4 ms·

There were other near accidents before due to the exact same problem, the problem was well understood, and the changes needed to solve it was known. Air France

There were other near accidents before due to the exact same problem, the problem was well understood, and the changes needed to solve it was known. Air France didn't implement them and Airbus didn't require them because of money. They thought the chance of it causing a real accident was low and decided to risk it. Despite there being known near accidents already. And yes, "[the pilots] training should have been better" is part of the things that put both companies at fault. It's not the pilots fault that their training didn't cover it.

Svip 5mo ago
> Airbus didn't require them because of money I am pretty confident that aircraft manufacturers themselves cannot require these things, only regulators can. The FAA in particular used to lean heavily on budget constraints for airlines (who would also push back against expensive upgrades); but I am sure the same applies to EASA and other regulators as well.
- iepathos 5mo ago
  That's right, Airbus is responsible for the faulty equipment onboard, not pilot training. Air France is responsible for its pilots' operational training and recurrent training.
  - ktallett 5mo ago
    It's not that black and white. Airbus will be responsible for educating Air France too and giving appropriate training. These planes are not purchased by Air France without significant documentation and access to support.
    - iepathos 5mo ago
      Ahh good to know, thanks for clarifying.
- etiennebausson 5mo ago
  They should be able to recall a plane for a safety flaw. In which case they have to pay for the upgrade themselves. If the airline doesn't comply afterward, it would be on them. But they didn't issue a recall, so they wouldn't have to pay for the fix, an over 200 people paid the price instead. At least, that's how I read the blame distribution.
  - ktallett 5mo ago
    Do we want airlines that only put in fixes for safety issues once they are forced to?
    - WalterBright 5mo ago
      Fixes have to go through the FAA, which can be difficult, bureaucratic and very expensive.
      - ktallett 5mo ago
        Well yes of course they have to be checked by a regulator, but you should still have the thought of, we must do this, no matter the cost as safety matters above everything else in this industry.
        AnthonyMouse 5mo ago
        > you should still have the thought of, we must do this, no matter the cost as safety matters above everything else in this industry. This premise implies that if you could prevent one plane crash for $10 trillion dollars then you should do it, but then ordinary people wouldn't be able to afford air travel. In reality they do have to consider the cost and then do the things that are justified based on the cost and the risk. Which means that high regulatory costs compromise safety because the more it costs to make a change that improves safety, the fewer of those changes can be implemented for an amount of money that can be justified by the risk.
        WalterBright 5mo ago
- delusional 5mo ago
  Separating "regulators" and "manufacturers" in such distinct categories is overly simplistic, I'm afraid. As we saw with the whole Boeing debacle, the manufacturers are the experts on what they build, and we expect them to give clear, levelheaded, and honest guidance to operators and regulators. That also means they must have some responsibility for the outcomes of that guidance. Having a separate regulator, which does no building themselves, somehow maintain a separate team of independent experts is a fools errand. We should of course have independent evaluators, but the people building the thing are the experts on the thing.
  - _DeadFred_ 5mo ago
    It's a challenging problem. Going back to when I was in aerospace even just with the FAA we had FAA west and FAA east, and they were treated as different entities within our company because they had such different approaches/understanding and then the EASA which was from our experience a protectionist entity that would look for gotchas on American competitors and not a neutral safety focused party and refused to recognized treaty obligated acceptance of FAA certification (and it was a big issue that the US refused to step in on our behalf and require the treaty be followed because the US authorities put safety first even though the US had agreed we were safe and had demonstrated it).
  - wolvoleo 5mo ago
    > Having a separate regulator, which does no building themselves, somehow maintain a separate team of independent experts is a fools errand. We should of course have independent evaluators, but the people building the thing are the experts on the thing. Well they have to. Boeing showed what happens if they are not experts and they leave everything to the manufacturer. They'll just lie and scheme and even get away with it.
- marcosdumay 5mo ago
  The manufacturers literally write the manual. The regulators only approve or reject it. And yes, EASA approved it too.
raverbashing 5mo ago
As much as I understand the culture of blameless post-mortems and the fact that people in that cockpit don't get the benefit of hindsight, maybe those other companies didn't have an accident because they followed procedure (which was a simple one) Yes there were UX factors. Yes training could be better. Yes distractions happen But if I'm going to blame the companies I'm going to blame them on putting someone inexperienced and probably who did not have the right mindset in navigating the profession. And meanwhile companies waste time in making automations on top of manual processes that make things even more complicated
foldr 5mo ago
>There were other near accidents before due to the exact same problem, the problem was well understood, and the changes needed to solve it was known. Could you be more specific here? The article doesn't even say which problem Airbus are considered to be criminally liable for.
- marcosdumay 5mo ago
  The plane was prone to lose its airspeed sensors on some weather conditions.

Svip 5mo ago

> Airbus didn't require them because of money I am pretty confident that aircraft manufacturers themselves cannot require these things, only regulators can. The FAA in particular used to lean heavily on budget constraints for airlines (who would also push back against expensive upgrades); but I am sure the same applies to EASA and other regulators as well.

iepathos 5mo ago
That's right, Airbus is responsible for the faulty equipment onboard, not pilot training. Air France is responsible for its pilots' operational training and recurrent training.
- ktallett 5mo ago
  It's not that black and white. Airbus will be responsible for educating Air France too and giving appropriate training. These planes are not purchased by Air France without significant documentation and access to support.
  - iepathos 5mo ago
    Ahh good to know, thanks for clarifying.
etiennebausson 5mo ago
They should be able to recall a plane for a safety flaw. In which case they have to pay for the upgrade themselves. If the airline doesn't comply afterward, it would be on them. But they didn't issue a recall, so they wouldn't have to pay for the fix, an over 200 people paid the price instead. At least, that's how I read the blame distribution.
- ktallett 5mo ago
  Do we want airlines that only put in fixes for safety issues once they are forced to?
  - WalterBright 5mo ago
    Fixes have to go through the FAA, which can be difficult, bureaucratic and very expensive.
    - ktallett 5mo ago
      Well yes of course they have to be checked by a regulator, but you should still have the thought of, we must do this, no matter the cost as safety matters above everything else in this industry.
      - AnthonyMouse 5mo ago
        > you should still have the thought of, we must do this, no matter the cost as safety matters above everything else in this industry. This premise implies that if you could prevent one plane crash for $10 trillion dollars then you should do it, but then ordinary people wouldn't be able to afford air travel. In reality they do have to consider the cost and then do the things that are justified based on the cost and the risk. Which means that high regulatory costs compromise safety because the more it costs to make a change that improves safety, the fewer of those changes can be implemented for an amount of money that can be justified by the risk.
      - WalterBright 5mo ago
delusional 5mo ago
Separating "regulators" and "manufacturers" in such distinct categories is overly simplistic, I'm afraid. As we saw with the whole Boeing debacle, the manufacturers are the experts on what they build, and we expect them to give clear, levelheaded, and honest guidance to operators and regulators. That also means they must have some responsibility for the outcomes of that guidance. Having a separate regulator, which does no building themselves, somehow maintain a separate team of independent experts is a fools errand. We should of course have independent evaluators, but the people building the thing are the experts on the thing.
- _DeadFred_ 5mo ago
  It's a challenging problem. Going back to when I was in aerospace even just with the FAA we had FAA west and FAA east, and they were treated as different entities within our company because they had such different approaches/understanding and then the EASA which was from our experience a protectionist entity that would look for gotchas on American competitors and not a neutral safety focused party and refused to recognized treaty obligated acceptance of FAA certification (and it was a big issue that the US refused to step in on our behalf and require the treaty be followed because the US authorities put safety first even though the US had agreed we were safe and had demonstrated it).
- wolvoleo 5mo ago
  > Having a separate regulator, which does no building themselves, somehow maintain a separate team of independent experts is a fools errand. We should of course have independent evaluators, but the people building the thing are the experts on the thing. Well they have to. Boeing showed what happens if they are not experts and they leave everything to the manufacturer. They'll just lie and scheme and even get away with it.
marcosdumay 5mo ago
The manufacturers literally write the manual. The regulators only approve or reject it. And yes, EASA approved it too.

raverbashing 5mo ago

As much as I understand the culture of blameless post-mortems and the fact that people in that cockpit don't get the benefit of hindsight, maybe those other companies didn't have an accident because they followed procedure (which was a simple one) Yes there were UX factors. Yes training could be better. Yes distractions happen But if I'm going to blame the companies I'm going to blame them on putting someone inexperienced and probably who did not have the right mindset in navigating the profession. And meanwhile companies waste time in making automations on top of manual processes that make things even more complicated

foldr 5mo ago

>There were other near accidents before due to the exact same problem, the problem was well understood, and the changes needed to solve it was known. Could you be more specific here? The article doesn't even say which problem Airbus are considered to be criminally liable for.

marcosdumay 5mo ago
The plane was prone to lose its airspeed sensors on some weather conditions.