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There is usually no such thing as "safe" or "not safe". It's more like "X% chance to happen". X might be really, really small, but not zero. Usually you can

There is usually no such thing as "safe" or "not safe". It's more like "X% chance to happen". X might be really, really small, but not zero. Usually you can make X arbitrarily small, but the amount of money needed grows non-linearly. Do you pay 10x the price of an aircraft to reduce the chances a problem so that it goes from happening once every 100 years to once every 1000 years? Who should make the decision whether an airplane is "safe enough"? Should it be the buyer who wants the safest plane? If you did that then rich airlines could keep out new competition by specifying safety features that make airplanes more expensive than they need to be. Should it be the country where the airline is based? But different airlines are based in different countries. Should there be options so that one country can specify higher standards than others? Basically, that's how you get where we are I think. I'm not sure how you avoid that.

deleted 7y ago
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onion2k 7y ago
Who should make the decision whether an airplane is "safe enough"? How about these guys? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Aviation_Safety_Assessment_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Aviation_Safety_...
jrochkind1 7y ago
it's worth pointing out, however, that it was a software-only feature that they turned on or off depending on whether the customer had paid. If I understand right? I think that changes the calculus of "Do you pay 10x the price of an aircraft to reduce the chances a problem so that it goes from happening once every 100 years to once every 1000 years" They had already invested the money to develop the feature. Delivering a plane with or without it to a customer had the same cost. If the customer paid more, they got the safety feature turned on, the end.
- grkvlt 7y ago
  > Delivering a plane with or without it to a customer had the same cost Not exactly, surely. The ongoing/recurring costs to Boeing would be increased with the feature enabled - it's another thing that can go wrong and must be monitored, it changes support requirements and the overall software runtime complexity. I assume that would get factored in, somehow...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

onion2k 7y ago

Who should make the decision whether an airplane is "safe enough"? How about these guys? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Aviation_Safety_Assessment_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Aviation_Safety_...

jrochkind1 7y ago

it's worth pointing out, however, that it was a software-only feature that they turned on or off depending on whether the customer had paid. If I understand right? I think that changes the calculus of "Do you pay 10x the price of an aircraft to reduce the chances a problem so that it goes from happening once every 100 years to once every 1000 years" They had already invested the money to develop the feature. Delivering a plane with or without it to a customer had the same cost. If the customer paid more, they got the safety feature turned on, the end.

grkvlt 7y ago
> Delivering a plane with or without it to a customer had the same cost Not exactly, surely. The ongoing/recurring costs to Boeing would be increased with the feature enabled - it's another thing that can go wrong and must be monitored, it changes support requirements and the overall software runtime complexity. I assume that would get factored in, somehow...