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Yours is not a good argument. You can't assess this type of risk, let alone control it. Even if you are an aeronautical engineer, you won't convince me that yo

Yours is not a good argument. You can't assess this type of risk, let alone control it. Even if you are an aeronautical engineer, you won't convince me that you can assess these risks, because teams of aeronautical engineers designed this plane and did it overall very safely like they did the planes that came before it, and I'd have no reason to believe your claims. None of them assessed this level of risk as risky, they were willing to fly in it, and the only thing that seems absurd is you thinking you know better. There are flaws of varying severity in every large scale human endeavor, kinks get worked out, this one is stochastically late in the game. In terms of controlling this risk, that is exactly what "we" are doing, that's what this article is about, removing an identified risk from this plane's design. There is no reason to think that the plane now has bad juu-juu, that's superstition. Air travel is incredibly safe, this plane is too.

plasma 6y ago
> Even if you are an aeronautical engineer, you won't convince me that you can assess these risks, because teams of aeronautical > engineers designed this plane and did it overall very safely like they did the planes that came before it, and I'd have no > reason to believe your claims. That feels really really naive and an unfair judgement to make. I don't need to be an aeronautical engineer to know about other market force at play, and a repeated lack of ownership of the issue by Boeing: incentive for Boeing to not go out of business, airlines to get a return on the airlines they bought, etc. They reek of dishonesty on this matter. As a traveler I would absolutely bucket that airplane model into the "Something is fundamentally wrong" and distrust.
CaptainZapp 6y ago
> because teams of aeronautical engineers designed this plane and did it overall very safely 346 people and their relatives, which crashed, burned and died in two of those brand new planes within 6 month and their relatives probably beg to differ. The history of this plane and the facts that came out after those accidents do not sound like a "very safe" design process. Read Dominic Gates' reporting (for which he got a Pulitzer) to inform yourself about some of the nastier aspects of the design of this plane.
PostThisTooFast 6y ago
Sure there is. If the design was as inept as widely reported, there’s plenty of reason to be suspicious. Then there’s the hackiness of MCAS itself. Boeing tried to cut corners and put bigger engines on an ancient plane design that couldn’t accommodate them without deleterious aerodynamic effects. Then, to help airlines cut corners, they slapped MCAS on it to suppress those effects and obviate the need for pilot training. Of course, the big “problem” should be easily manageable by any pilot: an upward-pitching tendency under heavy power. If you don’t notice or can’t easily correct for that, you have no business flying a plane.
ummonk 6y ago
No, these crashes, as well as the decisions that led up to them are evidence that the design process of the aircraft was flawed. This increases the probability that there might be other design flaws in the aircraft that will surface once it re-enters service. That's not bad juu-juu, it's just proper Bayesian statistics. Note that the problems aren't specific to the 737 MAX either; I know commercial / cargo pilots who were worried by the 787 design process and would have been terrified to fly the plane in its first several years. They believe it was simply good luck that the 787 didn't experience any bigger issue than battery problems. Likewise, many pilots are worried that the 777X could have potential safety problems and want to avoid flying it.

plasma 6y ago

> Even if you are an aeronautical engineer, you won't convince me that you can assess these risks, because teams of aeronautical > engineers designed this plane and did it overall very safely like they did the planes that came before it, and I'd have no > reason to believe your claims. That feels really really naive and an unfair judgement to make. I don't need to be an aeronautical engineer to know about other market force at play, and a repeated lack of ownership of the issue by Boeing: incentive for Boeing to not go out of business, airlines to get a return on the airlines they bought, etc. They reek of dishonesty on this matter. As a traveler I would absolutely bucket that airplane model into the "Something is fundamentally wrong" and distrust.

CaptainZapp 6y ago

> because teams of aeronautical engineers designed this plane and did it overall very safely 346 people and their relatives, which crashed, burned and died in two of those brand new planes within 6 month and their relatives probably beg to differ. The history of this plane and the facts that came out after those accidents do not sound like a "very safe" design process. Read Dominic Gates' reporting (for which he got a Pulitzer) to inform yourself about some of the nastier aspects of the design of this plane.

PostThisTooFast 6y ago

Sure there is. If the design was as inept as widely reported, there’s plenty of reason to be suspicious. Then there’s the hackiness of MCAS itself. Boeing tried to cut corners and put bigger engines on an ancient plane design that couldn’t accommodate them without deleterious aerodynamic effects. Then, to help airlines cut corners, they slapped MCAS on it to suppress those effects and obviate the need for pilot training. Of course, the big “problem” should be easily manageable by any pilot: an upward-pitching tendency under heavy power. If you don’t notice or can’t easily correct for that, you have no business flying a plane.

ummonk 6y ago

No, these crashes, as well as the decisions that led up to them are evidence that the design process of the aircraft was flawed. This increases the probability that there might be other design flaws in the aircraft that will surface once it re-enters service. That's not bad juu-juu, it's just proper Bayesian statistics. Note that the problems aren't specific to the 737 MAX either; I know commercial / cargo pilots who were worried by the 787 design process and would have been terrified to fly the plane in its first several years. They believe it was simply good luck that the 787 didn't experience any bigger issue than battery problems. Likewise, many pilots are worried that the 777X could have potential safety problems and want to avoid flying it.