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Thanks in advance
Are you less safe on a 737 MAX than driving to the airport in a car? Genuinely curious, I’m trying to understand if this whole saga is statistically significant.
I've heard a lot of people say this in these comment threads, and I think this glosses over the actual issue: safety is getting worse, not better or even staying the same. So it's MORE statistically significant than it was. The trend is heading the wrong way. Air safety going down is a trend you want to stop ASAP. Not wait around until it's just as dangerous as something else like driving your car.
A subthread about the actual personal risk when flying the MAX is perfectly valid.
A lot of people don't realize that the fuselage of this plane isn't even made by Boeing, it's made by Spirit AeroSystems which also makes components for Airbus. We don't really know who to blame here until the investigation concludes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The first worry as an American is having a pillar of your country's economy managed by incompetents.
Sounds a lot like "yeah sure, fear over 737 Max is overblown, but the fact that I was thinking about it in the first place says something about the current state of affairs". https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/aaaah
Incompetence is understandable, improperly modeling the physics due to lack of experience or knowledge is understandable, but repeated instances that point to corruption at the government regulator and bad culture at the manufacturer lend to fears that the situation will get worse for a while before it gets better.
It’s the same reason you might avoid flying on an Eastern European/Russian airplane. The perceived risks move from unforeseeable error or bad luck to systemic error.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38918665 I didn't bother calculating the rate for driving to the airport, but eyeballing the figures for cars, it's probably as about as dangerous if you assume that the 737 Max were 10x more dangerous than average flying. Cars are still more dangerous than planes on a per-mile basis, but at the same time you're also traveling less miles on the car trip compared to the flight…
I'm really not sure you can amortize deaths like that to individuals. Folks are dead or they're not.
For the most reliable info, you can look up your flight number in Flightaware or Flightradar 24 -- those use actual flight plan data, so will take into account any last minute aircraft changes.
I mean, isn't the info on your ticket? Which can be electronically updated when the airline makes a change, right?
Flying an airline that doesn’t operate a specific model is the most (and almost only) reliable way to avoid one.
The fact that this is an actual concern is wild and shows the depth of Boeing's problems.
People are prone to being concerned about a lot of things that aren’t a real risk to them. People aren’t logical.
For the most reliable info, you can look up your flight number in Flightaware or Flightradar 24 -- those use actual flight plan data, so will take into account any last minute aircraft changes.
>those use actual flight plan data, so will take into account any last minute aircraft changes. But at that point it's too late. I doubt people are that afraid of 737 Max that they'll cancel a flight (and forfeit their ticket) over it.
Luckily the airlines I travel with only use Airbus, but if they were using 737 Max, I'd definitely book tickets that I can change at the last minute, and refuse to board if it turns out to be a 737 Max.
Yes, that's probably illogical. And probably much of life is illogical. But I rather have to wait some hours for the next flight than take the risk to die because of Boeing.
Are you less safe on a 737 MAX than driving to the airport in a car? Genuinely curious, I’m trying to understand if this whole saga is statistically significant.
What isn’t significant about Boeing consistently failing in the construction and quality of the 737 MAX? How does comparing it to driving to the airport prove anything? Scratch that, it proves nothing. What are you getting at?
Aviation is safe. An issue happened and appropriate steps have immediately happened and in the end an already incredibly safe industry will be even safer. If a car has an issue we don't blink and we loose nearly 40k people a year in the US alone, but a plane has an issue and we panic. Yes, panic. This is not rational or helpful and is a huge reason why aviation is so antiquated. You want flying cars? Stop panicking a…
No, it's because of greed and managerial and executive rot. They could innovate as much as they want, nearly as fast as they want, and still be safe - as they and other airliners have done in the past! - but then they wouldn't save the "max" amount of money doing it. How dreadful.
Boeing's failures are all Boeing's fault alone. They rightfully deserve the pillorying.
> If a car has an issue we don't blink and we loose nearly 40k people a year in the US alone
That is more of an argument for stricter requirements around automobiles and that entire industry than anything else.