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

Boeing's Crashes Expose Systemic Failings

spiegel.de

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 138 posts

Re: Boeing's Crashes Expose Systemic Failings

#61

Post by bronson »

matz1 wrote: post #51
simion314 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO yes, but even if US pilots are in average 10x better there still was a chance that you would fly with a 1x pilot and because he would have followed the checklist and crash the plane. Do you have facts that say that the probability of this happening in US was 0 ?

I don't think anyone insinuating that the probability of this happening in US was 0 but the fact remain that the number of crash so far is 0.

The fact is, Greece also has 0 crashes. Your statement doesn't make any sense.

What is different about the US? (Other than we had fewer MAX-8 deliveries than the rest of the world)

Re: Boeing's Crashes Expose Systemic Failings

#62

Post by magduf »

samstave wrote: post #59
CivBase wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If those are teething issues, I'm scared to find out what you'd consider to be a serious problem.

> ...a serious problem Well the plane literally overriding the pilots physical commands of the controls and crashing into the ground killing ~300 people, IMHO is a “serious problem” https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM

I didn't look at your link, but if you're talking about the 737MAX, the OP isn't talking about that, he's talking about the 787. AFAIK, the "teething issues" the 787 had were about some batteries catching fire.

Re: Boeing's Crashes Expose Systemic Failings

#63

Post by simion314 »

matz1 wrote: post #51
simion314 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO yes, but even if US pilots are in average 10x better there still was a chance that you would fly with a 1x pilot and because he would have followed the checklist and crash the plane. Do you have facts that say that the probability of this happening in US was 0 ?

I don't think anyone insinuating that the probability of this happening in US was 0 but the fact remain that the number of crash so far is 0.

Do you even studied statistics?

There was no crashes in Canada or X country , what conclusion can you make from this?

Re: Boeing's Crashes Expose Systemic Failings

#64

Post by bronson »

FabHK wrote: post #15
msbarnett wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 737 series, including the MAX, has mechanical linkages to the control surfaces. Boeing’s recommendation for dealing with a runaway MCAS scenario, in fact, was to cut power to the stabilizer trim motors at just the right moment in a short window of opportunity between cycles of it running, and then have the pilot manually crank the trim by hand turning a wheel that pulls a cable. With excessive speed, or too much…

Yes. Truly terrible. And, possibly the pilots could turn the wheel if both collaborated on it - but then, who pulls back the control column to keep the elevator up? Terrible terrible situation.

And how long can you hold it at max effort?

Should MAX-8 training include a physical fitness component?

Re: Boeing's Crashes Expose Systemic Failings

#65

Post by aaronbrethorst »

pjmorris wrote: post #50
the_duke wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also wanted to mention this after reading the paragraph, but it is a pretty unimportant side note in the article. The framing here is obviously from a lawyers perspective. A lawyer that has been very successful at extracting money from companies. Making the issue appear simple and traceable to a single problem seems like a great way to convince a jury.

> Making the issue appear simple and traceable to a single problem seems like a great way to convince a jury. Or, an electorate. Maybe oversimplification is the path to popularity.

Telling a good story. Sometimes that means oversimplifying.

Re: Boeing's Crashes Expose Systemic Failings

#66

Post by matz1 »

bronson wrote: post #61
matz1 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone insinuating that the probability of this happening in US was 0 but the fact remain that the number of crash so far is 0.

The fact is, Greece also has 0 crashes. Your statement doesn't make any sense. What is different about the US? (Other than we had fewer MAX-8 deliveries than the rest of the world)

Which of my statement doesn't make any sense ?

>What is different about the US?

Thats the question that I asked.

Re: Boeing's Crashes Expose Systemic Failings

#67

Post by klingonopera »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #37
FabHK wrote: post #9

> What's more, over the course of his 55 years in the profession, he [lawyer Marc Moller] [has] learned that every plane crash can be traced back to a single, simple cause. I don't know, that strikes me as nonsense. It's precisely the interplay of many factors that lead to an accident - and if any one of them had been different, the outcome might have been different. See Reason's "swiss cheese" model of accidents - a…

Forgive me a great deal of cynicism here. I suspect that a more accurate statement is "he learned that it works well for him to argue that every plane crash can be traced back to a single, simple cause." We don't ask lawyers to do surgery. We don't ask them to design bridges. And we don't ask them to do root cause analysis. We leave all of those things to those who actually know what they're doing in those areas.

We don't ask lawyers to do surgery

No, but when they're in a court debating about e.g. doctor's negligence, we do expect them to have a rudimentary understanding of what's going on.

Re: Boeing's Crashes Expose Systemic Failings

#68

Post by iamtheworstdev »

simion314 wrote: post #35
privateSFacct wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. We have an drug problem that kills 40,000+/year from overdoses. Over a million people die driving in the world PER YEAR. A small bit of perspective. Plane flying used to be much MORE dangerous before the "corrupt" FAA got involved with the airplane companies to regulate things more closely. The 737 MAX has had no US passenger fatalities flying with US licensed pilots. The record of safety in aviation in the last…

Any reason you think that this crashes would not have ever happened in US? Before the first crash the pilots did not even known abut MCAS existence so I am not sure why you think that US pilots are extraordinary, I assume that not all MAX pilots are ex fighter pilots with super skills and whatever you imagine that makes ALL US pilots superior to the rest of the world.

In all seriousness, i believe the reason why many think the crashes would not have happened in the US is because Southwest and others all ordered the planes with redundant sensors (in the area where it pertains to these crashes) whereas many overseas airlines did not.

Re: Boeing's Crashes Expose Systemic Failings

#69

Post by cmpolis »

FabHK wrote: post #9

> What's more, over the course of his 55 years in the profession, he [lawyer Marc Moller] [has] learned that every plane crash can be traced back to a single, simple cause. I don't know, that strikes me as nonsense. It's precisely the interplay of many factors that lead to an accident - and if any one of them had been different, the outcome might have been different. See Reason's "swiss cheese" model of accidents - a…

The quote from Marc Moller seems counter to what I have seen as the prevailing thought regarding aviation accidents, which is: accidents are the result of a "chain" of failures; if any link in the chain does not occur the accident can be avoided. It is easy to say "software bug" or some single thing caused this failure, but there are many other factors that need to be considered: a/c certification requirements, training requirements (sim time, transitioning to new variants of an a/c), design philosophy for the Max, etc...

(Not an expert, but private pilot, have read many NTSB accident reports).

Re: Boeing's Crashes Expose Systemic Failings

#70

Post by karmelapple »

FabHK wrote: post #9

> What's more, over the course of his 55 years in the profession, he [lawyer Marc Moller] [has] learned that every plane crash can be traced back to a single, simple cause. I don't know, that strikes me as nonsense. It's precisely the interplay of many factors that lead to an accident - and if any one of them had been different, the outcome might have been different. See Reason's "swiss cheese" model of accidents - a…

In the world of avionics, the concept of a “single point failure” is widely known and greatly focused on eliminating.

The failures that take down aircraft will likely involve multiple things going wrong, because the engineers (mechanical, aeronautical, system, software, etc) work hard to ensure a single thing going awry won’t down a plane.

Post reply on HN