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Remember all the early A320 crashes? Do you worry about stepping onto an A320 now? Unless the problem turns out to be far deeper, I suspect that this, too, sh

by corbet 8y ago

Remember all the early A320 crashes? Do you worry about stepping onto an A320 now? Unless the problem turns out to be far deeper, I suspect that this, too, shall pass.

CydeWeys 8y ago
Agreed. I don't think they're unsalvageable, but they're definitely unsafe in their current state, and trust will need to be rebuilt (a slow process). Boeing is to blame for most of this because of their design decisions, too.
mrtksn 8y ago
It doesn't look like anything like the 737MAX crashes though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_the_Airbus_A320_family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incident... "an a320 crashes every two years" sounds quite different than "a brand new 737MAX crashes during take off every 6 months because of the faulty sensor thingy". Also a320 family of 8605 aircraft took the life of 1393 passengers in 30 years, 737MAX is at %30 of that in two years and 350 aircraft. 737MAX accidents look very brutal and specific. It doesn't look like "ironing out imperfections" but more like "this plane is broken, it falls off on take off" - regardless if that's the case, people see a pattern here.
- syshax 8y ago
  Worth noting: 150 of the A320 count may be Germanwings Flight 9525 (unless you already accounted for this) - which was suicide by pilot. Not really fair to blame the plane in that case.
  - snowwrestler 8y ago
    It's not fair to blame the plane at all unless you're sure the crash was the plane's fault, but that isn't stopping most of the people in this thread from doing it.
    - hannasanarion 8y ago
      Airplanes don't have the right to a trial of their peers with presumption of innocence. Two crashes within six months is very abnormal. Abnormalities are evidence of problems. Airline regulators are tasked with keeping people from dying, not with protecting manufacturers' feelings.
      - snowwrestler 8y ago
        The Boeing 767 experienced three crashes between the months of September 2001 and April 2002. I think you can guess what caused the first two. You need more information than just a calendar and a model number to make determinations of flight safety.
        Alex3917 8y ago
        > I think you can guess what caused the first two. You do realize they redesigned the plane after 9/11 to prevent that from happening again, right?
        Baeocystin 8y ago
        ...and those changes are what allowed the GermanWings crash to happen. Sometimes there just isn't such thing as a fully-technical solution.
        snowwrestler 8y ago
        Yes but my point is that people don’t avoid the 767. Look upthread please, this whole sub thread is about whether these incidents will cause consumers to avoid 737 Max planes in the future. My (apparently very controversial) opinion is that we don’t know enough to predict that now, because we don’t know what caused the Ethiopian Air crash yet.
        brazzy 8y ago
        People never avoided the 767 because it was clear all along that the crashes had noting to do with the plane. People are avoiding the 737 MAX because given the current information it definitely could be a problem with the plane, in fact the information we already have from the first crash makes it look like it's very likely to be a problem with the plane. You option is not controversial, it's just wrong.
- sgc 8y ago
  It was almost 1 a year for the first 5 years, but that is still less than 25% of the current Max-8 rate. Edit: Max-8 had first flight in 2016 is in service since early 2017, so the crash rate over that period is roughly identical with the rate for the first 5 years of the A320. We just have a set of two closer together recently. Not enough data to form a statistical basis of course.
  - maxnoe 8y ago
    This should be normalized to tue number of flights (if the problems are related to starting/landing) or to flight hours (general problems that might appear mid air) Time is not a very usefull thing here, as number of active aircraft and flights will be very variable.
- sandov 8y ago
  >"an a320 crashes every two years" sounds quite different than "a brand new 737MAX crashes during take off every 6 months because of the faulty sensor thingy". If you cherry-pick the time interval, you can say that basically all planes crash once every hour.

by corbet 8y ago

Remember all the early A320 crashes? Do you worry about stepping onto an A320 now? Unless the problem turns out to be far deeper, I suspect that this, too, shall pass.

CydeWeys 8y ago

Agreed. I don't think they're unsalvageable, but they're definitely unsafe in their current state, and trust will need to be rebuilt (a slow process). Boeing is to blame for most of this because of their design decisions, too.

mrtksn 8y ago

It doesn't look like anything like the 737MAX crashes though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_the_Airbus_A320_family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incident... "an a320 crashes every two years" sounds quite different than "a brand new 737MAX crashes during take off every 6 months because of the faulty sensor thingy". Also a320 family of 8605 aircraft took the life of 1393 passengers in 30 years, 737MAX is at %30 of that in two years and 350 aircraft. 737MAX accidents look very brutal and specific. It doesn't look like "ironing out imperfections" but more like "this plane is broken, it falls off on take off" - regardless if that's the case, people see a pattern here.

syshax 8y ago
Worth noting: 150 of the A320 count may be Germanwings Flight 9525 (unless you already accounted for this) - which was suicide by pilot. Not really fair to blame the plane in that case.
- snowwrestler 8y ago
  It's not fair to blame the plane at all unless you're sure the crash was the plane's fault, but that isn't stopping most of the people in this thread from doing it.
  - hannasanarion 8y ago
    Airplanes don't have the right to a trial of their peers with presumption of innocence. Two crashes within six months is very abnormal. Abnormalities are evidence of problems. Airline regulators are tasked with keeping people from dying, not with protecting manufacturers' feelings.
    - snowwrestler 8y ago
      The Boeing 767 experienced three crashes between the months of September 2001 and April 2002. I think you can guess what caused the first two. You need more information than just a calendar and a model number to make determinations of flight safety.
      - Alex3917 8y ago
        > I think you can guess what caused the first two. You do realize they redesigned the plane after 9/11 to prevent that from happening again, right?
        Baeocystin 8y ago
        ...and those changes are what allowed the GermanWings crash to happen. Sometimes there just isn't such thing as a fully-technical solution.
        snowwrestler 8y ago
        Yes but my point is that people don’t avoid the 767. Look upthread please, this whole sub thread is about whether these incidents will cause consumers to avoid 737 Max planes in the future. My (apparently very controversial) opinion is that we don’t know enough to predict that now, because we don’t know what caused the Ethiopian Air crash yet.
        brazzy 8y ago
        People never avoided the 767 because it was clear all along that the crashes had noting to do with the plane. People are avoiding the 737 MAX because given the current information it definitely could be a problem with the plane, in fact the information we already have from the first crash makes it look like it's very likely to be a problem with the plane. You option is not controversial, it's just wrong.
sgc 8y ago
It was almost 1 a year for the first 5 years, but that is still less than 25% of the current Max-8 rate. Edit: Max-8 had first flight in 2016 is in service since early 2017, so the crash rate over that period is roughly identical with the rate for the first 5 years of the A320. We just have a set of two closer together recently. Not enough data to form a statistical basis of course.
- maxnoe 8y ago
  This should be normalized to tue number of flights (if the problems are related to starting/landing) or to flight hours (general problems that might appear mid air) Time is not a very usefull thing here, as number of active aircraft and flights will be very variable.
sandov 8y ago
>"an a320 crashes every two years" sounds quite different than "a brand new 737MAX crashes during take off every 6 months because of the faulty sensor thingy". If you cherry-pick the time interval, you can say that basically all planes crash once every hour.