4 ms·

"E.g. the reason the 747 was decommissioned from passenger flight in the US when it was is because they flew it right up to the day that the FAA mandated that t

• avar 8y ago
  In 1996 TWA 800, a 747 flight, exploded[1]. The cause was lack of fuel tank inerting. The FAA subsequently published a rule in 2007[2] saying that by December 26th, 2017 all passenger airliners needed to have an inerting system by manufacture or retrofitting. UA and Delta[3][4] flew such variants of the 747 to within a month of the FAA deadline. The final flight was on November 7, 2017. You can still fly the 747 into or within the US (as e.g. BA does), you just need to have a newer or retrofitted 747. The rule also doesn't apply to cargo planes. Sorry about the "[747] flight[s] in the US" ambiguity. I was referring to the domestic fleet at the time. Also it wasn't literally "right up to the day" of the rule going into effect, but in the grand scheme of things that's accurate enough. The phase-out was planned to coincide with that rule going into effect, among other reasons. The point being that airlines can and will fly airframes that in one way or another would be illegal to manufacture today for safety reasons, or which will be grounded by the regulator tomorrow unless an expensive retrofitting is carried out. I think that's fine, but apparently the fact that airlines are allowed to fly planes with fixable flaws that have "already killed people" just to save some money is surprising to some. It's all a cost/benefit trade-off, and is considered normal by regulators. There's some more details in this HN comment chain at the time in 2017 that I contributed to[5]. Edit: Some weird HN glitch or mod action seems to have happened. My comment upthread is now a top-level comment, but initially I'd replied to the "already killed people" top-level comment by jfk13[6], and that's definitely how it was rendered for a while. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_800 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_800 2. https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/AC%20120-98A.pdf https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/... 3. https://eu.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/todayinthesky/2017/11/07/united-airlines-final-boeing-747-flight-today/838922001/ https://eu.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/todayinthesky/2... 4. https://eu.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/todayinthesky/2017/12/19/delta-air-lines-sends-off-its-boeing-747-s-grand-farewell-tour/964101001/ https://eu.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/todayinthesky/2... 5. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16015304 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16015304 6. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19390633 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19390633
  • will4274 8y ago
    > The point being that airlines can and will fly airframes that in one way or another would be illegal to manufacture today for safety reasons Of course, this is also true for cars. The vast majority of cars on the road would be illegal to manufacture today.
    • logifail 8y ago
      > The vast majority of cars on the road would be illegal to manufacture today. Source? Illegal to manufacture due to lacking significant safety features, or due to other changes over time such as evolving emissions standards?
      • avar 8y ago
        Both, there's lots of both safety and pollution mandates like that. As just one recent example[1]: > "the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that it would require all automobiles sold in the United States built beginning in May 2018 to include backup cameras" That's less than a year ago. It's a fair bet that most vehicles on the road don't have such systems, but they're now illegal to manufacture. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backup_camera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backup_camera
        • logifail 8y ago
          > 'The area directly behind vehicles has been described as a "killing zone" due to the associated carnage' Got to love Wikipedia and their strict adherence to NPOV. That kind of camera does look to be a US (and Canada?)-only requirement at the moment. Are there (m)any internationally-recognised compulsory safety feature standards that mean a vehicle manufactured, say, five years ago would no longer to be legal to manufacture today?
          • avar 8y ago
            The "killing zone" isn't something Wikipedia invented, they're quoting Consumer Reports, which isn't exactly just some guy's blog when it comes to this topic. You seem to just be moving the goal post. No, you are not going to find some safety feature of cars that was introduced in lockstep across the entire globe overnight whose impact is as dramatic as say seat belts or airbags were. Car safety is all about marginal improvements at this point, and there are many regulatory agencies. In practice the US and EU set the tone for safety across the globe, but they don't act in lockstep. Most of these mandates are also going to be relatively mundane, e.g. mandating that the A-pillar in newly sold cars this year must be 5% stronger than the previous mandate, or given statistics about pedestrian impact mandating some small adjustment to the design of the front bumper or hood.