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,,We remain confident in the fundamental safety of the 737 MAX.'' Am I irrational for not wanting to be on the first 1-2 years of flights on 737 MAX after it g
by xiphias2 8y ago
,,We remain confident in the fundamental safety of the 737 MAX.''
Am I irrational for not wanting to be on the first 1-2 years of flights on 737 MAX after it gets its software update?
- 781 8y agoWell, then I'm irrational too, because I won't set foot in a 737 MAX after this shitfest. The FAA also lost a lot of trust, for rubber-stamping this. The first accident was maybe understandable. We all know that shit happens. But Boeing has zero excuses for not immediately grounding the whole fleet after, and for putting out that useless recovery procedure which didn't work in this case. They let a deadly plane fly for 5 months after they were aware of it, and after the second crash they were phoning Trump to keep it in the air.
- pcurve 8y agoI think lack or major crashes in recent years made them complacent and emboldened them to roll the dice. Then hit snake eyes. Then also may have looked down on the foreign pilots are the airline. Had this been a Southwest plane they may have grounded the plane.
- ams6110 8y agoI do think the complacency issue might be a component here. Humans tend to quickly accept recent history as "normal" and over time forget the lessons learned by past disasters. "Those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat it" It's been a couple of decades I think, maybe more, since an engineering screwup affected a passenger airliner like this. You could argue that the 787 LiIon battery thermal runaway thing was a red flag. That also resulted in an FAA grounding, but that was fairly easily remedied and nobody died.
- cyberferret 8y ago> The FAA also lost a lot of trust, for rubber-stamping this. From documents I've seen (which I cannot find the links to now), it appears that the FAA let Boeing themselves do some of the certification work and sign offs. Putting the foxes in charge of the hen house, so to speak.
- nawtacawp 8y agoIf I recall, this boiled down to the FAA not having engineers who could properly test these systems.
- bonestamp2 8y agoAnd now whistleblowers have said that Boeing didn't have properly trained people to handle it either.
- BurningFrog 8y agoIt's called Regulatory Capture, and it happens to all regulatory agencies sooner or later. They become primarily concerned with the interests of the companies they're regulating, rather than the public interest they're in theory tasked with working for. Unfortunately, that is just how a regulated society works.
- objektif 8y agoHow do you arrive at such a conclusion? Have you researched regulatory agencies in EU? For example they just blocked a meeger between two massive train manufacturer. Your argument sounds like a weak libertarian talking point.
- testpostpls 8y agoI owned a Volkswagen. Why wouldn’t regulatory capture be a thing everywhere?
- objektif 8y agoWhy is corruption in some countries is more than others? I dont know the answer but it is.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y agoIf anything corruption seems more common in countries with fewer regulations, if anything (not that I have any data to back this up).
- Stryder 8y agoThe integrity of engineering excellence should never be sacrificed for profit and/or conveniency in places where it involves human lives. Realistically and pragmatically speaking, you only ever get to have just one single shot at establishing and maintaining that kind of life/death level of trust. Fuck it up, and you're gone- quite literally, mind you. This is some Challenger O-ring type of shitshow. Accidents are one thing; incompetency or, worse yet, callous indifference is absolutely unacceptable.
- drstewart 8y ago>The integrity of engineering excellence should never be sacrificed for profit and/or conveniency in places where it involves human lives. That's just unrealistic. Unless you want plane and car rides to cost as much as a trip to space, after all, since everything would need to be engineered to that level of quality.
- Stryder 8y agoFinish reading first, and then spend some time thinking before responding. I said: "Accidents are one thing; incompetency or, worse yet, callous indifference is absolutely unacceptable."
- rmrfrmrf 8y agoI continue to be fascinated with consumers who assume the role of shareholder in times of crisis, even against their own interests.
- 93s6oz 8y ago>The FAA also lost a lot of trust, for rubber-stamping this. I wonder if the European agency (don't remember the name) will stop trusting the FAA from now on and do their own tests. I'd thank them for that. (According to what I read here, the European agency doesn't do exhaustive tests because they mostly trust whatever the FAA says; maybe that's false)
- CaptainZapp 8y agoAccording to what I read here, the European agency doesn't do exhaustive tests because they mostly trust whatever the FAA says That's true. The FAA had a stellar record as a certification agency, which, it can be argued, they fucked in three days (sure, the hole history of this sad debacle is more complex. But by keeping the plane in the air longer than any other certification body in order to not hurt their buddies at Boeing they completely ruined their reputation, which was built in decades of good work). I can't imagine that any responsible certification body anywhere trusts the FAA anymore without a complete and significant shakeup. It's a sad story, really.
- matt4077 8y agoEurope and the FAA have Cross-certification schemes. In reverse, Airbus is certified primarily in Europe. The same happens to varying degrees in medicines, appliances, etc. This is unlikely to change. It’s expected that some changes will occur at the FAA. Certifying an airliner is also a prohibitively expensive undertaking, which is part of the reason for this mess in the first place. It would take years even to train enough personnel to duplicate all those efforts.
- FearNotDaniel 8y agoAgreed. But the EASA ought to be at least in a position to put pressure on FAA to put their house in order. You can add this to my very long list of reasons why the UK really ought to decide to remain in a position of influence within the EU instead of choosing to join the Trumpist libertarian shitshow those far-right loons are trying to push us into.
- FabHK 8y ago
- kevin_thibedeau 8y agoThe fact that the recovery procedure doesn't work proves that the FAA should pull the MAX8 type certificate. It isn't the same aircraft.
- PopeDotNinja 8y agoI will. I like flying places, and I'm not going to let some unfortunate hiccups get in the way of that. I trust Boeing and the people who work on airline safety a heck of a lot more than I trust ride share drivers who flip U-turns in the middle of the block, slam on the brakes, narrowly miss bicycle riders, etc. And I use the heck out of Lyft & Uber. I've got better things to worry about.
- icebraining 8y agoYou write as if the 737 MAX was the only airplane in the world.
- dojomouse 8y agoI suspect we're going to end up seeing evidence that the first accident was also the result of known risks being down-played / swept under the rug in the name of profit. One perspective is that the first and second accidents happened because the band-aid fell off, and the first accident should have been the cue to use stickier bandaids. But it seems very unlikely that no engineer anywhere through the development said "This design is for shit and is WAY too dependent on a bandaid that can't realistically be adequate".
- vkou 8y agoNo, from a cursory reading of the report, it's not entirely clear that software updates are going to fix the problem.
- neverartful 8y agoExactly. When CEO said "We're taking a comprehensive, disciplined approach, and taking the time, to get the software update right.", I wondered if they would characterize their initial design the same way. It's shameful to even try to pin it on software. The fundamental problem is that they didn't want to do the right thing by admitting and teaching pilots that this plane has different flight characteristics and they need to train for flying a similar, but different plane. As long as this MCAS software even exists on the plane, I'll never fly on one again. If they take MCAS out, certify, and train properly then I'll fly on them. Otherwise, no.
- jussij 8y ago> If they take MCAS out The problem is they can't take the MCAS out. The MCAS is there to fix a design fault whereby the plane has a tendency to pitch up automatically (and hence have a chance of stalling) when accelerating, due to the oversize engines and their placement.
- president 8y agoI don't think the general public will be swayed. All it takes is a few Boeing PR campaigns and some time and people will forget.
- cobookman 8y agoPeople have no clue what plane they are in.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dylan604 8y agoThe main thing for me is that NOW pilots will be aware that there is a piece of software running in the background that might fight them. The first thing they will all learn is how to disable it so they can actually fly the airplane. That's even without a software fix. To me, it all comes down to to Boeing being able to self-certify their aircraft, and they knew they were sneaking the "fix" known as MCAS as a way to prevent loss of sales to A320. Super shady in my opinion.
- Analemma_ 8y agoThat’s what a bunch of people said after the first crash: “well, this was bad, but now that pilots know about MCAS it won’t happen again”
- makomk 8y agoThe reason this preliminary report is so damning is that it's evident that the pilots on flight 302 knew this - they realised what was happening, took the necessary steps to disable MCAS, and still couldn't stop the plane from crashing and killing everyone on board.
- treis 8y agoThe took the necessary steps and it was working until they went off script. Whether or not their hand was force because the script stopped working remains to be seen. IMHO, there's little to do except to wait for the full report to come out. The speculation about the crash was wildly wrong and the preliminary report coming out didn't really stop that.
- msbarnett 8y ago> The took the necessary steps and it was working until they went off script. Whether or not their hand was force because the script stopped working remains to be seen The script required them to manually crank in the stabilizer, which wasn't possible. The script was manifestly not "working". That doesn't "remain to be seen" -- it's in the transcript of the cockpit
- ams6110 8y agoI see this playing out in a couple of possible ways. One is that it ends up like the DC-10. Public confidence is lost, even though the problem is fixed. The aircraft end up going into freighter service. The other is that they make a convincing case that the problem is resolved. I don't know if that's possible given today's default hate for big corporations, we'll see. They've done it before with the 737 and the rudder problem it had in the 1990s or so. That problem led to a few fatal crashes, but I'm not sure it ever got the attention that this story is getting. The news cycle was different then. I would absolutely fly on one once the problem is corrected.
- cm2187 8y agoIn all fairness this plane is only a danger to its crew (and to regular commuters). Even without the software fix, the probability that you get into a crash in one of the few times in a year when you make a leg in this plane is still infinitesimal. For the crew that spends the whole year in there, different story.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- m_mueller 8y agoI assume that AoA sensor disagree would have been warned about still on the ground. Even if both fail, a new take off checklist will probably include comparing AoA information with analog instruments. If one sensor failure is 10E-5, two simultaneous should be 10E-10, multiplied with assumption of competence (say 99/100 will now know how to deal with it), which gives 10E-11 - 10E-12. I.e. I wouldn't worry about MCAS anymore after every plane has been updated. What I would worry about is departure stalls, as MCAS doesn't seem to solve these. I wonder whether there isn't another 10E-5 to 10E-6 risk in there and people have just been lucky so far. Another MAX8 crash involving a stall would kill this plane I think, as it would prove much more that it's inherently unsafe.
- dvdkhlng 8y ago> If one sensor failure is 10E-5, two simultaneous should be 10E-10. That only holds if errors are statistically independent. See also Common Mode Failure [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cause_and_special_cause_(statistics)#Common_mode_failure_in_engineering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cause_and_special_cause...
- SilasX 8y agoHe could put his safety where his mouth is and vow to only fly on the MAX for the next two years. That would be a much stronger vote of confidence than whatever words his PR firm came up with.
- nutjob2 8y agoYes, and tobacco company CEOs smoke. Does that give you the confidence to do the same?
- sorokod 8y agoGenuanly curious - which one?
- atarian 8y agoI thought it was company policy to make their engineers fly on the planes they built.
- hyeonwho4 8y agoThat's a terrible show of confidence. What are the chances that the next plane to have an accident is carrying the CEO? What is the average expected punishment to the CEO for getting it wrong? It's probably less risk than BASE jumping. I would rather there be guaranteed liability: have the execs set up a legal system to refund the entire order book and voluntarily plead guilty to federal charges in the event of another > 10 MAX deaths. But frankly, if Boeing is at fault for 340 deaths they should already be doing that.
- cm2187 8y agoIt's actually very rational. No one can declare something complex like a plane or a version of Windows to be "safe" or "secure". Only the absence of incident for a long period of time is an indication that it is.
- munk-a 8y agoYou, as a non-expert, can absolutely take that stance - but when it comes to planes I am comfortable demanding that mechanical units can be provably safe and secure and that there is a reasonably exhaustive understanding of those unit interactions that assures safety at some point. There has been the mention that the customization of planes in a certain way exposed this error - that's the bullshit part. Planes are complicated, the testing of them is complicated, allowing your marketing/sales team arbitrarily inject feature flags into your life or death machine to maximize profits is silly. Make a thing and prove it is safe, if you wish to modify said thing, then prove the new version is just as safe - and don't allow corners to be cut with something as dangerous and expensive as a plane, these things aren't cheap and they don't need to rapidly iterate versions, they can move slowly and safely and be held to a standard of provable safety that I agree would be unreasonable for software like windows or instagram. As an aside, I would offer more leeway to Cessna, given their focus on the individual consumer market and emphasis of customization, if someone ordered the plane equivalent of the small pizza with half sausage no cheese and no sauce[1], but not too much more leeway due to the danger these planes can have on others. [1] http://www.thesneeze.com/art/loose_art/dom8.jpg http://www.thesneeze.com/art/loose_art/dom8.jpg
- cm2187 8y agoI don't know. A lot of the problems that occured on planes were hard to predict even though they go through the rigorous process you mention. Battery fire on B787. Cargo door on DC10. Engine leaks on A380, etc. These are all quality/design issues that were not predicted.
- Aloha 8y agoAm I the only one who would have no trouble flying on a 737 MAX?
- xiphias2 8y agoThanks for paying for testing!
- ocdtrekkie 8y agoNo. Aside from this one issue, the plane is likely as safe or safer than every previous 737. With this much public attention, this issue will get resolved and then some. The end result will likely be the safest plane in the air.
- foobar1962 8y agoNo it’s not as safe as previous 737s. The new engine and its position on the wing has changed the whole balance of the aircraft. Like putting a very big engine in a small car: it’s a different car.
- ocdtrekkie 8y agoIt's a different car, but still arguably a safer one. Every part in the 737 MAX is either the same or newer and improved over the previous 737 series. While they should have gone through far more scrutiny in the certification process, the 737 MAX, viewed holistically, is a newer, more modern aircraft that will be safer than older aircraft once the kinks are fixed.
- gdubs 8y ago“Once the kinks are fixed” Isn’t that kind of the whole point?
- caconym_ 8y agoEvery time you change part of a system, even if you claim you're "improving" it, you introduce risk. That is my holistic view of this aircraft: the 737's record is not meaningless but it is also far from the whole picture for the MAX. Any new system introduces the potential for defects that were not present on previous models, and for unanticipated integration issues with existing systems. Add in the facts that Boeing has been caught red-handed implementing a half-baked engineering solution as a regulatory dodge, and that this solution has to date crashed two aircraft and killed 346 (IIRC) people, and your view starts to look downright naive. You might call these tragedies "working out the kinks"; I call them wholly preventable, and evidence that human lives don't carry the proper weight in Boeing's financial calculus.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- lorinm 8y agoI would never trust a software patch with my life!
- jeemusu 8y agoAfter the problems with the 737 MAX and the 787 before that. I would avoid flying any Boeing aircraft in the first few years after it's deployed.
- sslayer 8y agoBy that same logic, I take it you don't ride in cars or leave the house.
- davedx 8y agoNo. It's simple, rational, sane risk management. Risk = probability x impact. Even if probability has reduced (who knows by how much), impact is the near-certain death. Avoid.