5 ms·
> actually prove the aircraft is safe to fly And, importantly, the process of providing that proof must be open to the notion that it is not safe to fly. It is
by deciplex 3y ago
> actually prove the aircraft is safe to fly
And, importantly, the process of providing that proof must be open to the notion that it is not safe to fly. It is possible (and IMO very likely) that this aircraft is fundamentally unsound, by design, and that no amount of tweaks and fixes can change that. They made a dangerous aircraft, bullshitted their way through the approval process for commercial travel, and now must pay the price.
- lazide 3y agoBut what does that have to do with not bolting the door plugs back in correctly?
- TylerE 3y agoThat they keep happening to the same airplane. Don't forget the MCAS fiasco, as well. Or the engine deicing you can’t leave on for more than 5 minutes because it might start a fire. That's the point. The problem isn't specific, it's systemic.
- jtc331 3y agoSystemic to manufacturing is not the same as systemic to the aircraft’s design.
- ImPostingOnHN 3y agoYou are 100% correct, and it seems there are both systemic manufacturing process issues and systemic issues with the plane design
- TylerE 3y agoIn aviation, a manufacturing problem that goes uncaught is an everyone problem. QA should catch it. Ideally software and procedure should back stop things. In the Alaska Air case the pressurization alarm went off on two previous flights, which got the aircraft limited to non-ocean routes, but it was still allowed to fly. These alarms were likely due to the door unseating on prior flights, the dynamics just weren't enough to actually eject it off the rails.
- xp84 3y agoThought experiment: Let’s imagine that the Boeing design department 20 years ago had whipped out a perfect all-new airplane design and the MAX had never happened. I’ll call its replacement the “797 Pro Max.” It fixes all the things we all agree are unfortunate hacks about the 737 MAX and was designed freshly by people at least as competent as Airbus’s designers. Anyway, couldn’t this type of “so and so took off part X and forgot to properly bolt it on, and nobody made sure that removals were properly documented to ensure safety” problem happen exactly the same on a 797 Pro Max? I think the (very real) design problems really have little to nothing to do with their obvious process/manufacturing problems brought to light by the plug door incident.
- TylerE 3y agoCould it? Maybe. But the 737 MAX Process/Program is known to be defective. I'll take possibly bad over surely bad any day.
- xp84 3y agoI don't think we disagree that the 737 MAX process has problems. I was only arguing that you could have any combination of the matrix and that a sound airplane design won't guarantee safety on its own. It's appearing the 737 MAX may well be the top-right of this. ┌──────────────────┬──────────────────┐ │ Bad Design │ Bad Design │ │ │ │ │ Good Process │ Bad Process │ ├──────────────────┼──────────────────┤ │ Good Design │ Good Design │ │ │ │ │ Good Process │ Bad Process │ └──────────────────┴──────────────────┘
- ajross 3y ago> It is possible (and IMO very likely) that this aircraft is fundamentally unsound, by design "Fundamentally unsound" seems like a subjective judgement in an area that clearly requires numbers. Wikipedia tells me there are 1445 of these planes in the air each flying, what, 3000 miles a day on average? The existing accident statistics would argue strongly that this plane is "safe" in an absolute context, even if it's clearly "more dangerous" than other models. The big reason people are so upset about this is that it's a safety outlier in an industry that has been extremely safe, and getting inexorably more so, over the last half century.