2 ms·

How does one properly think about a decision like this? It's easy to go "better safe than sorry", but that sort of thinking leads to the death of playgrounds an

How does one properly think about a decision like this? It's easy to go "better safe than sorry", but that sort of thinking leads to the death of playgrounds and people being afraid to walk around at night when it's the safest it's ever been. How do you balance the small chance of a catastrophe against the guaranteed disruption and inconvenience to huge numbers of people? As a base rate, I understand that there are hundreds of these aircraft safely making thousands of trips, so the probability of a crash seems quite low, though, higher than it should be. Everyone seems very quick to say the planes should be grounded (I saw a headline on CNN yesterday "FAA still allows Boeing planes to fly despite crashes" or something to that effect), but it seems like a tricky decision to make. It also seems like a technical one probably with a lot more data available and a history of precedent to those who actually have to make it. Frankly, I'm a little surprised at the vigor with which the general media and social media have taken to this situation, with their opinions on the matter.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
>How does one properly think about a decision like this? The three examples I see are some variation on: a) Don't think about it b) Proclaim that "better safe than sorry" is the only answer. c) Keep your mouth shut because you don't fall into either of the former categories and realize that there's no upside to getting involved. I agree that it is a tricky decision to make. Considering that the data recorders of the most recent crash are in hand and not at the bottom of the ocean somewhere unknown I think that we should probably wait a few days for some preliminary analysis. If they were lost in the ocean somewhere I'd be more supportive of the calls to ground the aircraft. The temptation is to assume that the most recent crash was caused by the "new MCAS failure mode" that doomed the previous flight. That issue was caused by a lack of training and pilot understanding of the potential for that failure mode (because Boeing didn't want to force airlines to re-train pilots). What's the chance that a 3rd plane will crash now that every pilot not living under a rock is aware of the new failure mode? If the new MCAS behavior is what's causing the crashes then the chances should be very low. Maybe not as low as with proper retraining but still tons lower than before the first crash. If I were smart I'd have picked option C.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

>How does one properly think about a decision like this? The three examples I see are some variation on: a) Don't think about it b) Proclaim that "better safe than sorry" is the only answer. c) Keep your mouth shut because you don't fall into either of the former categories and realize that there's no upside to getting involved. I agree that it is a tricky decision to make. Considering that the data recorders of the most recent crash are in hand and not at the bottom of the ocean somewhere unknown I think that we should probably wait a few days for some preliminary analysis. If they were lost in the ocean somewhere I'd be more supportive of the calls to ground the aircraft. The temptation is to assume that the most recent crash was caused by the "new MCAS failure mode" that doomed the previous flight. That issue was caused by a lack of training and pilot understanding of the potential for that failure mode (because Boeing didn't want to force airlines to re-train pilots). What's the chance that a 3rd plane will crash now that every pilot not living under a rock is aware of the new failure mode? If the new MCAS behavior is what's causing the crashes then the chances should be very low. Maybe not as low as with proper retraining but still tons lower than before the first crash. If I were smart I'd have picked option C.