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Analysis-Debate over pulling fuses widens regulatory cracks on 737 Max
- salawat 6y agoEditorializing aside this makes me nervous. I knew someone who did some troubleshooting for the Navy way back when they were flying F-14's when for a long time standard checklist pre takeoff was to check an indicator light and if it persistently flashed without readily obvious explanation to tap it to get it to turn off and move along. A couple of inexplicably lost planes and pilots later; he ended up finding out that lamp was part of a fire alert system, and the tapping of the button "taming" the indicator was actually the lamp filament getting knocked out and rendered non-functional. If a fire subsequently popped up during flight then the lamp that was supposed to light to indicate it wouldn't be able to. He always felt bad because like the day after he submitted his report, but before it got out to the fleet and procedures were updated they lost someone to just that. Point being: exercise caution when ripping out pieces of your machine's artificial nervous system. Especially when making it "business as normal" as in a checklist item, when the action is often done mechanically, and seperate from the understanding of what the ramifications of doing so as a whole are. If they've at least articulated that to the pilots in addition to telling them to do it, I'm fine with it. It just always makes me cautious to see that approach at work.