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The Crash of United Flight 232 (2017)

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Re: The Crash of United Flight 232 (2017)

#31

Post by pdonis »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #15
jonas21 wrote: post #10

With all the attention given to the 737 MAX lately, it's easy to forget that airline travel is dramatically safer today than it was just 30 years ago when this incident took place. Fatalities per revenue passenger-mile have decreased by a factor of 15x from 1989 to 2018 (and 54x from 1970 to 2018) [1]. [1] https://theblogbyjavier.com/2019/01/02/aviation-safety-evolu...

That plane crashed because of an unpredictable freak event. The Max planes crashed because of budgets and sidestepping a poorly run regulatory body. I’m sorry, but when capitalism starts crashing planes, I tend to forget about “advances we’ve made.”

> That plane crashed because of an unpredictable freak event.

No, it crashed because of a predictable event that a number of engineers had already warned could happen, based on an obvious design flaw that was not fixed.

Re: The Crash of United Flight 232 (2017)

#32

Post by pdonis »

davidf18 wrote: post #17

"When the plane pancaked onto the runway, more than 10,000 pounds of kerosene came out all at once from the ruptured right wing and turned to mist." I wonder why they didn't "dump the fuel" just before the crash to have avoided the fire. I thought this was standard operating procedure to dump fuel before crash landings. I had read about the crash awhile ago and as I recall many people that died died of smoke inhalati…

Dumping fuel requires good control of the aircraft, which they didn't have. Plus it would have added more workload to a flight crew already overloaded. On balance trying to do it might have led to missing the landing altogether and everybody aboard being killed.

Re: The Crash of United Flight 232 (2017)

#33

Post by keitmo »

pdonis wrote: post #31
dclowd9901 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That plane crashed because of an unpredictable freak event. The Max planes crashed because of budgets and sidestepping a poorly run regulatory body. I’m sorry, but when capitalism starts crashing planes, I tend to forget about “advances we’ve made.”

> That plane crashed because of an unpredictable freak event. No, it crashed because of a predictable event that a number of engineers had already warned could happen, based on an obvious design flaw that was not fixed.

Yes, exactly.

I attended a presentation by Captain Haynes back in the early 90's. He showed several photos of the DC-10's hydraulic system. In many places the triple-redundant hydraulic lines were parallel and in close proximity to each other, close enough to be taken out by a single piece of shrapnel from an uncontained engine failure.

Re: The Crash of United Flight 232 (2017)

#34

Post by matt-attack »

One thing I never understood as a kid, was why wasn't there better footage of a crash. Many people at the airport knew the plane was coming in, and they had plenty of time. Yes this wasn't 2019 where everyone has a camera in their pocket, but nonetheless I always thought the could have done better than the crazy shot through the chain-link fence.

Re: The Crash of United Flight 232 (2017)

#35

Post by steelframe »

matt-attack wrote: post #34

One thing I never understood as a kid, was why wasn't there better footage of a crash. Many people at the airport knew the plane was coming in, and they had plenty of time. Yes this wasn't 2019 where everyone has a camera in their pocket, but nonetheless I always thought the could have done better than the crazy shot through the chain-link fence.

It seems to me the reason is simply that it wasn't anyone's job to make sure there was really great footage of the crash. Everyone was too busy preparing to respond to an imminent disaster in which nearly 300 lives were, in all probability, about to be lost.

"Hey Bob, you have that VHS recorder stowed away somewhere in the locker room, don't you? This guy on something called a website 30 years in the future is going to really wish that we got great footage of a horrible crash in which dozens of people die. Why don't you run out a little closer to the airstrip where a nearly completely out-of-control airplane flying at an insane speed is about to slam into the ground? Future spectators will really appreciate it."

Re: The Crash of United Flight 232 (2017)

#36

Post by matt-attack »

steelframe wrote: post #35
matt-attack wrote: post #34

One thing I never understood as a kid, was why wasn't there better footage of a crash. Many people at the airport knew the plane was coming in, and they had plenty of time. Yes this wasn't 2019 where everyone has a camera in their pocket, but nonetheless I always thought the could have done better than the crazy shot through the chain-link fence.

It seems to me the reason is simply that it wasn't anyone's job to make sure there was really great footage of the crash. Everyone was too busy preparing to respond to an imminent disaster in which nearly 300 lives were, in all probability, about to be lost. "Hey Bob, you have that VHS recorder stowed away somewhere in the locker room, don't you? This guy on something called a website 30 years in the future is going…

I'd image it would have provided more than just lulz. It'd think a video like that would be of enormous engineering value in crash-dynamics.

Re: The Crash of United Flight 232 (2017)

#37

Post by PhasmaFelis »

It was a grim situation, but I don't think the end of the article does justice to the fact that nearly two-thirds of the passengers survived what by all rights should have been completely unsurvivable, thanks to the sterling performance of the flight crew and the flight instructor, as well as the flight attendants for keeping everyone calm and prepared, and the control tower personnel for getting a prodigious amount of local firefighters and EMTs on the scene before the plane arrived.

It was, as Wikipedia dryly puts it, "a prime example of successful crew resource management," and had a big influence on training practices as airlines sought to replicate that professionalism.

United Flight 232 was an engineering disaster, but a piloting miracle.

Re: The Crash of United Flight 232 (2017)

#38

Post by ekianjo »

jacquesm wrote: post #14
jonas21 wrote: post #10

With all the attention given to the 737 MAX lately, it's easy to forget that airline travel is dramatically safer today than it was just 30 years ago when this incident took place. Fatalities per revenue passenger-mile have decreased by a factor of 15x from 1989 to 2018 (and 54x from 1970 to 2018) [1]. [1] https://theblogbyjavier.com/2019/01/02/aviation-safety-evolu...

Now assume Boeing and the FAA did their jobs and re-calculate.

So things get better over time but instead of recognizing the advances made, you take the point of view that nothing is good enough because it could have been better?

Re: The Crash of United Flight 232 (2017)

#39

Post by PhasmaFelis »

joncrane wrote: post #20

I notice that the flight instructor disobeys the captain, who says to says to remove power from the engines, and does the opposite right as they're touching down. Was there ever any thought as to whether that contributed to the loss of life?

My impression is that they might have had a better result if he'd obeyed orders, or they might have pancaked into the ground at an even greater velocity and killed everyone.

Maybe a simulation could figure out, after the fact, which one it would have been. But it's a moot point, because there was no way either the captain or the flight instructor could have known for sure. Each man did what he guessed was best in the heat of a impossible, unprepared-for situation, and they managed to save nearly two-thirds of the passengers. IIRC, The investigation praised them all and exonerated them completely, which the FAA doesn't do lightly.

Re: The Crash of United Flight 232 (2017)

#40

Post by ekianjo »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #15
jonas21 wrote: post #10

With all the attention given to the 737 MAX lately, it's easy to forget that airline travel is dramatically safer today than it was just 30 years ago when this incident took place. Fatalities per revenue passenger-mile have decreased by a factor of 15x from 1989 to 2018 (and 54x from 1970 to 2018) [1]. [1] https://theblogbyjavier.com/2019/01/02/aviation-safety-evolu...

That plane crashed because of an unpredictable freak event. The Max planes crashed because of budgets and sidestepping a poorly run regulatory body. I’m sorry, but when capitalism starts crashing planes, I tend to forget about “advances we’ve made.”

Funny you point to "capitalism" where everything in your statement points to cutting corners which has nothing to do with capitalism per se. We would not even have planes that cost hundreds of millions if we did not have a system for investments.
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