American Airlines Is Quietly Bringing Back the 737Max • Hacker News Board

Re: American Airlines Is Quietly Bringing Back the 737Max

#141

Post by throwaway373438 » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 6:57 PM UTC

alavesto wrote: post #124

jonas21 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean the same regulatory organizations that have reduced the US airline fatality rate by 50x over the last 50 years to the point where it's now over 100x safer per mile to fly than to drive? I mean the FAA certainly has some flaws, but it's important to keep things in perspective.

I think the passenger miles statistic is baloney (calculated by multiplying the number of passengers by the number of miles travelled), and I'm a bit sick of seeing it trumpeted everywhere to claim flying is vastly safer than driving. The collective risk of everyone on board the plane is meaningless to calculating risk to your personal safety. At least for me, the fatality rate per journey, per hour of travel, or at…

Why would you care about per-journey statistics? Surely all that's demonstrating is that cars are often used for very brief, non-highway travel.

When the question is of how to travel between cities or states, why do you find the relative safety of low speed non-highway driving to be relevant?

Re: American Airlines Is Quietly Bringing Back the 737Max

#142

Post by js2 » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 6:57 PM UTC

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #130

knaq wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sure looks defective to me: It was controlled more by pressure than movement, using joysticks instead of the traditional huge yoke. When one person was screwing up, the other could not observe this. On a Boeing, each person would feel the other person's force because the controls are physically linked. The stall warning was designed for mild stalls, not severe stalls, and would turn off if the stall was really bad…

Notice how 5/6 reasons the accident report contains are "crew screwed up"

That's a "you're holding it wrong" argument. There are always human factors, no matter how well trained. So while the errors these pilots made shouldn't have happened if they were better trained, at least one of the errors, fighting over who was controlling the plane w/o realizing it, is impossible in a Boeing cockpit.

Re: American Airlines Is Quietly Bringing Back the 737Max

#143

Post by bruceb » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 6:58 PM UTC

LatteLazy wrote: post #89

bruceb wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before very few. I absolutely would now. I bet more than a few traders looking for an edge are trying to find someone who works at Kayak to tell them how many more clicks there are in “see full flight details” before purchasing a flight there are now.

Thats great. But then when you get to the gate and there is a 737Max sat there waiting for you, do you board? Or do you accept that you won't get a refund and now need to buy another flight and just hope there is one today for an affordable price with a seat not on a 737Max?

except at least initial the airlines will probably accommodate the people who don't want to get on the plane because it is a Max. Better a little problem of rebooking, than social media posts that will remind people hey they are forcing you on a death trap.

Whether it is or not, best not bring attention to the fact you might be flying on a Max.

Re: American Airlines Is Quietly Bringing Back the 737Max

#144

Post by ricaud » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 6:59 PM UTC

bilbo0s wrote: post #136

ethbr0 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it's Boeing, I ain't going You're not going to fly one of the statistically safest [0] planes on the planet in the 737-6/7/8/900? [0] http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/rate_mod.htm

The 737 8 is what they are rebranding the MAX as, I'm not certain I would call it the "statistically safest plane on the planet".

Ethbr0 is most likely referring to the 737-800, not the rebranded 737-8

Re: American Airlines Is Quietly Bringing Back the 737Max

#145

Post by ponker » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 7:06 PM UTC

tuna-piano wrote: post #12

737Max is certainly tainted now. But will that last forever? And do non-HN-aviation-geek consumers really care enough to check the model of the plane they'll be flying on, let alone make a flight decision based on the model? Certainly another crash could be devastating to the model. But was the 737Max a poorly designed death trap rushed to production or a super safe airplane with a single fatal flaw? Time will tell..…

Not an aviation geek. You'd be surprised how nitpicky people will get when it comes to their family's safety. Between when the MAX problems came out and the fleet was grounded, I cancelled my family's vacation at substantial cost and inconvenience because the airline had 737Maxes in the fleet and I saw that my flight had been flown by Maxes previously.

Re: American Airlines Is Quietly Bringing Back the 737Max

#146

Post by ProAm » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 7:14 PM UTC

js2 wrote: post #35

deeblering4 wrote: post #23

I’m at a point where I just opt for carriers with Airbus fleets. I do not trust modern day American corporations nor the oversight bodies. There are too many financial incentives to cut corners.

For years after AF447 I was nervous flying airbus. In reality, it's extremely unlikely that you'll die flying. (I'd be nervous flying a Max too, but it's not rational.)

> it's extremely unlikely that you'll die flying

It's usually the not-flying that kills you

Re: American Airlines Is Quietly Bringing Back the 737Max

#147

Post by fakedang » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 7:22 PM UTC

tachyonbeam wrote: post #49

wussboy wrote: post #6

This article was a seemingly randomly assembled collection of sentences and paragraphs, vaguely related to the plane and other travel inconveniences.

Was the article pounded together by an overworked, exhausted and underpaid reporter, or put together by some kind of summarization/content generation algorithm? That is the question.

Likely by the Author who's clearly inexperienced in journalism.

Re: American Airlines Is Quietly Bringing Back the 737Max

#148

Post by tboyd47 » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 7:23 PM UTC

ajarmst wrote: post #110

tboyd47 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not naïve to the depths of depravity the human soul can fall to, nor am I blind to moral subtleties in life. I'm just a consumer making decisions on behalf of myself and my family, and exercising what little power I have. "We have a process" is little reassurance when every step of said process failed. I have a process, too. When I feel safe, I board an airplane. When I don't feel safe, I don't board it and deman…

You absolutely have the right to not board an aircraft if you don't feel safe, and should exercise it. Laurence Gonzales has a story about declining to fly on a DC-10, which saved his life. But even he admits that that decision wasn't rational: you can't judge a decision by what you know after the fact. Even at its worst, a flight on a DC-10 was much safer than his morning commute. You'll have less luck getting a ref…

I admitted no such thing. But thanks for the debate.

Re: American Airlines Is Quietly Bringing Back the 737Max

#149

Post by LatteLazy » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 7:24 PM UTC

bruceb wrote: post #143

LatteLazy wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats great. But then when you get to the gate and there is a 737Max sat there waiting for you, do you board? Or do you accept that you won't get a refund and now need to buy another flight and just hope there is one today for an affordable price with a seat not on a 737Max?

except at least initial the airlines will probably accommodate the people who don't want to get on the plane because it is a Max. Better a little problem of rebooking, than social media posts that will remind people hey they are forcing you on a death trap. Whether it is or not, best not bring attention to the fact you might be flying on a Max.

That's fine as long as there is a flight between the same 2 destinations with the same airline in a few hours that doesn't use a 737max.

If not then what?

I can see the 737 being pushed to infrequent routes with minimal competition. If you want to fly from Fairbanks to Springfield, it's the 737 or nothing and you either fly now or wait 4 days for the next flight (or pay 8000usd for a 19h, 4 leg super combo...).

Re: American Airlines Is Quietly Bringing Back the 737Max

#150

Post by ssivark » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 7:36 PM UTC

ajarmst wrote: post #99

tboyd47 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me remind you of why we're all still talking about Boeing. Not once, but TWICE, software taking readings from faulty sensors caused the airplane to nosedive into the ground, killing every single person on board, with the pilots powerless to take over. It happened once, Boeing and the U.S. government reassured everyone that it wasn't going to happen again, then it happened again. When nations around the world bega…

If your interest is understanding what happened and how it could have been prevented, you would do far better to read the accident reports, in their entirety, carefully. A half dozen cherry-picked and context-free lines from a store of thousands of emails and other documentation are useful for getting clicks and stoking reader emotions to drive social media reposts but are typically less dispositive in failure analys…

> Do you honestly think that there was anyone at Boeing that thought, "well, this aircraft is definitely unsafe and is going to kill a bunch of people, which will likely destroy this company and greatly damage the entire industry I've spent my whole career on, and that I and everyone I care for will regularly board and fly in, but hell, my stock options are due, so what the fuck, I think I'll organize a conspiracy to commit mass murder"? These were human and systemic failures that, like most human failures, were perhaps not innocent but understandable. Of course, there were warnings. There always are. The problem is that the real warnings are easy to pick out of the noise after the fact.

No, that would indicate thoughtfulness & deliberation. Everything that seems to have emerged indicates recklessness and a lack of commitment (at the company level) to sound engineering processes, bordering willful disregard.