mention and who isn't.

And finally, there's also an argument that there will always be accidents where people search by pilot's name, flight number, aircraft model, or other 'irrelevant' criteria. In those cases, we might as well help them to find a good answer, rather than the speculation that exists on many other sites but that SE is explicitly designed to avoid.

Great question, and not an easy one to answer. The identity of the people involved in accidents is usually completely irrelevant to the aviation interest. I say "usually" because it seems like there are some incidents that are investigated more thoroughly than others. If Harrison Ford had died in his recent crash, would we have removed his name from the question and answers, even - or perhaps especially - if he had been shown to commit suicide? And why is the pilot's name important here?

Of course, you can say that celebrities or some high-profile accidents are special cases, but then you introduce an inconsistency that's hard to resolve: "I usually wouldn't mention who it was, but in this case..." My suggestion is to leave it up to the people who post questions and answers: if they post the names that's their decision, but I don't think there should be a systematic policy to remove them. Otherwise, it will always end up in an argument about who is (in)famous enough to mention and who isn't

And finally, there's also an argument that there will always be accidents where people search by pilot's name, flight number, aircraft model, or other 'irrelevant' criteria. In those cases, we might as well help them to find a good answer, rather than the speculation that exists on many other sites but that SE is explicitly designed to avoid.

Great question, and not an easy one to answer. The identity of the people involved in accidents is usually completely irrelevant to the aviation interest. I say "usually" because it seems like there are some incidents that are investigated more thoroughly than others. If Harrison Ford had died in his recent crash, would we have removed his name from the question and answers, even - or perhaps especially - if he had been shown to commit suicide? And why is the pilot's name important here?

Of course, you can say that celebrities or some high-profile accidents are special cases, but then you introduce an inconsistency that's hard to resolve: "I usually wouldn't mention who it was, but in this case..." My suggestion is to leave it up to the people who post questions and answers: if they post the names that's their decision, but I don't think there should be a systematic policy to remove them. Otherwise, it will always end up in an argument about who is (in)famous enough to mention and who isn't.

And finally, there's also an argument that there will always be accidents where people search by pilot's name, flight number, aircraft model, or other 'irrelevant' criteria. In those cases, we might as well help them to find a good answer, rather than the speculation that exists on many other sites but that SE is explicitly designed to avoid.