Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Canada grounds Boeing 737 Max 8

cbc.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 304 posts

Re: Canada grounds Boeing 737 Max 8

#131

Post by cal5k »

js2 wrote: post #20

Having read many commments on HN and elsewhere since the crash, I know I’m in the minority here when I say this but to me it seems like the US airlines and FAA are following their procedures, the same procedures that make the US airlines the safest in the world, while the rest of the world is, I don’t quite want to use the word panicking, but at least giving into pressure from people who aren’t aviation safety expert…

My father used to work for Transport Canada (Canada's version of the FAA), and I've found it rather dismaying how little faith people seem to have in the FAA/NTSB despite many years of evidence as to their competence. They're probably the best independent regulator the US has at the moment.

Ironically, if you were to dive into a thread about "Urban Air Transport", a hot topic in Silicon Valley, you'd likely see people decrying the FAA for being too conservative and stifling innovation.

Re: Canada grounds Boeing 737 Max 8

#132

Post by ceejayoz »

dragontamer wrote: post #89
ceejayoz wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boeing was a big employer, contractor, etc. back in 2013 when the FAA grounded the entire 787 fleet. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/01/16/169555027...

Different President, Different Secretary of Transportation, different FAA chief. Obama's administration was run grossly different than Trump's administration. Case in point: FAA doesn't even have a Trump-appointed administrator yet (Daniel Elwell was only appointed to the position of Deputy administrator and is only "Acting Administrator" for now).

That's fine, but that's a different claim entirely.

The FAA has always had the "Boeing is a large employer and defense contractor" conflict. I'm perfectly fine with a "current management is bad" assertion.

Re: Canada grounds Boeing 737 Max 8

#133

Post by ciceryadam »

peteretep wrote: post #85
js2 wrote: post #20

Having read many commments on HN and elsewhere since the crash, I know I’m in the minority here when I say this but to me it seems like the US airlines and FAA are following their procedures, the same procedures that make the US airlines the safest in the world, while the rest of the world is, I don’t quite want to use the word panicking, but at least giving into pressure from people who aren’t aviation safety expert…

> the US airlines the safest in the world Where do you people _get_ these ideas?!

It's partially true: Qantas held the accolade of AirlineRatings' world safest airline from 2014 to 2017, but took joint honors in 2018 when the website chose not to rank its top 20. For 2019, Qantas is singled out as the best, while the remaining 19 safest airlines haven't been ordered and are instead listed alphabetically. The top 20 are: Air New Zealand, Alaska Airlines, All Nippon Airways, American Airlines, Austrian Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, Emirates, EVA Air, Finnair, Hawaiian Airlines, KLM, Lufthansa, Qantas, Qatar Airways, Scandinavian Airline System, Singapore Airlines, Swiss, and United Airlines and Virgin group of airlines (Atlantic and Australia). Source: https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/worlds-safest-airline...

Re: Canada grounds Boeing 737 Max 8

#134

Post by jsharf »

mikeash wrote: post #95
js2 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the risk of grounding planes is operational inconvenience Is it possible there is a safety risk to grounding the 737 Max that outweighs the risk of allowing it to fly?

Yes, if the alternative is even less safe. This is important when the alternative might be driving, as driving is orders of magnitude more dangerous. Safety measures that annoy people too much can end up with a net loss of life because of this. If there are other airliners that can be put into service to take up the slack, though, they’re very unlikely to be more dangerous.

By the way, the difference between the safety factors of driving and flying are not quite so straightforward. This is one of my favorite charts, which shows that per-mile, flying is safer, but per-journey, driving is safer (which makes some sense, since flying journeys are much longer, but 80% of accidents happen in the 5 minutes during takeoff/landing, so really in some sense, takeoff and landing are more dangerous than driving to work).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Transport_comp...

Also, note the final entry in that table: Space Shuttle. Per-kilometer, it's hardly that much more dangerous than driving. But per Journey....

Re: Canada grounds Boeing 737 Max 8

#135

Post by dsfyu404ed »

js2 wrote: post #68
Someone1234 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- We have a preliminary report from Lion Air, including a Emergency Airworthiness Directive and a Airworthiness Directive suggesting MCAS (w/faulty single AOA sensor) was closely tied to the accident. - The Lion Air flight had a certain aerial profile before the crash (a wave, as MCAS fought the pilots). - The Ethiopian Airlines aircraft has the same tell tale aerial profile It would be better to have the black box d…

At least according to Southwest’s pilots union SWA has seen no MCAS issues in its fleet (edit: this may not be correct - see reply from antsar) and its pilots are prepared to handle any MCAS issue were it to occur.[1] I think a worse scenario is if the Ethiopian flight crashed due to some other not yet known issue specific to the Max. [1] https://swaparesources.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets/pdf...

Why is this down-voted? Your first statement is a statement of fact with a citation.

Your second statement is a perfectly reasonable opinion (in what universe is a second distinct crash causing defect not worse?).

It seems like anyone who dares say something that isn't proclaiming enthusiastic, blind and unquestioning support for the "ground them all this nanosecond, this problem is unambiguously MCAS related" line of reasoning is getting down-voted in every comment thread covering this topic. Personally I agree with that line of thinking but the Reddit-like "bury everyone who doesn't think what I think" behavior is off putting.

Re: Canada grounds Boeing 737 Max 8

#136

Post by tapland »

js2 wrote: post #118
tapland wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That link does not support your statement. There are countries with the same safety record and with a higher percentage of their airlines ranking higher in safety than US airlines. Lumping the US versus 'the rest of the world' together does not compare single countries against each other. The US is safe for air travel, but that does not show that it is the safest.

My link may not be correct but it does say: the U.S. continues to have the lowest accident and fatality rates of any aviation market in the world The primary reason is likely due to training requirements: https://philip.greenspun.com/flying/foreign-airline-safety Those requirements are due to US regulations.

Wouldn't something like this suggest that Europe and North Asia was safer in the period leading up to that forbes article?

https://www.iata.org/pressroom/pr/Pages/2018-02-22-01.aspx

And that greenspun article from 2009 is just special.

Re: Canada grounds Boeing 737 Max 8

#137

Post by jacquesm »

notJim wrote: post #117
js2 wrote: post #20

Having read many commments on HN and elsewhere since the crash, I know I’m in the minority here when I say this but to me it seems like the US airlines and FAA are following their procedures, the same procedures that make the US airlines the safest in the world, while the rest of the world is, I don’t quite want to use the word panicking, but at least giving into pressure from people who aren’t aviation safety expert…

It's kind of ironic that this story is on front page at the same time as the one about internet mobs shutting down researchers. It really feels like internet mobs are succeeding in pressuring regulatory bodies to ground the airplane, even though those bodies have determined by their normal evaluation criteria that it's not necessary to do so.

At this point that is a regulatory 'body', singular.

Re: Canada grounds Boeing 737 Max 8

#138

Post by xbmcuser »

dokein wrote: post #43
js2 wrote: post #20

Having read many commments on HN and elsewhere since the crash, I know I’m in the minority here when I say this but to me it seems like the US airlines and FAA are following their procedures, the same procedures that make the US airlines the safest in the world, while the rest of the world is, I don’t quite want to use the word panicking, but at least giving into pressure from people who aren’t aviation safety expert…

The level of certainty required for an action changes depending on the downside risk of action vs inaction. For example, if I am 20% certain that you have a pulmonary embolism, the correct action is to start treatment immediately; the risks of treatment are low relative the harm of waiting for further testing. The FAA and NTSB are rightly very conservative and cautious with respect to approving new designs, since the…

Who will be responsible for a crash FAA Boeing or the airline. Even if FAA doesn't ground them airlines might start doing it themselves although these are the same airlines that manhandle overbooked passengers out the plane so cant be sure they would.

Re: Canada grounds Boeing 737 Max 8

#139

Post by NathanKP »

mikeash wrote: post #113
peteretep wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the US airlines the safest in the world Where do you people _get_ these ideas?!

Maybe from the fact that the last fatality in a US airline crash was over ten years ago?

Unfortunately I think Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 in 2018 counts as resetting that streak. It wasn't a crash but it did result in a death. I think your point still stands though. Very few of the incidents on this list are US airlines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incident...
Post reply on HN