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This is interesting info, especially with the MAX outlier. But not enough to go on if you want to do "rainman" calculations. You would need to know the operator
by quickthrower2 3y ago
This is interesting info, especially with the MAX outlier. But not enough to go on if you want to do "rainman" calculations. You would need to know the operator, their country, their airline safety culture etc.
If you can classify each crash into a % score "due to pilot training issues", "due to design flaw", "due to maintenance skimping". Also need to take into account time. I think if a plane crashed today because of wind changing direction rapidly due to a microburst under a thunderstorm, it is more likely to be called a pilot training issue, but go back far enough and it is a weather issue instead.
Just based on stuff I read. I am not a pilot or expert.
Edit: more clear what wind changing direction is. Not just a gentle breeze from the South moving East!
- TechBro8615 3y agoThe MAX is the one plane I will absolutely not fly on. It's nice to see the numbers, but as you say, fairly unsurprising. It's also nice to see that the 787 and A380 have never crashed, since those are my favorite planes.
- wkat4242 3y agoIt's not a bad plane. Every pilot now knows its flaws. Don't forget one flip of a switch would have saved all those lives. The problem was the pilots never knew that switch was even there. I'd fly on it just fine, I wouldn't feel unsafe. Though I'd regret providing profits for the company that deliberately let those people die.
- paulryanrogers 3y agoIsn't it more than the MCAS itself but also the reliance on one sensor (redundancy optional expense) instead of standard of three?!
- wkat4242 3y agoWell yes both. But either way, if the pilots had known MCAS existed, all they would have had to do was switch it off. In both cases they had plenty of time to do it. Knowledge is key, even with 3 sensors it's possible 2 of them fail, though much less likely.
- seabass-labrax 3y agoThe scandal with the MCAS though was in large part because Boeing went out of their way to hide the existence of this system to save their customers training costs, and therefore win more sales from existing 737 operators. On the contrary, Airbus, for instance, provide detailed guidance for what to do if either one, two or all three of a system like the ADIRS (Air Data Inertial Reference System) were to fail during a flight, even though that is extremely unlikely.
- sokoloff 3y agoET302’s crew did switch it off [correctly]. They then switched it back on in an attempt to fly the airplane out of the emergency.
- sokoloff 3y agoET302’s crew (the second Max crash) also knew about the plane’s fault mode and almost saved the craft. If they’d have continued to command nose-down manually [after correctly executing the runaway trim disable checklist memory items and then re-enabling the power to the offending system in order to command aircraft-nose-down trim for a short time], they’d have almost surely flown the airplane back to base. It was Boeing’s fault, but the crew almost saved it and inexplicably re-enabled the fault after correcting it. They were so close…
- quickthrower2 3y agoHow safe is it? You need the MCAS to compensate for the change in aerodynamics. So if the pilots flick the switch off, then the pilots would need to retrain to fly this now non-737 series plane? Have they?
- JimtheCoder 3y ago"I think if a plane crashed today because of wind changing direction under a thunderstorm, it is more likely to be called a pilot training issue, but go back far enough and it is a weather issue instead." I certainly hope that a plane would not crash due to wind changing direction...
- devilbunny 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Air_Lines_Flight_191 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Air_Lines_Flight_191
- JimtheCoder 3y agoFair enough. A microburst on approach would technically be classified as a change in wind direction.
- quickthrower2 3y agoI did say under a thunderstorm! I understand that landing under a thunder cloud, or even cruising under one, is a no no.
- dghlsakjg 3y ago"Low Level Wind Shear" is the technical name. It is the ninth leading cause of landing and takeoff fatalities. It makes sense when you realize that airplanes can only fly when the apparent wind (their speed through the air) is high enough, and landing and takeoff is when you are crossing that transition zone between high enough to fly, and not flying. If you go from a 10 kt. headwind to 10 kt. tailwind fast enough, it is exactly like losing 20 kts. of speed. Especially on small prop planes, that is more than enough speed difference to go from comfortable approach speed to dangerously close to stall speed.
- coredog64 3y agoCommercial airliners started to get onboard wind shear detection ~25 years ago. The idea is that if you get enough advanced notice, you can execute a go-around while you’ve still got some altitude.