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Okay? Without knowing how often this happens and how often the engineers are wrong, we don’t know if this is newsworthy or not. The “safe” recommendation is to

Okay? Without knowing how often this happens and how often the engineers are wrong, we don’t know if this is newsworthy or not. The “safe” recommendation is to ground all the planes of that model any time there is a suspected issue. That said, the FAA has a long history of not implementing safety recommendations. NASA had this issue with the space shuttle.

rootusrootus 4y ago
> That said, the FAA has a long history of not implementing safety recommendations The counterpoint is that their safety record speaks for itself. When was the last commercial airliner crash in the US? 2009?
- alistairSH 4y ago
  At least as recent as 2013. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_214 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_214 If you mean domestic airline, then it was probably the 2009 Colgan Ait crash that led to major procedure and training g changes in the US.
  - pfannkuchen 4y ago
    If you don’t mind, I’m curious what sort of procedure and training changes occurred after the 2009 incident. The streak of no major domestic crashes (and basically no crashes at all) is really impressive and I think it should be talked about more. If the procedure and training changes are responsible for the streak we should be holding a parade or something for those responsible. Speaking of parades, I wonder what changed to make them seem lame these days. Are they just boring relative to film?
    - alistairSH 4y ago
      Many of the changes can be read about here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colgan_Air_Flight_3407 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colgan_Air_Flight_3407 The biggest one was requiring both pilots to have ATP certificates, effectively moving the bar to co-pilot from 250 hours to 1500 hours of flying. Lots of other changes that taken on their own are small, but overall it was a pretty massive set of changes.
      - Shivatron 4y ago
        You probably know this, but for the GP: It's not clear whether the 1500 hour rule directly improved safety. Both the Colgan captain and the FO had more than 1500 hours at the time of the accident. What the rule did unambiguously is severely restrict the supply of new pilots to regional airlines. This significantly improved quality of life for regional pilots, who prior to Colgan were effectively making minimum wage or worse. (That may have indirectly improved safety, by making pilots more well-rested and fed...) Another point of comparison is Europe, which has a not-dissimilar safety record, but still allows FOs to have 250 hours. That said, from what I understand, they have a very different training culture where students start in a multi-crew environment very early.
        alistairSH 4y ago
        I remember reading about the typical lifestyle of a new regional pilot. Low wages, long hours, and often flying many hours as a passenger to get to work (living in Pitts, grabbing the first flight to NYC to work, etc). It sounded miserable.
    - kayfox 4y ago
      Fatigue rules were changed to be more strict. Requirements for regional airlines pilots were changed to require at least a minimum of 1500 hours for both pilots, previously only one pilot was required to have 1500 hours. Standards for grading stall recovery were changed to avoid incentivising the behavior observed in the pilots in the 2009 crash.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- Prickle 4y ago
  The most recent airliner crash would be PenAir Flight 3296 in 2019. For jet-airliners, Atlas Air Flight 3591 also in 2019. If we count smaller craft like commercial single engine float planes, then the Puget Sound plane crash in 2022.
boringuser2 4y ago
That's actually not true. The "safe" recommendation is to keep all planes in the sky regardless of suspected safety issues because alternative transportation is not safer than a dangerous airplane.
- acover 4y ago
  There are other planes.
  - boringuser2 4y ago
    Yes, but can you reasonably suggest that air travel wouldn't be in any way disrupted by grounding planes in active rotation for an airline? This must be your position if you were to post this.
    - dendriti 4y ago
      Nobody mentioned anything about lack of disruption except you. Moving those goalposts.
- kelnos 4y ago
  If the alternative to flying is not taking the trip at all, then that's certainly safest. And I imagine that's the case for many trips, especially those where the flight is more than an hour and a half or so. (Consider that I can fly from SF to LA in an hour and a half, but it's a 6-hour drive. If my flight was canceled and I couldn't find an alternative flight, I just wouldn't go at all. Certainly there are some extreme situations where I might bite the bullet and drive, but that'd be rare.) Put another way: when we know something is unsafe, we shouldn't keep it going just because of the theoretical risk of alternatives. And yes, I know that the risk of driving isn't "theoretical", but we can't fully predict what humans will do absent their first choice of transportation.
  - boringuser2 4y ago
    Most flight isn't for pleasure.
nunuvit 4y ago
You can infer that it is newsworthy. > One engineer made a preliminary estimate that the chance of another Max crash was more than 13 times greater than FAA risk guidelines allow. > However, this document was not completed and did not go through managerial review due to lack of detailed flight data A plane crash is too significant for the FAA not to even disposition the analysis, meaning formally receiving, reviewing, and deciding what to do. Incomplete data would just be part of the decision process, it's not a legitimate excuse for not looking at it. Killing the report like this where no one is on record opposing it is a pretty common tactic to at least buy some time when you know what the result will be. They were hoping to find a reason not to ground the plane. They didn't find one, so they eventually ground it.

rootusrootus 4y ago

> That said, the FAA has a long history of not implementing safety recommendations The counterpoint is that their safety record speaks for itself. When was the last commercial airliner crash in the US? 2009?

alistairSH 4y ago
At least as recent as 2013. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_214 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_214 If you mean domestic airline, then it was probably the 2009 Colgan Ait crash that led to major procedure and training g changes in the US.
- pfannkuchen 4y ago
  If you don’t mind, I’m curious what sort of procedure and training changes occurred after the 2009 incident. The streak of no major domestic crashes (and basically no crashes at all) is really impressive and I think it should be talked about more. If the procedure and training changes are responsible for the streak we should be holding a parade or something for those responsible. Speaking of parades, I wonder what changed to make them seem lame these days. Are they just boring relative to film?
  - alistairSH 4y ago
    Many of the changes can be read about here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colgan_Air_Flight_3407 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colgan_Air_Flight_3407 The biggest one was requiring both pilots to have ATP certificates, effectively moving the bar to co-pilot from 250 hours to 1500 hours of flying. Lots of other changes that taken on their own are small, but overall it was a pretty massive set of changes.
    - Shivatron 4y ago
      You probably know this, but for the GP: It's not clear whether the 1500 hour rule directly improved safety. Both the Colgan captain and the FO had more than 1500 hours at the time of the accident. What the rule did unambiguously is severely restrict the supply of new pilots to regional airlines. This significantly improved quality of life for regional pilots, who prior to Colgan were effectively making minimum wage or worse. (That may have indirectly improved safety, by making pilots more well-rested and fed...) Another point of comparison is Europe, which has a not-dissimilar safety record, but still allows FOs to have 250 hours. That said, from what I understand, they have a very different training culture where students start in a multi-crew environment very early.
      - alistairSH 4y ago
        I remember reading about the typical lifestyle of a new regional pilot. Low wages, long hours, and often flying many hours as a passenger to get to work (living in Pitts, grabbing the first flight to NYC to work, etc). It sounded miserable.
  - kayfox 4y ago
    Fatigue rules were changed to be more strict. Requirements for regional airlines pilots were changed to require at least a minimum of 1500 hours for both pilots, previously only one pilot was required to have 1500 hours. Standards for grading stall recovery were changed to avoid incentivising the behavior observed in the pilots in the 2009 crash.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
Prickle 4y ago
The most recent airliner crash would be PenAir Flight 3296 in 2019. For jet-airliners, Atlas Air Flight 3591 also in 2019. If we count smaller craft like commercial single engine float planes, then the Puget Sound plane crash in 2022.

boringuser2 4y ago

That's actually not true. The "safe" recommendation is to keep all planes in the sky regardless of suspected safety issues because alternative transportation is not safer than a dangerous airplane.

acover 4y ago
There are other planes.
- boringuser2 4y ago
  Yes, but can you reasonably suggest that air travel wouldn't be in any way disrupted by grounding planes in active rotation for an airline? This must be your position if you were to post this.
  - dendriti 4y ago
    Nobody mentioned anything about lack of disruption except you. Moving those goalposts.
kelnos 4y ago
If the alternative to flying is not taking the trip at all, then that's certainly safest. And I imagine that's the case for many trips, especially those where the flight is more than an hour and a half or so. (Consider that I can fly from SF to LA in an hour and a half, but it's a 6-hour drive. If my flight was canceled and I couldn't find an alternative flight, I just wouldn't go at all. Certainly there are some extreme situations where I might bite the bullet and drive, but that'd be rare.) Put another way: when we know something is unsafe, we shouldn't keep it going just because of the theoretical risk of alternatives. And yes, I know that the risk of driving isn't "theoretical", but we can't fully predict what humans will do absent their first choice of transportation.
- boringuser2 4y ago
  Most flight isn't for pleasure.

nunuvit 4y ago

You can infer that it is newsworthy. > One engineer made a preliminary estimate that the chance of another Max crash was more than 13 times greater than FAA risk guidelines allow. > However, this document was not completed and did not go through managerial review due to lack of detailed flight data A plane crash is too significant for the FAA not to even disposition the analysis, meaning formally receiving, reviewing, and deciding what to do. Incomplete data would just be part of the decision process, it's not a legitimate excuse for not looking at it. Killing the report like this where no one is on record opposing it is a pretty common tactic to at least buy some time when you know what the result will be. They were hoping to find a reason not to ground the plane. They didn't find one, so they eventually ground it.