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Is anyone else extremely reluctant to fly on a Boeing plane after this? A lot of people say "It's no big deal, they just need to update the MCAS software", but
by radcon 7y ago
Is anyone else extremely reluctant to fly on a Boeing plane after this?
A lot of people say "It's no big deal, they just need to update the MCAS software", but I see this entire situation as a sign of much deeper issues at Boeing, issues that can't be fixed with a simple software update and could affect every plane they make.
- linuxftw 7y agoYes, I am. It's not a 'just need to update MCAS' situation IMO, that's a Boeing talking point. We don't know how badly the MCAS is needed and how dangerous the plane is if it fails, and their current solution is to make it more failure prone (read from two sources and disable upon >x disagree).
- apacheCamel 7y agoI feel the same way. This says a lot about the 737-Max but it also says a ton about the company. This whole thing has shed a light on Boeing that I personally have a hard time overlooking. I know my opinion matters little in the grand scheme of things, but it doesn't seem like many people are in the same boat as me.
- NikolaeVarius 7y agoNope, risks are insignificant. It's extremely irrational to be scared to fly on Boeing.
- ddalex 7y agoLOL what? It's at least 4 orders of magnitude more risky to fly 737 MAX compared to Airbus A320 (counting deaths per 100k takeoffs). 4 orders of magnitude are not irrational.
- NikolaeVarius 7y agoTerrible comparison. Number of takeoffs of 737 Max is much lower than other planes, so numbers will naturally be skewed
- piva00 7y agoAnd that is exactly the issue, that within the very short period while the 737 MAX has been active it has had major incidents. Naturally it'll be skewed but also naturally it tells something about its risk given the safety record of the aviation industry.
- sgc 7y agoAlmost all planes have more crashes in their early years, and many had worse or equally bad early records. It's too early to claim the 737-MAX will be inherently less safe than other planes using a multi-decade long measure.
- Gwypaas 7y agoWhich modern plane do you want to compare it with? The 787, 747-8, A380, A350, A320neo and A220 all have zero fatal incidents. That is what I expect flying a modern aircraft. Stop being ridiculous.
- ddalex 7y agoWhy would they be skewed? Stats are stats. I'd imagine say we have a sampling bias if there are less than 1000 flights in total, as in the kinks haven't been worked out, but this is a production aircraft, with 1000s of takeoffs each day, maybe more than 1M in total during program lifetime. Sufficient to gather significant stats.
- darkpuma 7y agoThat's a relative measure, it could still be the case that the absolute risk is still quite low for each individual. It could very well be the case that the risk per individual is low enough to not cause serious rational concern, while the risk for the entire fleet is high enough to justify grounding it. In much the same way that golfing during a rain storm almost certainly will not get you killed, but if it became a trendy thing to do the number of people being struck by lightning would be significantly higher. To put a finer point on it, I believe a 737-MAX is still safer than general aviation, which I think most rational people aren't scared of. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_aviation#Safety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_aviation#Safety
- Konnstann 7y agoI become increasingly anxious of flying based on the size of the aircraft, not sure that I'm an outlier there. The smaller the aircraft the less stable the flight will be, which is what most people are afraid of while flying.
- adrr 7y agoOut 300 Boeing Max delivered since it was release in 2016, there has been 2 full hull losses with full loss of life. I bet if you do the numbers it is the most dangerous way of traveling. Tesla gets shit on for autopilot and it’s killed 4 people but has 100s of thousand of cars on the road with autopilot.
- NikolaeVarius 7y ago"Most dangerous way of traveling"" This is the kind of alarmist stuff that gets perpetuated on social media and reddit. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/boeing-737-max-8-compares-142300256.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/boeing-737-max-8-compares-142... "Well-known and popular commercial aircraft have been involved in far more fatal accidents than the Boeing 737 Max 8. The 3,065 fatalities onboard the Tupolev Tu-154 are more than any of the 47 aircraft models Quartz analyzed. But commercial staples from Boeing, the 737-200 and 747-200, rank second and third on the list, with 2,910 and 1,664 fatalities respectively."
- icebraining 7y agoCounting absolute numbers makes no sense, in the long run any plane model will kill an infinite number of people; what matters is the rate - that is, the slope in that first graph - and the MAX8 has the steepest. As they write, "Compared to the planes involved in accidents with the most fatalities since 1966, the 737 Max 8 has had more fatalities in its first years in service than any of the other."
- illirik 7y agoAlso, conditions outside of the plane should matter. The Tupolev you listed was typically poorly maintained and flown to places like Irkutsk or Arkhangelsk, taking off from and landing onto short or poorly maintained runways, often in winter, with technology available in the sixties to the Soviets. The fact that more deaths happened sooner on a modern aircraft built with state-of-the-art technology, flown primarily by its largest users on routes like Dallas to Miami, should be somewhat alarming.
- 7y ago
- StreamBright 7y agoThere is the comment below about the 4 order of magnitude difference between A320 vs. 737MAX. And there is confirmation bias that can save your life.
- NikolaeVarius 7y agoMagnitudes mean very little when numbers are tiny in the first place
- anoncake 7y agoYou aren't one of those who say people should “vote with their wallets”, are you?
- wycy 7y agoI would be extremely hesitant to ever fly on a 737 MAX again because, even when MCAS is fixed, software is being used to fix a fundamental physics problem. I'd fly on other Boeing planes without worry, though.
- ulfw 7y agoThe fix for the 787s Lithium battery problems wasn't a whole lot better. Remember those exploding left and right and the 787 fleet grounded? The fix wasn't to reengineer the large amount of electrical systems, lack of bleed air or use of different batteries. The fix was to put them in a stronger container with a hole in it so they can vent outside when they inevitably blow up again. That has worked well. So far. Kind of - https://aeronauticsonline.com/united-787-battery-failure-proves-boeings-fix-partially-successful/ https://aeronauticsonline.com/united-787-battery-failure-pro...
- village-idiot 7y agoThat’s horrifying. I’ve also heard that the 787 was a boondoggle.
- cstross 7y agoThe 787 is weird (and possibly unsafe) for at least two significant reasons. Firstly, Boeing totally re-invented their approach to assembling planes. Previously they built most of the aireframe components and assembled them in their own plants. But the 787 was specced out during an ongoing Boeing/Airbus anti-trust dispute over government cross-subsidies that turned nasty (escalated to USA/EU level, mediated via the WTO, with sanctions threatened). For strategic reasons Boeing decided to outsource subassembly production to third parties and retain only overall control and final assembly (the goal was to have 51% of the work go through the EU, so that the EU would shoot themselves in the head if they applied sanctions against Boeing aircraft). (Similarly, Airbus did much the same: you can buy A320s—the 737 series' Airbus rival—built entirely in China, for example.) Anyway, this resulted in huge cost overruns, delays as small suppliers grappled with trying to supply components of reliable quality and consistency in Boeing-scale quantities, and so on. On the other hand, it gave Boeing a shiny new 21st century supply chain which they're using on new projects, so the $30Bn wasn't entirely wasted on just one bird. Secondly, Boeing went full-tilt for composites in place of aluminum as the main structural material. Now, Airbus had been building composite airframes for decades at this point, but they got there incrementally, and not without fatal accidents. See for example the crash of American Airlines flight 587: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_587 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_587 It turns out that switching to all-composites from aluminum has some serious gotchas, including entirely different wear/fatigue/delamination issues. Boeing has done surprisingly well up to this point with the 787 (although the early Ethiopian Airlines hull loss ground-side due to a runaway battery fire should be a warning—it was a shiny new plane and the battery fire burned through the top of the hull, turning it into a $200M write-off; an aluminum bird could probably have been patched and repaired). But we have no idea whether Boeing managed to avoid baked-in long term weaknesses in the airframe, of the kind that only show up 10-30 years into an aircraft's life. Such weaknesses can show up suddenly and kill an entire type within a matter of months (see for example the fate of the Vickers Valiant, a British strategic bomber of the 1950s that succumbed to cracked wing spars and was hastily scrapped). Anyway: this is why I'm very dubious about flying on 787s, at least for another few years. Your mileage may vary, obviously ...
- xvf22 7y agoBoeing has a lot of work to do to restore their image and I will avoid the MAX where possible. They seem to have been on a mission to cut back on expenses without the necessary review and supervision which is worrying. I'd prefer they start caring a bit more about "the box" again. [0] [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-05-09/former-boeing-engineers-say-relentless-cost-cutting-sacrificed-safety https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-05-09/former-bo...
- ThinkBeat 7y agoIt can be hard to avoid since carriers reasonably often change what aircrafts they use after the tickets are sold. Norwegian Air Shuttle has been in a lot of trouble over that when they sold tickets promising Dreamliner but instead leased in a much older airplane to fly that trip. (well they have done it multiple times on different trips)
- xvf22 7y agoYa, I've had the same experience a few times and you're right they can sub things on short notice but I'll try to avoid where possible. Air Canada is getting a bunch of A220s which from all reports seem like a much nicer plane to fly on.
- s_dev 7y agoFlying -- even accounting for all the 737 Max crashes is still statistically by far the safest form of travel per unit of distance travelled -- the 737 Max is a blip just like 9/11.
- bilbo0s 7y agoFlying is safe. No question. And you can make it that much more safe by doing yourself a favor and avoiding the 737 MAX.
- tylermac1 7y agoAs my flight anxiety will tell you, there's nothing safer than not going anywhere at all.
- StavrosK 7y agoActually, flying might be safer than staying at home, given that home is where the showers and pointy things are.
- alistairSH 7y agoWhat is statistically more dangerous... 1. Flying a 737 Max on a major carrier 2. Flying a commuter plane with a regional carrier 3. Flying an Airbus with a 2nd tier international carrier I have no idea, but I suspect they're all still orders of magnitude safer than driving.
- paganel 7y agoThis is a non-sequitur, we were not comparing the 737 MAX with driving but with other planes. It looks like other planes are an order of magnitude safer than the 737 MAX and as such potential airplane clients should avoid the 737 MAX as much as possible
- cjbprime 7y agoEthiopian is a major carrier with a previously stellar safety record. The MAX has suffered hull losses at around 100x the rate per flight of baseline airline travel, so I suppose it's the most dangerous in your list.
- sjg007 7y agoThey've had similar issues before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_rudder_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_rudder_issues
- jussij 7y agoSo past history tells us the 737 was marred by multiple fatal crashes cashed by bad rudder design. Recent history tells us the 737-MAX has also been marred with some serious design issues relating to it's MCAS system, which have resulted in multiple fatal crashes. That history suggests passengers should be wary of boarding a 737-MAX any time soon. I for one will give it a few years before taking up that boarding pass.
- rootusrootus 7y agoHistory also tells us that after the rudder issues, the 737 went on to become the safest airplane in history.
- AnimalMuppet 7y agoNot the safest. One of the Airbuses (A350?) has never had a fatality.
- rootusrootus 7y agoThat is not a very exclusive club. Airbus A380, Boeing 717, Boeing 787, Bombardier CRJ700, Airbus A340. And I'm pretty sure there are more. Let's put it in perspective. Boeing has built over ten thousand 737s. Airbus has produced just 265 A350s. Heck, at the moment Boeing crossed 265 737-MAX-8s in production, they might very well have had zero fatalities as well :)
- dver 7y ago767 Thrust reverser as well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauda_Air_Flight_004 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauda_Air_Flight_004
- taneq 7y agoI must admit, every time I've flown recently on a 737 I've nervously checked the information card to check the exact model. I think all of our local airlines run 737-800s though.
- fmajid 7y agoNo reason to be nervous, all 737 MAX are grounded worldwide. I doubt they will be certified to fly without adding the triple redundant AOA sensors the A320neo has and that should have been included from the very beginning. If the FAA certified the 737 MAX without a mandatory upgrade (doubtful, given the glare of publicity), then yes, I'd be worried.
- StreamBright 7y agoI won't be flying on a 737MAX ever. If I ever come into a situation that it would be an option I will email the airliner and let them know that there is no way I will use their service with such an aircraft. I was also thinking about creating a boycott737max.com website.
- village-idiot 7y agoI’m okay flying on the older 737s. Those are proven enough that we know what they’ll do; the biggest risk for those older planes is the safety culture for the airline, not Boeing. Any of their newer stuff? No way.
- magduf 7y agoI have no doubt the older 737s are safe, but they're still crappy planes to fly on as a passenger. Given similar cost, I'll pick an Airbus instead. It's like taking a road trip in a 1967 Mustang vs. and car from 2015. Even if you don't have any incidents, the 1967 car is going to be a pretty lousy experience as far as passenger comfort, noise, and ride quality.
- tssva 7y agoI ridden on some pretty uncomfortable Airbus planes. Passenger comfort has more to do with airline choices regarding types and number of seats than model of aircraft.
- magduf 7y agoCompeting Airbus planes have more width, which means the seats can be physically larger. Choosing different seats isn't possible in the 737: the fuselage width is fixed. The only thing they could do to get around this is go to a 2+3 layout, and they're not going to do that because the whole reason for buying and using this plane is economy.
- ubermonkey 7y agoI think you're absolutely right. The approach on the MAX is horrifying. But airplane tech moves kind of slowly, no? Non-MAX 737s can't really change, and so are as safe today as they were 6 month or 6 years ago. The MAX debacle makes me SUPER SUPER leery of any new airframe, though.
- robjan 7y agoThe problem with the MAX was that it's a new revision of an ancient airframe. A completely new design would go through way more testing than did the MAX.
- ks1723 7y agoI am not so sure about this since i read this Insider view: https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/bdfqm4/the_real_reason_boeings_new_plane_crashed_twice/ekyyd9g/ https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/bdfqm4/the_real_rea...
- magduf 7y agoThe non-MAX 737s are still shitty planes to fly on. It's an ancient airframe: it's cramped, it's noisy, it just sucks. And it's a fuel hog too (which is why they made the MAX version). The competing aircraft are all much newer and nicer. The only reason anyone was buying the MAX was 1) because they had already bought into Boeing and the 737 and it's cheaper to just get a 737MAX which doesn't require any pilot retraining (thanks to keeping the MCAS a secret), and 2) because Boeing was selling them really cheap (possibly "dumping") to compete against Airbus.
- darkpuma 7y agoI could be wrong, but I'm under the impression that whether a plane is cramped or not is largely up to the airline not the manufacturer, since it's the airline who actually makes the decision about how many seats to cram in, and what sort of seats to use.
- 7y ago
- retSava 7y agoThe MCAS will likely be fixed in a way that makes it reliable and dependable. Boeing wouldn't dare anything else since there are a lot of eyes on them and how they handle this now. What worries me is not the MCAS (now), but what else might be lurking under the surface that Boeing pretends is not a problem. I don't feel confident that Boeing would accept the cost of grounding the fleet the next time something serious-but-not-yet-crashing shows up. It's clear that to Boeing, their numbers are more important than lives.
- CaptainZapp 7y agoI don't feel confident that Boeing would accept the cost of grounding the fleet the next time something serious-but-not-yet-crashing shows up. They wouldn't even ground the fleet if death and destruction occurs. Like they didn't do after the Lion Air crash. Even after the Ethiopian plane they tried hell and high water, including a call to the president, to not have the plane grounded. It's clear that to Boeing, their numbers are more important than lives. Absolutely. Nicely demonstrated by lies, deflections, omissions and still smearing everybody else but themselves after killing more than 300 people by bad design and greed.
- yodsanklai 7y ago> It's clear that to Boeing, their numbers are more important than lives. Isn't it the case by design for any corporation?
- ArcanianArcher 7y agoTherein lies a problem that many people don't want to address
- jacquesm 7y agoMany people don't want to address it because it isn't true. There are plenty of corporations that would not put lives on the line balanced against their bottom line. Yes, there are quite a few that do, it just does not extend to all of them, and I'd wager the larger the company the further insulated the management is and so the more likely for stuff like that to occur. But to categorically say this about any corporation is nonsense.
- LoSboccacc 7y ago> on a Boeing plane yes but limited to -MAX the others have a good track record and for some reason they seem to takeoff and land smoother, even if probably it's selection bias due to the high correlation of [airline, plane, destination] variables.
- gsich 7y agoReminds me of Niki Lauda, someone posted this yesterday: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauda_Air_Flight_004#Lauda's_visit_with_Boeing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauda_Air_Flight_004#Lauda's_v...
- gingabriska 7y agoIt could be possible that it's mostly developer pay, we all know big old companies don't pay software developers much and now most talented ones are either working for companies who pay a lot like Google and FB or startups which offer lot of equity and recognition.
- randolando 7y agoYes, and not just a Boeing plane. The happenings around the MAX make me reluctant to fly on new aircraft in general. As I understand, parts of the certification process had been outsourced by the FAA to 3rd parties with monetary incentive to accelerate approvals and downplay safety critical issues. That just seems to be asking for trouble and a step backwards in vetting the safety of new aircraft designs.
- bdamm 7y agoThere's a movement towards industry building standards around how to meet the general requirements that aircraft need to meet. However, that's a step back from the previous approach, where fundamental architecture concepts are needlessly cooked into the airframe regulations. As a simple example, under the previous approach, the law stated that light sport aircraft needed a reciprocating engine, and that reciprocating engine must meet XYZ standards. However that means you couldn't certify and sell an electric LSA in the United States. To certify such an aircraft would have required literally an act of congress. Overall, this was generally holding back the industry a great deal. The new rules have been in place for a couple of years now (they came into effect just at the end of the Obama administration) and the result has been an enormous improvement in technology available to certified aircraft owners and designers. So personally I don't think it is a step backwards. The MCAS/CG issue is unfortunate, but it's also part of an industry-wide adjustment that is in general leading to better airplanes.
- FabHK 7y agoIsn't that issue (the move to performance-based certification) somewhat orthogonal to the issue "privatisation" of certification? How are they related?
- thefounder 7y agoI wouldn't be surprised to see another MAX going down soon after it starts flying again. Let the others test/try the updates first...
- PedroBatista 7y agoEven more now, because now it's mainstream knowledge of how rotten the whole thing is. The more you scratch the more the Boeing-FAA relationship stinks. The way Boeing is dealing with this, they way FAA "trusts" Boeing. Deep down we know most of them don't care much about the people who fly on their planes, but damn seeing it how exactly that plays out is terrifying.
- FabHK 7y ago> Deep down we know most of them don't care much about the people who fly on their planes Do you think most Boeing employees only fly Airbus?
- balls187 7y agoI'm unsure of what they do for leisure, but when I was an employee, the policy was to pick the cheapest flight that would allow you to arrive to your destination at a reasonable time, departing at a reasonable hour, regardless of the airline / airframe used.
- computerex 7y agoTell me about it. In my last flight when the pilot said we are flying in a Boeing 737 I got the heebie jeebies, despite flying in that plane more times than I can count.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ummonk 7y agoDon't mind any of the planes that aren't 737-Max or 787. Definitely reluctant to fly 737-Max anytime soon even after it has been approved. As for the 787, while I have a little bit of hesitancy, I figure it's been around long enough that we at least know it is safer than driving a car, so probably okay to ride in it, although it might not be as safe as other planes.
- joelrunyon 7y agoWhat's wrong with 787s?
- ceejayoz 7y agohttps://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamliner-production-problems.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamline... > Safety lapses at the North Charleston plant have drawn the scrutiny of airlines and regulators. Qatar Airways stopped accepting planes from the factory after manufacturing mishaps damaged jets and delayed deliveries. Workers have filed nearly a dozen whistle-blower claims and safety complaints with federal regulators, describing issues like defective manufacturing, debris left on planes and pressure to not report violations. Others have sued Boeing, saying they were retaliated against for flagging manufacturing mistakes.
- rbanffy 7y agoIt had some battery fire issues at the start. We also don't quite know how well its composite airframe ages - it may just be that the issues are not apparent yet, or that they don't exist at all. I hate the 787 for those terrible stupid windows and the ability the crew has to bypass local controls and prevent me from looking out whenever I want.
- e40 7y agoThere was a Daily podcast (from the NYT) on the whistleblowers that said the NC plant that makes them had all kinds of quality issues that were covered up. Like managers retrieving parts from the "reject" pile and putting them into planes so they could keep the assembly line moving.
- 7y ago
- rbanffy 7y agoI'm not really worried. I prefer the A320 Neo because it's quieter and more comfortable, but the odds of dying due to an airplane accident are vanishingly small. Even if my chances of dying on a 737 MAX are much higher than dying on a tried and true A340, they are probably around the same as me dying from pancreatic cancer and I don't get my pancreas checked regularly.
- Waterluvian 7y agoI hear you and I'm mostly just using your comment to share my thoughts. I've learned not to treat the statistics because that doesn't work at the human level. Fear, anxiety, apprehension, are legitimate human conditions regardless of how irrational they are. And regardless of what the numbers say, there's an effective treatment available: filter flights by plane type. I personally don't care. But my wife does, and therefore I do care after all. Took me too many years to learn this fact about coexisting with others: addressing how they feel is almost always easier than trying to convince them not to feel that way.
- snarf21 7y agoYou are not wrong but you getting pancreatic cancer is a largely random event based on factors too numerous to name and define. Boeing specifically cut corners to not retrain pilots on the MAX and lied so they could give it the same rating. A better analogy would be if you found out your favorite drink gave you a 100x greater chance of getting pancreatic cancer, would you stop drinking it? (Note: the odds of you getting pancreatic cancer on the whole are still immeasurably small even at 100x) What if you found out this new drink recipe never went through any safety testing but the company claimed it was basically the same as the old tested drink you enjoyed previously from the same company?
- ddingus 7y agoMaybe. Not right now as we've grounded the problem child. There are lots of great airplanes doing their job right now. I'm reluctant to continue the self regulation. The EU is doing it's own design review. Awesome. They will find a lot of ugly, and some of that will be debatable. Have those debates. All companies involved will see some costs. But, they will also see opportunity as they work through this stuff. We benefit.
- Theodores 7y ago> "It's no big deal, they just need to update the MCAS software" I think they just need to update the pricing structure. Let the MAX fly as is but just halve the ticket prices, use cabin crew that are coming close to retirement (or have failed performance reviews), make the routes be in developing countries/states and keep the profits rolling in. I am joking, however, if Boeing sold medicines, pesticides, lead paint, food additives or any number of other things deemed deadly in the home market then it could be exported overseas to be sold at a profit. Even though Boeing, the FAA and Trump can be criticised for the handling of the 737 Max, the wider international community has done good, we haven't got these shambolic planes relegated to poorer parts of the world where lives are cheap.
- _bxg1 7y agoUnfortunately it's nearly impossible to boycott them altogether, at least in the U.S. If any billionaires out there were considering starting a company in the commercial airliner market, now would be an opportune moment...
- dingaling 7y agoJet Blue only fly Airbus and Embraer types Spirit and Frontier are all-Airbus
- FabHK 7y ago> Is anyone else extremely reluctant to fly on a Boeing plane after this? Well, 737 MAX and 787, for me. The 777 is rock solid, as far as I can tell - and it was designed before the significant changes at Boeing and FAA.