Backstory Report
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Sources and corrections

Each case lists its sources with page references. Here they are in one place, with the corrections log.

Corrections

No corrections so far. When a case is corrected, the date, the case and what changed are listed here.

Case File 006: Air Canada 143

  1. Board of Inquiry (Commissioner the Hon. Mr. Justice George H. Lockwood), Final Report of the Board of Inquiry investigating the circumstances of an accident involving the Air Canada Boeing 767 aircraft C-GAUN that effected an emergency landing at Gimli, Manitoba on the 23rd day of July, 1983, April 1985, Catalogue No. T22-64/1985E. Scan hosted by the US Federal Aviation Administration
  2. Short quotations from the report are Crown copyright, Canada, 1985. No page, figure or photograph of the report is reproduced; every map and diagram is redrawn from its text. No footage or photograph of the event is used.
  3. Map data: Natural Earth. Airport positions: OurAirports. The track is schematic, from the distances in the report; the report says miles, drawn as nautical miles.

The gauges and the dispatch pp. 25 to 28; the factor pp. 28, 39 to 40; the Montreal sum, as the Board reconstructed it, pp. 41 to 42; Ottawa p. 43; the flight and the landing pp. 28 to 29 and 100 to 102; causes pp. 35 to 36, 38 and 80; changes and recommendations pp. 127 to 129 and 138.

Case File 005: US Airways 1549

  1. National Transportation Safety Board, Loss of Thrust in Both Engines After Encountering a Flock of Birds and Subsequent Ditching on the Hudson River, US Airways Flight 1549, Airbus A320-214, N106US, Weehawken, New Jersey, January 15, 2009, Aircraft Accident Report NTSB/AAR-10/03, adopted 4 May 2010
  2. NTSB public docket DCA09MA026: item 85, Aircraft Performance Study, 10 Dec 2009 (radar track, Table 1a, p. 22); items 88 and 89, flight data recorder report and data; item 101, Wildlife Factors report, 15 May 2009; item 103, feather laboratory analysis
  3. Courtesy: National Transportation Safety Board. No footage or photograph of the event is used; every map and diagram is redrawn from the report and the docket.
  4. Map data: US Census Bureau TIGER/Line 2024; FAA runway data (NASR, effective 29 Oct 2026); USGS GNIS place names; Natural Earth.

Times and heights pp. 1 to 3 and 47 to 48; cockpit voice recorder transcript, Appendix B, pp. 132 to 185; simulator runs p. 50; feathers and birds pp. 49 and 80; findings pp. 119 to 122; probable cause p. 123; recommendations pp. 124 to 128.

Case File 004: Old River

  1. US Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District, Old River Control, Jan 2009
  2. Mississippi River Commission, Old River Control, archived 19 Oct 2016
  3. H. N. Fisk, Alluvial Valley of the Lower Mississippi River, Mississippi River Commission, 1 Dec 1944, plate 22
  4. H. N. Fisk, Atchafalaya Basin and the Problem of Mississippi River Diversion, Mississippi River Commission, Apr 1952
  5. USACE New Orleans District, Morganza Floodway Overview, archived 18 Oct 2016
  6. USGS Circular 1375, 2012 (deltas after Blum and Roberts, 2009)
  7. USGS Professional Paper 1798-L, 2014
  8. USGS, Louisiana Coastal Wetlands: A Resource At Risk
  9. USGS NWIS 07381490, Atchafalaya at Simmesport, daily, 2009 to 2025
  10. USGS NWIS 07289000, Mississippi at Vicksburg, peaks
  11. USGS National Hydrography Dataset
  12. USGS GNIS place names
  13. NASA Earth Observatory, Morganza Spillway Opens in Louisiana, 17 May 2011
  14. NASA Earth Observatory, Taming the Mississippi River
  15. NASA Earth Observatory, Growing Deltas in Atchafalaya Bay
  16. Terrain: USGS 3DEP via AWS Terrain Tiles. Map data: Natural Earth.

Case File 003: Qantas 32

  1. Australian Transport Safety Bureau, In-flight uncontained engine failure overhead Batam Island, Indonesia, 4 November 2010, VH-OQA, Airbus A380-842, Aviation Occurrence Investigation AO-2010-089, final report, 27 June 2013
  2. Report PDF
  3. Map data: Natural Earth

Report text licensed CC BY 3.0 Australia. Source: Australian Transport Safety Bureau. No figure or photograph from the report is reproduced; every map and diagram is redrawn from its text and tables.

Case File 002: Below sea level

  1. PBL, correction of the IPCC wording, 2010
  2. Erkens, Van der Meulen and Middelkoop, Double trouble, Hydrogeology Journal 24, 2016
  3. PBL, Subsiding soils, rising costs, Dec 2016
  4. Schiereck and Visser, De Sint-Elisabethsvloed, Tijdschrift voor Waterstaatsgeschiedenis 30, 2021
  5. Rijkswaterstaat, Watersnoodramp 1953
  6. KNMI, Watersnoodramp 1953
  7. Delta Committee, Final Report, 1960
  8. Rijkswaterstaat, Deltawerken
  9. Rijkswaterstaat, Maeslantkering
  10. Rijkswaterstaat, Storm Pia, 21 Dec 2023
  11. Rijkswaterstaat, 100 jaar Zuiderzeewerken
  12. Rijkswaterstaat, Evacuatie 1995, Jan 2025
  13. Tweede Kamer, Room for the River, Jun 2016
  14. Staten-Generaal Digitaal, Flevoland law, 1985
  15. UNESCO, World Heritage, Beemster (899) and Kinderdijk (818)
  16. ASME, Landmark 153, Cruquius
  17. gemalen.nl, De Haarlemmermeerpolder
  18. Britannica, IJsselmeer Polders
  19. M. M. Dodge, Hans Brinker, 1865
  20. Elevation: produced using Copernicus WorldDEM-90 (c) DLR e.V. 2010-2014 and (c) Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014-2018 provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA; all rights reserved
  21. Map data: Natural Earth; OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL)

Case File 001: Three gauges

  1. BITRE, Trainline 12, Table 28, Aug 2025
  2. Victorian Railways, Annual Report 1961 to 1962
  3. Victorian Railways, Annual Report 1962 to 1963
  4. Royal Commission on Uniform Railway Gauge, 1921
  5. NSW State Heritage Register, Albury Railway Station
  6. Queensland Heritage Register, Wallangarra station
  7. Sydney Morning Herald, 13 Dec 1850
  8. South Australian Register, 12 Oct 1880
  9. The West Australian, 18 Oct 1917
  10. Sydney Morning Herald, 27 Sep 1930
  11. The Argus, 13 Sep 1854
  12. The Advertiser, 21 Mar 1942, via Smithsonian Magazine
  13. The Age, 22 Feb 2010
  14. Mark Twain, Following the Equator, 1897
  15. J. A. Mills, The Myth of the Standard Gauge, Griffith University thesis, 2007
  16. ICE, obituary of F. W. Sheilds, 1907
  17. NSW Railway Commissioners, Annual Report 1889, NSW tabled papers
  18. ABS, Year Book Australia 2005
  19. National Railway Museum, Time line of rail in South Australia
  20. P. Laird, Back on Track, UNSW Press, 2001
  21. Railways and Tramways of Australia, Albury station
  22. Wikipedia, Rail gauge in Australia (as a guide only)
  23. Map data: Natural Earth; Geoscience Australia; OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL)
  24. Terrain: USGS SRTM and Geoscience Australia via AWS Terrain Tiles