6 ms·

Two crashes in 6 months and there's only 350 planes in existence is a pretty bad safety record that is probably on par with Tupolev. The US can tacitly blame "

Two crashes in 6 months and there's only 350 planes in existence is a pretty bad safety record that is probably on par with Tupolev. The US can tacitly blame "third world" pilots all they want, but with 300 people dead already, I think it's important for the FAA and Boeing to say exactly what is going on, especially since the planes are in use in the USA. There is a debate over if the plane's hardware, software, or pilots are at fault-- either the planes should be grounded or the exact protocol should be published all over for the world to know, since it is the passengers' lives at stake.

babuskov 8y ago
From what I gathered so far, it looks like airplane design was made with many compromises that made it complicated to pilot planes properly.
- anoncoward111 8y ago
  I agree, in my eyes it is debate between "the plane is not safe to fly by anyone" and "the plane is safe to fly with additional training, when given" If the 737 MAX planes remain in the air in the USA, Boeing and US Govt are de facto saying "third world pilots clearly just don't understand how to fly our planes". If they ground the planes, they de facto admit there is an actual safety issue.
  - vorpalhex 8y ago
    -
    - a1369209993 8y ago
      Actually, "de facto" is in contrast to "de jure", meaning "in law" or more generally "officially". If they leave the planes in the air, then whatever the offical reason, they are de facto asserting that there is no (significant) problem. (Grounding them on the other hand could just be considered a excess of caution, so at most it asserts "We aren't sure there isn't a problem.".[0]) 0: Which action, if either, is definitive might differ if the stakes weren't inconvenience vs death, or if the FAA openly didn't care.
  - Someone1234 8y ago
    > "the plane is safe to fly with additional training, when given" If that is ultimately the conclusion, then it still gives the FAA and EASA a black eye, since they allowed the aircraft update without additional training for MCAS. Best case scenario for Boeing is that the Ethiopian Airlines crash turns out to be something else. If it is MCAS related Boeing, the FAA, and EASA amongst others that green-lit the update without training have a lot to answer for.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - outworlder 8y ago
    > "the plane is safe to fly with additional training, when given" Here's the thing. The additional training is not strictly necessary. The same procedures pilots are already trained for in previous models should have saved the aircraft. Unless investigations turn up a new problem. Of course, one could argue that, by disclosure changes to the system, that the pilots would be able to react faster. But that's not really for us to decide.
    - DuskStar 8y ago
      It feels to me like Air France Flight 447 [0] - there was a flight computer behavior that the pilots didn't know about, but nonetheless following normal procedures would have prevented the crash. (For AF 447 that would have been "point the nose down to recover from a stall", for Lion Air 610 it was "check the trim wheel - you know, that thing that moves right by your knee - if pitch control is abnormal") Unfortunately, as we add more and more safety systems to planes people seem to be forgetting how to compensate for when the systems fail... 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447
oppositelock 8y ago
The FAA and Boeing need to investigate this, but you can't make such statistical inferences, since you simply don't have enough data points. There could be no more crashes for the next few years with those 350 planes. The FAA and NTSB are very good at what they do, one of the very few examples of government services that work well together with industry, give them some time.
- pgreenwood 8y ago
  The statistic looks appallingly bad to me viewed as a poisson process. If you had thousands of planes with zero crashes over decades would you consider that as zero data points?
- nraynaud 8y ago
  You just can't have more data points, because flight travel is too safe. And no, the FAA is not really that good, general aviation pilots die all the time from negligence and the FAA doesn't enforce the rules when pilots violate them (in particular low altitude flying).
  - dpe82 8y ago
    General aviation is actually quite safety focused. The entire culture is centered around safety; a large amount of private pilot training time is dedicated to the subject; human factors in particular. Go to any fly-in breakfast and talk to the pilots and inevitably at some point during the conversation you'll hear something about being a safe pilot. That being said, the government gives general aviation pilots a fair amount of freedom once they get their license. There are rules and they are enforced; particularly when violations put the general public at risk. But there's also recognition that it's quite possible to regulate GA out of existence like a lot of other countries have, and that has pretty negative consequences in terms of pilot availability for other purposes. Therefore, regulations scale with the amount of danger the public is exposed to. For example, ultralight aircraft (single place, <254 lbs, <=5gal fuel, <=55kts) are virtually unregulated; the idea being that they're so small and light that they aren't much danger to others. LSA/sport (1-2 place, <=1320lbs, <=120kts) are regulated; require a license and inspections but less stringent than a private license, and so on. Private licenses can't be used for commercial purposes, and generally speaking more training and endorsements or ratings are required for eg. aircraft with multiple engines; those that are >=12,500 lbs, those that land on water, those that have old-school landing gear, etc. etc.
ams6110 8y ago
True randomness does not preclude clusters of events. In fact that's the nature of random events. Not saying I think these are completely random. But since we don't even know the cause of the Ethopian crash yet, who's to say? The causes may very well be unrelated.
- freehunter 8y ago
  The FAA is not an agency that should be assuming something is safe by default. It is an agency that should be assuming something is unsafe by default and demanding the manufacturer prove it is safe. If it's random chance, Boeing should be able to prove it is random chance. Until then, the FAA should ground them.
  - hexane360 8y ago
    How do you suggest Boeing "prove" that there are no links between the events? You can't prove the null hypothesis.
    - Maken 8y ago
      They can prove the causes were different in each case.
- abmackenzie 8y ago
  They may very well be unrelated, but shouldn't the FAA take precautions until that is known?
nabla9 8y ago
Both crashes happened soon after takeoff (6 and 13 minutes) and Boeing seems to think that they know where the error is (stall in high angle-of-attack) and have a fix in pipeline. FAA is taking calculated risk.
riazrizvi 8y ago
The Boeing Max 8 entered service in May 2017. Assuming a linear deployment rate, the 350 planes in service have seen an average life of 10 months. Assume 4 flights/day, that's 420,000 flights so far. 2 have gone down. A best estimate of the likelihood that a plane goes down (MLE), p = X/n = 2/420,000 = 1/210,000 ~ Binomial(n=420,000, p=P(crash)). According to the Economist [1] the likelihood your plane goes down generally is 1/5,000,000. So based on the fact that the plane crashes had similar characteristics, the Boeing Max 8 is 25X more dangerous than a regular plane. 25X is the difference between surviving a commute on a bicycle vs a car [2]. [1 https://www.economist.com/gulliver/2015/01/29/a-crash-course-in-probability https://www.economist.com/gulliver/2015/01/29/a-crash-course...]. [2 https://www.riskcomm.com/visualaids/riskscale/datasources.php https://www.riskcomm.com/visualaids/riskscale/datasources.ph...]. EDIT: The Economist source that estimates a plane's p(crash) is questionable, for a passenger plane. If anyone wants to dig into this further, I found this source too: http://www.baaa-acro.com/crash-archives http://www.baaa-acro.com/crash-archives
- anoncoward111 8y ago
  This is excellent data and calculation work. I really appreciate it! I have a suspicion that if you were to remove all instances of terrorism and look at the crash rate of Boeing vs Tupolev, almost all Boeing planes would be way better except for the MAX 8. That is probably a meaningful piece of data too.
- Scoundreller 8y ago
  If I have an upcoming flight on a MAX 8, can I sufficiently compensate for any increased risk by taking the train to the airport instead of a 25km Uber drive?
  - riazrizvi 8y ago
    Given the uncertainty about p(crash) that I mention, then to satisfy confidence limits, you should wear a styrofoam helmet for the full duration of your trip. And post a photo.
- dis-sys 8y ago
briandear 8y ago
How is the FAA responsible for crashes outside of its jurisdiction? There haven’t been any 737 Max 8 crashes in the US. I can’t speak for Ethiopian, but Lion Air and Indonesia in general have a pretty bad safety record. Lion Air was removed from the EU safety blacklist in 2016. In 2013 another Lion Air 737 (not the Max 8) crashed into the ocean near Bali. Lion Air has had pilot test positive for crystal meth (2012). Lion Air has had multiple major incidents with various 737s over the past years. The Ethiopian Air copilot only had 200 total hours of experience. In the US, you need an ATP certificate with a minimum of 1500 hours to even be a first officer. Before we start throwing sand at the FAA, why not ask how a 200 hour pilot gets into the copilot seat of an airliner. Let’s also ask why Lion Air failed to fix a problem with the airspeed indicator. During a previous flight the day before the crash, the pilot reported a problem with the airspeed indicator and deactivated the anti-stall system. Lion Air didn’t fix the problem and the airplane crashed the next day. But that’s Boeing’s fault? Lion Air is a shit airline with a horrible safety record. Southwest Airlines uses only 737s and you can count their major incidents on one hand and their fatalities in over 47 years? Just 1. Lion Air fatalities? Hundreds over multiple incidents. Ethiopian Air? Much safer than Lion Air, but much less safer than Southwest. Ethiopian has a fleet of 108 airplanes and Southwest has a fleet of 754, including 35 Max 8 planes — yet not a single incident despite flying an order of magnitude more frequently than those other airlines. Air Canada has 24 8 Maxes in the air as does American. Along with Southwest, that’s hundreds of flights per day without incident, but then there is a crash with some third world Lion Air plane where maintenance is provided with proverbial duct tape and Ethiopia Air who has a student pilot as the first officer? Perhaps instead of grounding specific airplanes, we should ground specific airlines, because it’s clear than Ethiopian and Lion Air ought not be flying until they can figure out the basics such as maintenance and pilot training.
- dlgeek 8y ago
  > How is the FAA responsible for crashes outside of its jurisdiction? They have jurisdiction over the type certification as the responsible regulatory body for the nation of origin of the airframe.
- avar 8y ago
  Even if all this speculation of yours is true, it's still the FAA's and Boeing's problem. These supposedly awful third world pilots and aircraft engineers have somehow been managing to fly earlier models of the 737 for decades, but when they upgrade to the MAX variant somehow two of them crash in quick succession? That either indicates that these two events are freak accidents, or that the MAX shouldn't have the same type rating, the latter of which is on the FAA and Boeing.
deleted 8y ago
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deleted 8y ago
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babuskov 8y ago

From what I gathered so far, it looks like airplane design was made with many compromises that made it complicated to pilot planes properly.

anoncoward111 8y ago
I agree, in my eyes it is debate between "the plane is not safe to fly by anyone" and "the plane is safe to fly with additional training, when given" If the 737 MAX planes remain in the air in the USA, Boeing and US Govt are de facto saying "third world pilots clearly just don't understand how to fly our planes". If they ground the planes, they de facto admit there is an actual safety issue.
- vorpalhex 8y ago
  -
  - a1369209993 8y ago
    Actually, "de facto" is in contrast to "de jure", meaning "in law" or more generally "officially". If they leave the planes in the air, then whatever the offical reason, they are de facto asserting that there is no (significant) problem. (Grounding them on the other hand could just be considered a excess of caution, so at most it asserts "We aren't sure there isn't a problem.".[0]) 0: Which action, if either, is definitive might differ if the stakes weren't inconvenience vs death, or if the FAA openly didn't care.
- Someone1234 8y ago
  > "the plane is safe to fly with additional training, when given" If that is ultimately the conclusion, then it still gives the FAA and EASA a black eye, since they allowed the aircraft update without additional training for MCAS. Best case scenario for Boeing is that the Ethiopian Airlines crash turns out to be something else. If it is MCAS related Boeing, the FAA, and EASA amongst others that green-lit the update without training have a lot to answer for.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- outworlder 8y ago
  > "the plane is safe to fly with additional training, when given" Here's the thing. The additional training is not strictly necessary. The same procedures pilots are already trained for in previous models should have saved the aircraft. Unless investigations turn up a new problem. Of course, one could argue that, by disclosure changes to the system, that the pilots would be able to react faster. But that's not really for us to decide.
  - DuskStar 8y ago
    It feels to me like Air France Flight 447 [0] - there was a flight computer behavior that the pilots didn't know about, but nonetheless following normal procedures would have prevented the crash. (For AF 447 that would have been "point the nose down to recover from a stall", for Lion Air 610 it was "check the trim wheel - you know, that thing that moves right by your knee - if pitch control is abnormal") Unfortunately, as we add more and more safety systems to planes people seem to be forgetting how to compensate for when the systems fail... 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447

oppositelock 8y ago

The FAA and Boeing need to investigate this, but you can't make such statistical inferences, since you simply don't have enough data points. There could be no more crashes for the next few years with those 350 planes. The FAA and NTSB are very good at what they do, one of the very few examples of government services that work well together with industry, give them some time.

pgreenwood 8y ago
The statistic looks appallingly bad to me viewed as a poisson process. If you had thousands of planes with zero crashes over decades would you consider that as zero data points?
nraynaud 8y ago
You just can't have more data points, because flight travel is too safe. And no, the FAA is not really that good, general aviation pilots die all the time from negligence and the FAA doesn't enforce the rules when pilots violate them (in particular low altitude flying).
- dpe82 8y ago
  General aviation is actually quite safety focused. The entire culture is centered around safety; a large amount of private pilot training time is dedicated to the subject; human factors in particular. Go to any fly-in breakfast and talk to the pilots and inevitably at some point during the conversation you'll hear something about being a safe pilot. That being said, the government gives general aviation pilots a fair amount of freedom once they get their license. There are rules and they are enforced; particularly when violations put the general public at risk. But there's also recognition that it's quite possible to regulate GA out of existence like a lot of other countries have, and that has pretty negative consequences in terms of pilot availability for other purposes. Therefore, regulations scale with the amount of danger the public is exposed to. For example, ultralight aircraft (single place, <254 lbs, <=5gal fuel, <=55kts) are virtually unregulated; the idea being that they're so small and light that they aren't much danger to others. LSA/sport (1-2 place, <=1320lbs, <=120kts) are regulated; require a license and inspections but less stringent than a private license, and so on. Private licenses can't be used for commercial purposes, and generally speaking more training and endorsements or ratings are required for eg. aircraft with multiple engines; those that are >=12,500 lbs, those that land on water, those that have old-school landing gear, etc. etc.

ams6110 8y ago

True randomness does not preclude clusters of events. In fact that's the nature of random events. Not saying I think these are completely random. But since we don't even know the cause of the Ethopian crash yet, who's to say? The causes may very well be unrelated.

freehunter 8y ago
The FAA is not an agency that should be assuming something is safe by default. It is an agency that should be assuming something is unsafe by default and demanding the manufacturer prove it is safe. If it's random chance, Boeing should be able to prove it is random chance. Until then, the FAA should ground them.
- hexane360 8y ago
  How do you suggest Boeing "prove" that there are no links between the events? You can't prove the null hypothesis.
  - Maken 8y ago
    They can prove the causes were different in each case.
abmackenzie 8y ago
They may very well be unrelated, but shouldn't the FAA take precautions until that is known?

nabla9 8y ago

Both crashes happened soon after takeoff (6 and 13 minutes) and Boeing seems to think that they know where the error is (stall in high angle-of-attack) and have a fix in pipeline. FAA is taking calculated risk.

riazrizvi 8y ago

The Boeing Max 8 entered service in May 2017. Assuming a linear deployment rate, the 350 planes in service have seen an average life of 10 months. Assume 4 flights/day, that's 420,000 flights so far. 2 have gone down. A best estimate of the likelihood that a plane goes down (MLE), p = X/n = 2/420,000 = 1/210,000 ~ Binomial(n=420,000, p=P(crash)). According to the Economist [1] the likelihood your plane goes down generally is 1/5,000,000. So based on the fact that the plane crashes had similar characteristics, the Boeing Max 8 is 25X more dangerous than a regular plane. 25X is the difference between surviving a commute on a bicycle vs a car [2]. [1 https://www.economist.com/gulliver/2015/01/29/a-crash-course-in-probability https://www.economist.com/gulliver/2015/01/29/a-crash-course...]. [2 https://www.riskcomm.com/visualaids/riskscale/datasources.php https://www.riskcomm.com/visualaids/riskscale/datasources.ph...]. EDIT: The Economist source that estimates a plane's p(crash) is questionable, for a passenger plane. If anyone wants to dig into this further, I found this source too: http://www.baaa-acro.com/crash-archives http://www.baaa-acro.com/crash-archives

anoncoward111 8y ago
This is excellent data and calculation work. I really appreciate it! I have a suspicion that if you were to remove all instances of terrorism and look at the crash rate of Boeing vs Tupolev, almost all Boeing planes would be way better except for the MAX 8. That is probably a meaningful piece of data too.
Scoundreller 8y ago
If I have an upcoming flight on a MAX 8, can I sufficiently compensate for any increased risk by taking the train to the airport instead of a 25km Uber drive?
- riazrizvi 8y ago
  Given the uncertainty about p(crash) that I mention, then to satisfy confidence limits, you should wear a styrofoam helmet for the full duration of your trip. And post a photo.
dis-sys 8y ago

briandear 8y ago

How is the FAA responsible for crashes outside of its jurisdiction? There haven’t been any 737 Max 8 crashes in the US. I can’t speak for Ethiopian, but Lion Air and Indonesia in general have a pretty bad safety record. Lion Air was removed from the EU safety blacklist in 2016. In 2013 another Lion Air 737 (not the Max 8) crashed into the ocean near Bali. Lion Air has had pilot test positive for crystal meth (2012). Lion Air has had multiple major incidents with various 737s over the past years. The Ethiopian Air copilot only had 200 total hours of experience. In the US, you need an ATP certificate with a minimum of 1500 hours to even be a first officer. Before we start throwing sand at the FAA, why not ask how a 200 hour pilot gets into the copilot seat of an airliner. Let’s also ask why Lion Air failed to fix a problem with the airspeed indicator. During a previous flight the day before the crash, the pilot reported a problem with the airspeed indicator and deactivated the anti-stall system. Lion Air didn’t fix the problem and the airplane crashed the next day. But that’s Boeing’s fault? Lion Air is a shit airline with a horrible safety record. Southwest Airlines uses only 737s and you can count their major incidents on one hand and their fatalities in over 47 years? Just 1. Lion Air fatalities? Hundreds over multiple incidents. Ethiopian Air? Much safer than Lion Air, but much less safer than Southwest. Ethiopian has a fleet of 108 airplanes and Southwest has a fleet of 754, including 35 Max 8 planes — yet not a single incident despite flying an order of magnitude more frequently than those other airlines. Air Canada has 24 8 Maxes in the air as does American. Along with Southwest, that’s hundreds of flights per day without incident, but then there is a crash with some third world Lion Air plane where maintenance is provided with proverbial duct tape and Ethiopia Air who has a student pilot as the first officer? Perhaps instead of grounding specific airplanes, we should ground specific airlines, because it’s clear than Ethiopian and Lion Air ought not be flying until they can figure out the basics such as maintenance and pilot training.

dlgeek 8y ago
> How is the FAA responsible for crashes outside of its jurisdiction? They have jurisdiction over the type certification as the responsible regulatory body for the nation of origin of the airframe.
avar 8y ago
Even if all this speculation of yours is true, it's still the FAA's and Boeing's problem. These supposedly awful third world pilots and aircraft engineers have somehow been managing to fly earlier models of the 737 for decades, but when they upgrade to the MAX variant somehow two of them crash in quick succession? That either indicates that these two events are freak accidents, or that the MAX shouldn't have the same type rating, the latter of which is on the FAA and Boeing.

deleted 8y ago

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deleted 8y ago

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