8 ms·

Add it to the list of reasons to not get on a 737

alkonaut 5y ago
Most 737s are among the safest planes ever built (because they aren't MAX). Whether or not the MAX will live up to the safety record of the previous gen going forward is yet to be seen.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Going forward? You don't get to wipe off a chunk of the graph that you don't like, the crashes that happened and the flights that happened without crashes are all part of the MAX safety record (oh, and that goes for the 'rebranded' version as well).
  - alkonaut 5y ago
    No one is wiping. By “going forward” I mean that if the corrections prove working then for each flight hour the safety record improves in the sense of accidents per flight hour. The MAX safety record is terrible because there are many incidents per flight hour. Not because there are many incidents. It needs to fly about 10M flights per fatal accident to be catching up with the 737 NG.
eric__cartman 5y ago
The Boeing 737 design was introduced 50+ years ago and is still used (albeit not in 50 year old planes) today in a multitude of airlines for passenger travel. That said the 737 MAX fuckup is something that neither Boeing, or the many worldwide air travel regulatory institutions should be forgiven for. But that doesn't make the 737 design itself bad. That particular iteration, due to Boeing's attempt undertake Airbus and falsely sell the planes to airlines as a drop in replacement with zero extra training needed unfortunately resulted in deadly crashes. The people that decided on that should be charged on the deaths that occured because of their greediness.
- adolph 5y ago
  > The people that decided on that should be charged on the deaths that occured because of their greediness For whom should the buck stop? Boeing, who designed the upgrade with lower carrier costs in mind? The carriers who bought and flew a compromised flight program in order to offer lower ticket costs? The passengers who choose a carrier based on cost instead of quality?
  - eric__cartman 5y ago
    Ok, I got a little carried away there. From what I understood from reading the reports on the various crashes, (I don't have a background in aviation so take this with a gigantic pair of tweezers) the crashes could have been prevented by simply informing, and briefly training the pilots with the newly introduced systems that corrected the pitch of the nose to compensate for the change in engines while maintaining the same body. But instead of doing that from the start, Boeing marketed the plane to airlines as a drop in replacement for their old 737 fleet where the pilots would need no extra training as it should behave "exactly the same" as the old one. Whoever decided on that should be mainly responsable for this. Of course the passengers don't have the fault and the airline would be at fault only if they continued using the decommissioned planes that were known to be unsafe. I'm not mistaken issues have been mitigates and those planes are in use in many areas of the world now. There's nothing wrong with designing an upgrade with lower carrier costs in mind, but any potencial differences on how the plane behaves should always be informed, even if a computer is supposed to correct for it.
    - _0w8t 5y ago
      It is not a matter of simple pilot training. It turned out pilots had only 10 seconds to disable the system after that it would be too late. This is exactly what happened at the second crash. The disable switch was pushed but it was not possible to recover.
      - ummonk 5y ago
        I believe they would have been able to recover had they cut the throttle and let the airspeed reduce to the point that they could manually trim the aircraft. Hard to blame them though - while it was definitely pilot error when they got stuck focusing on trying to fix the elevator trim issue and neglected to heed the overspend warning and take the aircraft out of military power, this issue was no doubt precipitated by the lack of proper information that Boeing had provided to pilots regarding the functioning of the MCAS system.
_moof 5y ago
There is no good reason not to get on a 737.
- ummonk 5y ago
  I find Airbuses have more passenger comfort. Is that not a good reason to you?
  - kube-system 5y ago
    That's mostly up to configuration, no?
    - ummonk 5y ago
      The A320's cabin is several inches wider, so it feels more spacious, and the windows are higher, which also makes it feel less claustrophobic. The extra width also tends to translate into slightly wider seats and/or a wider aisle, because when I fly economy class, both 737s and A320s tend to be configured with 3 seats on either side of the aisle. On the other hand for tall people (which I am not) who use window seats (which I don't), the A320 is worse though because the cabin wall curves in more at head level.
  - _moof 5y ago
    I assumed the original poster was talking in the context of safety. When it comes to comfort, they all suck. :)
kube-system 5y ago
The 737NG ranks among the top few safest models of plane. Do you only fly on Embraer ERJs?
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  Do Embraer altimeters work properly?
  - kube-system 5y ago
    That's still to be determined. They're approved for low-visibility landings at fewer airports than any other passenger jet (including the 737), according to this: https://www.faa.gov/5g https://www.faa.gov/5g But, let's not compare apples and oranges. Concerns about safety doesn't kill people, it protects them. The 737NG has a very low accident rate, and if you're looking for a plane with a statically lower incident rate, the ERJ is your only other clear choice. This is regardless of the fact that the FAA only allows ERJs to land in low-visibility at 3/4 of US airports.

Most 737s are among the safest planes ever built (because they aren't MAX). Whether or not the MAX will live up to the safety record of the previous gen going forward is yet to be seen.

jacquesm 5y ago
Going forward? You don't get to wipe off a chunk of the graph that you don't like, the crashes that happened and the flights that happened without crashes are all part of the MAX safety record (oh, and that goes for the 'rebranded' version as well).
- alkonaut 5y ago
  No one is wiping. By “going forward” I mean that if the corrections prove working then for each flight hour the safety record improves in the sense of accidents per flight hour. The MAX safety record is terrible because there are many incidents per flight hour. Not because there are many incidents. It needs to fly about 10M flights per fatal accident to be catching up with the 737 NG.

eric__cartman 5y ago

The Boeing 737 design was introduced 50+ years ago and is still used (albeit not in 50 year old planes) today in a multitude of airlines for passenger travel. That said the 737 MAX fuckup is something that neither Boeing, or the many worldwide air travel regulatory institutions should be forgiven for. But that doesn't make the 737 design itself bad. That particular iteration, due to Boeing's attempt undertake Airbus and falsely sell the planes to airlines as a drop in replacement with zero extra training needed unfortunately resulted in deadly crashes. The people that decided on that should be charged on the deaths that occured because of their greediness.

adolph 5y ago
> The people that decided on that should be charged on the deaths that occured because of their greediness For whom should the buck stop? Boeing, who designed the upgrade with lower carrier costs in mind? The carriers who bought and flew a compromised flight program in order to offer lower ticket costs? The passengers who choose a carrier based on cost instead of quality?
- eric__cartman 5y ago
  Ok, I got a little carried away there. From what I understood from reading the reports on the various crashes, (I don't have a background in aviation so take this with a gigantic pair of tweezers) the crashes could have been prevented by simply informing, and briefly training the pilots with the newly introduced systems that corrected the pitch of the nose to compensate for the change in engines while maintaining the same body. But instead of doing that from the start, Boeing marketed the plane to airlines as a drop in replacement for their old 737 fleet where the pilots would need no extra training as it should behave "exactly the same" as the old one. Whoever decided on that should be mainly responsable for this. Of course the passengers don't have the fault and the airline would be at fault only if they continued using the decommissioned planes that were known to be unsafe. I'm not mistaken issues have been mitigates and those planes are in use in many areas of the world now. There's nothing wrong with designing an upgrade with lower carrier costs in mind, but any potencial differences on how the plane behaves should always be informed, even if a computer is supposed to correct for it.
  - _0w8t 5y ago
    It is not a matter of simple pilot training. It turned out pilots had only 10 seconds to disable the system after that it would be too late. This is exactly what happened at the second crash. The disable switch was pushed but it was not possible to recover.
    - ummonk 5y ago
      I believe they would have been able to recover had they cut the throttle and let the airspeed reduce to the point that they could manually trim the aircraft. Hard to blame them though - while it was definitely pilot error when they got stuck focusing on trying to fix the elevator trim issue and neglected to heed the overspend warning and take the aircraft out of military power, this issue was no doubt precipitated by the lack of proper information that Boeing had provided to pilots regarding the functioning of the MCAS system.

_moof 5y ago

There is no good reason not to get on a 737.

ummonk 5y ago
I find Airbuses have more passenger comfort. Is that not a good reason to you?
- kube-system 5y ago
  That's mostly up to configuration, no?
  - ummonk 5y ago
    The A320's cabin is several inches wider, so it feels more spacious, and the windows are higher, which also makes it feel less claustrophobic. The extra width also tends to translate into slightly wider seats and/or a wider aisle, because when I fly economy class, both 737s and A320s tend to be configured with 3 seats on either side of the aisle. On the other hand for tall people (which I am not) who use window seats (which I don't), the A320 is worse though because the cabin wall curves in more at head level.
- _moof 5y ago
  I assumed the original poster was talking in the context of safety. When it comes to comfort, they all suck. :)

kube-system 5y ago

The 737NG ranks among the top few safest models of plane. Do you only fly on Embraer ERJs?

TameAntelope 5y ago
Do Embraer altimeters work properly?
- kube-system 5y ago
  That's still to be determined. They're approved for low-visibility landings at fewer airports than any other passenger jet (including the 737), according to this: https://www.faa.gov/5g https://www.faa.gov/5g But, let's not compare apples and oranges. Concerns about safety doesn't kill people, it protects them. The 737NG has a very low accident rate, and if you're looking for a plane with a statically lower incident rate, the ERJ is your only other clear choice. This is regardless of the fact that the FAA only allows ERJs to land in low-visibility at 3/4 of US airports.