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Like a lot of tragedies, it's really hard to tell how much the side effects of something like this are attributed to the mistake itself and how much can be expl

Like a lot of tragedies, it's really hard to tell how much the side effects of something like this are attributed to the mistake itself and how much can be explained through modern communication networks (social media) amplifying everything. Is the Boeing mistake really that bad, or is it because this is the first such aviation design mistake to happen in our post-2010 everyone-is-online world? Remember that the tails on 737s used to just...fall off back in the '90s. For the record, I don't think the 737 MAX should have ever been cleared to fly with the current version of MCAS. But I can't help but believe that there had to be some boneheaded designs in the past that cost hundreds of lives that we just don't think about today. In any case, I hope Boeing has learned from this and revised its engineering processes to go back to its previous prestigious roots. I also hope against hope that we will finally see some executives go to prison for approving this.

ncmncm 7y ago
Yes, it's really that bad. Not because of the flaw itself, but the culture that drove the flaw into the outside world. There have been plenty of others in the past that do not detract from the magnitude of this one.
rsynnott 7y ago
It’s hard to be statistically sure given the small number of existing examples, but taken on face value, no recent large airliner has anything like this level of deaths per flight.
bcrosby95 7y ago
Yes it is that bad. No it is not because of social media. Airline crashes have always been a huge deal. That's why airplanes are so safe
rootusrootus 7y ago
The 737NG problems in the 90s were rudders deflecting suddenly and irrecoverably, tails did not fall off. Two crashes and a number of incidents before the problem was identified. Boeing also tried to squash that investigation, they actually swiped the servo from the first crashed plane so it could not be properly analyzed. Then the 737NG went on to have the best safety record of any plane ever. So while the MAX problem is pretty bad, and social media vastly complicates the PR angle, there is precedent for recovering from this. Certainly with as many MAXs as have been built there is enormous incentive to get it fixed. It's not realistic to expect them to scrap the planes.
- lrem 7y ago
  Scrapping will not happen, yes. But I have a feeling the max might become the first southern hemisphere exclusive.
briandear 7y ago
Air France 447 was in 2009. But since Airbus is European, it doesn’t warrant the same international outrage as Boeing. There was also the Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 that killed everyone because the pilots were incompetent after an issue with the rudder. But since that was an Airbus, the outrage was non-existent. Indonesian airlines have horrid safety records but it wasn’t until Boeing was involved that it reached an international outcry. There is a long list of Airbus accidents that many choose to ignore. The thing we should be really outraged about is the assembly line airline pilot programs in the third world that neglect teaching basic airmanship. US pilots have to have a minimum of 1500 hours before they can even copilot an airliner while some of these countries, such as Ethiopia have pilots in the right seat with as few as 200 hours. Boeing made a mistake with MCAS training, sure, but let’s look at crashes from all manufacturers if we want to be fair about this. The intense corruption of Airbus ought to be under the same scrutiny as Boeing — why aren’t any Airbus executives in jail either. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia_AirAsia_Flight_8501 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia_AirAsia_Flight_850...
- thatswrong0 7y ago
  Of all the examples you could choose, you picked 447? Did any report about 447 list Airbus as the primary entity deserving fault for the crash? Everything I’ve read listed the pitot tubes as one factor of course, but then everything else was the fault of the pilots. Recovering should not have been difficult. Bonin put the plane into a stall, they ignored stall warnings, they didn’t communicate, etc. It was a completely avoidable accident.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    Controls design, specifically of the sidestick's limited visible and nonexistent physical feedback of differring pilot inputs, and of input averaging, is discussed as a factor. Bonin's inappropriate responses to the pitot icing and failure to release the stick when Robert returned were the primary principle cause, however. And yes, avoidable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447#Sidestick_control_issue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447#Sidestic...
- 7y ago
mcv 7y ago
A big difference is that from everything I hear about this issue, it sounds like this was not an honest mistake, but a mistake driven by a policy of cutting costs and corners everywhere. They wanted this airframe to be able to do something it was never designed for. Instead of redesigning it from the ground up, which costs money both for development and for recertification, they tried to correct the problem in software. They didn't want to have to retrain pilots, so they pretended nothing really changed, again through software. And of course FAA testing is expensive, so instead the FAA blindly trusts Boeing. So a plane that should have been more thoroughly redesigned, recertified, with pilots retrained, got none of those things in order to save costs, and the FAA just blindly trusts Boeing that it's okay. Boeing clearly betrayed that trust. It's not just a single honest mistake, it's a policy that drove everything towards this mistake. I think that's why a lot of people are so upset.

ncmncm 7y ago

Yes, it's really that bad. Not because of the flaw itself, but the culture that drove the flaw into the outside world. There have been plenty of others in the past that do not detract from the magnitude of this one.

rsynnott 7y ago

It’s hard to be statistically sure given the small number of existing examples, but taken on face value, no recent large airliner has anything like this level of deaths per flight.

bcrosby95 7y ago

Yes it is that bad. No it is not because of social media. Airline crashes have always been a huge deal. That's why airplanes are so safe

rootusrootus 7y ago

The 737NG problems in the 90s were rudders deflecting suddenly and irrecoverably, tails did not fall off. Two crashes and a number of incidents before the problem was identified. Boeing also tried to squash that investigation, they actually swiped the servo from the first crashed plane so it could not be properly analyzed. Then the 737NG went on to have the best safety record of any plane ever. So while the MAX problem is pretty bad, and social media vastly complicates the PR angle, there is precedent for recovering from this. Certainly with as many MAXs as have been built there is enormous incentive to get it fixed. It's not realistic to expect them to scrap the planes.

lrem 7y ago
Scrapping will not happen, yes. But I have a feeling the max might become the first southern hemisphere exclusive.

briandear 7y ago

Air France 447 was in 2009. But since Airbus is European, it doesn’t warrant the same international outrage as Boeing. There was also the Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 that killed everyone because the pilots were incompetent after an issue with the rudder. But since that was an Airbus, the outrage was non-existent. Indonesian airlines have horrid safety records but it wasn’t until Boeing was involved that it reached an international outcry. There is a long list of Airbus accidents that many choose to ignore. The thing we should be really outraged about is the assembly line airline pilot programs in the third world that neglect teaching basic airmanship. US pilots have to have a minimum of 1500 hours before they can even copilot an airliner while some of these countries, such as Ethiopia have pilots in the right seat with as few as 200 hours. Boeing made a mistake with MCAS training, sure, but let’s look at crashes from all manufacturers if we want to be fair about this. The intense corruption of Airbus ought to be under the same scrutiny as Boeing — why aren’t any Airbus executives in jail either. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia_AirAsia_Flight_8501 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia_AirAsia_Flight_850...

thatswrong0 7y ago
Of all the examples you could choose, you picked 447? Did any report about 447 list Airbus as the primary entity deserving fault for the crash? Everything I’ve read listed the pitot tubes as one factor of course, but then everything else was the fault of the pilots. Recovering should not have been difficult. Bonin put the plane into a stall, they ignored stall warnings, they didn’t communicate, etc. It was a completely avoidable accident.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Controls design, specifically of the sidestick's limited visible and nonexistent physical feedback of differring pilot inputs, and of input averaging, is discussed as a factor. Bonin's inappropriate responses to the pitot icing and failure to release the stick when Robert returned were the primary principle cause, however. And yes, avoidable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447#Sidestick_control_issue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447#Sidestic...
7y ago

mcv 7y ago

A big difference is that from everything I hear about this issue, it sounds like this was not an honest mistake, but a mistake driven by a policy of cutting costs and corners everywhere. They wanted this airframe to be able to do something it was never designed for. Instead of redesigning it from the ground up, which costs money both for development and for recertification, they tried to correct the problem in software. They didn't want to have to retrain pilots, so they pretended nothing really changed, again through software. And of course FAA testing is expensive, so instead the FAA blindly trusts Boeing. So a plane that should have been more thoroughly redesigned, recertified, with pilots retrained, got none of those things in order to save costs, and the FAA just blindly trusts Boeing that it's okay. Boeing clearly betrayed that trust. It's not just a single honest mistake, it's a policy that drove everything towards this mistake. I think that's why a lot of people are so upset.