I'm becoming more and more afraid of flying with each passing day. And this fear sometimes hinders my life.
Pilot of Boeing flight says he lost control after instrument failure
101–110 of 302 posts
Re: Pilot of Boeing flight says he lost control after instrument failure
#102Probably some software written in C++ by one of those "I never write bugs" types followed by a hardware watchdog thankfully catching it and rebooting. Maybe its time to rethink software safety and verification there of? Safety in software is a bit of a joke. Document the behavior, its safe! Yeah no.
Where did you gain this insight into how the plane’s software was built?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9476139 but many other possible ad-hoc informative pieces of info are out there from googling around
Re: Pilot of Boeing flight says he lost control after instrument failure
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
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> using parts from scrap bins This is a good micro-example. Scrap bins! Sounds horrible! But is it? Do you know? Or is it just common practice? Is it called a scrap bin in the media to drive a narrative, when really it's just a parts bin like any other? We don't know.
Scrap bins are where you throw parts that fail quality control. If you have no part at all and your management doesn’t allow you to halt production you might install a failed part and pray.
Re: Pilot of Boeing flight says he lost control after instrument failure
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
The whistleblower was found dead in their car of an 'apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound'. Seems extremely unlikely that they would decide to kill themselves after 32 years at Boeing and deciding to blow the whistle. "Barnett, who spent decades working for Boeing at its plants in Everett, Wash., and North Charleston, S.C., had repeatedly alleged that Boeing's manufacturing practices had declined — and that rather…
I can see someone whistle-blowing in good faith, realizing they made a mistake and called out the company for something that it wasn't doing or something that wasn't actually a problem, and killing themselves. I can also see someone whistle-blowing in good faith, getting harassed by ex-coworkers/managers or the court of public opinion, and just getting overwhelmed by the negative attention and feeling bad for the bet…
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Re: Pilot of Boeing flight says he lost control after instrument failure
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem isn't that "accidents happen", the problem is that airplane safety culture isn't meeting people's expectations anymore. Two planes crashing for the exact same preventable reason mere months apart just does not compute. A single crash would've been quickly forgotten. But two crashes and a long chain of incidents all while the planes were allowed to stay in the air is going to change people's perceptions. T…
Totally agree, but the truth is that it is hard to say that the public has lost trust in Boeing when more people than ever are in the air. The peanut gallery is on to something, and Boeing is losing orders, but it doesn't seem to be enough to actually change anything.
"Lost trust" is a complicated matter. I think I have list a great deal of trust in Boeing, and try to avoid 737 max and 787 planes when I fly, but if flights with those planesc are the only reasonable choices, I'll still go. The probability of injury or death is still fantastically low. Maybe my views on that will change over time. We'll see.
The bottom line is that I have places to go, and if my risk tolerance was zero, that would be a very difficult way to live my life.
Re: Pilot of Boeing flight says he lost control after instrument failure
#106Title is misleading, and should be changed to match the original headline. Pilot has not reported that information directly; this is hearsay from a passenger.
Re: Pilot of Boeing flight says he lost control after instrument failure
#107If you watch The Aviation Herald, this kind of reporting feels a little like trying to write news stories off VAERS data. Crazy shit is happening more or less all the time in planes; the idea isn't that nothing ever goes wrong, but that layered controls prevent injuries or hull losses. It's not that there necessarily isn't a thru-line to these stories. And I read "Flying Blind" like everyone else and share the popula…
Sure, let's talk to more pilots of Boeing airplanes....which is what they are doing.
Re: Pilot of Boeing flight says he lost control after instrument failure
#108Re: Pilot of Boeing flight says he lost control after instrument failure
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure how I acquired the "common" knowledge that a plane has never crashed before due to turbulence alone, but this looks like an example of such a case!
I think maybe you've misunderstood what the common knowledge said. Turbulence hasn't ripped an airplane apart at altitude, so yea turbulence alone hasn't caused a crash. But anything near terrain is plenty risky (mountain waves, low-level wind shear). If the turbulence makes you drop a couple of hundred feet that's no big deal at 35,000 feet and no matter how bumpy it gets, the wings aren't going to break off. But if…
> Turbulence hasn't ripped an airplane apart at altitude
It has, not only in this case but also here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLM_CityHopper_Flight_431
And there are many other examples.
I guess it depends by what you mean by "at altitude"? Most of these accidents did happen below 10.000 feet yes. And the mountain wave phenomenon in New Zealand in particular reaches pretty high. Some glider pilots use it to get up really high, so high some of them got frostbitten.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItPnp4pJ_bg There at 19k feet.
But yes at that altitude the phenomenon is probably not strong enough anymore to break up an airliner.
Re: Pilot of Boeing flight says he lost control after instrument failure
#110If you watch The Aviation Herald, this kind of reporting feels a little like trying to write news stories off VAERS data. Crazy shit is happening more or less all the time in planes; the idea isn't that nothing ever goes wrong, but that layered controls prevent injuries or hull losses. It's not that there necessarily isn't a thru-line to these stories. And I read "Flying Blind" like everyone else and share the popula…
This is worthy of reporting. 50+ people were injured, one is in severe condition.
It feels irresponsible to me to report some random thing a layperson passenger said without verifying the information.
The passenger could have misheard or be lying. Even if the pilot did say that, he may have just said that to save face, when it was pilot error all along. Hopefully the FDR data will be made public.