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>It is true that the F.A.A.’s current delegation rules have been around for more than a decade — and that America’s commercial airlines have assembled an enviab
by RcouF1uZ4gsC 8y ago
>It is true that the F.A.A.’s current delegation rules have been around for more than a decade — and that America’s commercial airlines have assembled an enviable safety record over that period. But the available evidence also suggests that America’s refusal to adequately fund the F.A.A. allowed corporations to gain inordinate influence over a public-sector function — and many people died as a result.
This is classic motivated reasoning. The authors know that the US Airline safety profile over that time is stellar. Knowing they can’t base their claim on the actual statistical safety record, thy resort to using a comparison with vague words such as ‘suggests’ and ‘inordinate’ and emotionally charged phrases: such as ‘corporations to gain inordinate influence’ and ‘many people died.’
They are hoping that your emotional brain will overlook the lack of argument of real quantitative evidence and jump on the emotional bits of the argument.
This is similar to how anti-immigration groups will seize on a high profile crime committed by an immigrant and use that to say that immigration should be stopped/cut back without discussing if immigrants are actually more likely to commit violent crimes than natives.
- olefoo 8y agoThe proper metaphor here would be "controlled descent into terrain"; where everything is fine, until the terminal event.
- AceyMan 8y agoTo work from the same passage, >It is true that the F.A.A.’s current delegation rules have been around for more than a decade [...] Yeah, well, great. But aircraft development timespans are on the order of ten to fifteen, sometimes twenty years—how many new models (or significant variants) were shipped in that window? IOW, any "ten-year-old track record" in transport category aviation isn't really saying much due to the timescales involved.
- Gibbon1 8y agoYou could argue that the current record is simply a legacy of previous high quality government regulation and oversights. And that the 737-MAX is the first article of the new regime. Another good example of that is the defective Bay Bridge replacement between Treasure Island and Oakland. That bridge is going to fail during the next earthquake because of design flaws that the oversight agency didn't have the manpower to spot. CALTRANS after three decades of Republican lead budget cuts doesn't have the ability to safely oversee projects of that size anymore.
- DrScump 8y agoCALTRANS after three decades of Republican lead budget cuts doesn't have the ability to safely oversee... Republicans have been in the minority in both houses and had absolutely no power in the CA legislature appropriations process for over two decades. For much of that time, the Democrats had supermajorities. The new Bay Bridge debacle falls squarely on the Browns.
- paulydavis 8y agoThe competition pressure in the last 5 years has been intense. Margins are very low compared to ten years ago. It also takes minimum 4 years to design and test a system.
- salawat 8y agoYour post is a classic rhetorical tactic known as "attacking the delivery" you did nothing to really refute their point. My sibling post also posits a reasonable alternative explanation. The FAA also has a lengthy history of certifying planes on the basis of "equivalent level of safety" despite having characteristics that violated airworthyness regulations. See the 727, 707, and several other Boeing offerings that were rejected by the ARB in the UK. D.P. Davies is the primary source. His interviews are archived by the Royal Aeronautics Society. No underhanded motivation here. Just wanted to set the record straight.