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

Is my plane a 737 MAX?

ismyplanea737max.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 579 posts

Re: Is my plane a 737 MAX?

#321

Post by ghaff »

jessriedel wrote: post #299
dralley wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but as integrator, Boeing is still responsible for ensuring the quality of the final product.

You can also argue that the airline is responsible for operating only quality products

An airline is responsible more for safely operating the aircraft (including most maintenance). An airline really isn't in a position to verify every design detail of an aircraft any more than you're responsible for verifying there are no potential design flaws in your (much simpler) car that could potentially cause someone injury.

Re: Is my plane a 737 MAX?

#322

Post by JumpCrisscross »

flashback2199 wrote: post #281
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you personally drove a new car off the lot and the door fell off you would not believe that quality were unchanged from your prior impression of that car company As a layman, no. Were I looking for more than a Twitter level of analysis, it would be an indication for investigation. Not grounds for conclusion. More directly, even as a layman, if I were to use that anecdote as grounds to condemn the state of car ma…

NTSB are doing that lab work right now in Washington D.C. You seem to not know the meaning of suspect, so here is the definition: Dictionary Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more sus·pect verb 3rd person present: suspects /səˈspek(t)/ 1. have an idea or impression of the existence, presence, or truth of (something) without certain proof. "if you suspect a gas leak, do not turn on an electric light" Have a gr…

> seem to not know the meaning of suspect

Suspicion doesn't mean baseless hypothesis, e.g. "Mars is an orange." The NTSB would never say (and has not said, as you've conceded) it "suspects" the "bolts were never screwed in."

Were there a lack of marks where the bolts should have exerted clamping force, there would be basis for suspicion. That isn't proof. But it's more than a hypothesis.

Re: Is my plane a 737 MAX?

#323

Post by radiator »

jmward01 wrote: post #112
xahrepap wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That is a big statement. Since 2019 there have been 32 fatalities connected to commercial aircraft. Most of those were iv very small aircraft like seaplanes and helicopters. 32 deaths in 4 years compared to ~40k/year in cars. We need to keep things in perspective.

People spend so much more time inside cars than inside airplanes every year, that such a comparison seems disingenuous. You should normalize the deaths by time travelled.

Re: Is my plane a 737 MAX?

#324

Post by stouset »

flashback2199 wrote: post #288
stouset wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re misunderstanding the comments. This was a problem, it needs to be investigated and fixed, but the overreaction to this is bordering on insanity. Commercial aviation in the U.S. is still incomprehensibly safe. It is not getting measurably less safe. The 737 MAX line are not death traps.

> the overreaction to this is bordering on insanity Not an overreaction. Not bolting on a door on a brand new plane is past bordering into full-on insanity.

Mechanics routinely forget to bolt the wheels onto cars, which has caused and continues to cause actual traffic deaths.

Nobody floods into the comment sections on HN when this happens because people dying in cars is depressingly normal but planes are so unimaginably safe that a person hypothetically getting sucked out of a plane is strange and terrifying.

Re: Is my plane a 737 MAX?

#325

Post by vikramkr »

baryphonic wrote: post #302
vikramkr wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cozy relationships between the FAA and manufacturers, executive orders requiring them to 'collaborate' with manufacturers, evidence suggesting retaliation against whistleblowers, etc. there were significant investigations after the the MCAS tragedy. And they lost a lot of credibility as leaders in regulation when they waited to ground the max after the crashes while others took the lead. Edit: Replying to the edit -…

Ah, so regulatory capture? I can see that. It also seems like the ATC system is stretched thin, as well as the airlines themselves in terms of pilots. Though I may be biased since I'm much more aware of ATC problems given the various YouTube channels I watch covering aviation.

Yep that was what I was referring to with shortages and exhaustion - not great with the recent revelations of the near misses. It's a warning that if the work to maintain those safety numbers isn't done we can't expect them to stay the same. Air travel is still safe, and has a lot of headroom before it's as bad as cars. But even that argument is kind of scary to see people making. Going from "even a single failure is unacceptable" to "even with 2 planes falling out of the sky it's still safer than driving" is a shift in mindset that threatens to invalidate that latter argument.

Re: Is my plane a 737 MAX?

#326

Post by shermantanktop »

consumer451 wrote: post #291
kube-system wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't know whether the reason they are failing is due to an installation issue or not.

We don't know for sure, but informed speculation indicates that this is likely the problem. See the replies to my link above. However, you are correct. Until the final NTSB report comes out, we don't know.

This type of delay is of strategic value to the status quo.

"We need to wait until all the facts are in," "investigations take time," "We're still looking at root causes and it is premature to..." These statements may be factually true, but the time it takes allows people to be distracted by something else, passions to cool, and urgency to dissipate.

It's no brainwave for Boeing or anyone else (e.g. the NTSB, on Boeing's behalf) to realize that the slower and more methodical the investigation, the lower the final penalty (of whatever kind) will probably be, at least for one-off incidents. When the track record gets long, the actual quality of the investigations may start weighing against them...eventually.

Re: Is my plane a 737 MAX?

#327

Post by addandsubtract »

JoshTko wrote: post #122
jacksoncheek wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the data source is imperfect. The flight information pulls the "nearest" (live, scheduled or landed) flight that matches that flight number, to give you a sense of the aircraft on that route.

Seems like a fatal flaw in the product where precision is the most important aspect.

Just like the 737 MAX then ;)

Re: Is my plane a 737 MAX?

#328

Post by MRtecno98 »

diggan wrote: post #108
gruez wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

> 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…

It'd be all fine and dandy if you didn't hop in a car after getting off your Airbus

Re: Is my plane a 737 MAX?

#329

Post by nottorp »

baryphonic wrote: post #191
vikramkr wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airlines aren't safe just because. Weakening FAA regulation, critical issues with flight controller shortages/exhaustion, culture changes at Boeing related to safety, etc all threaten to undo that safety record. The system is not working as it should and statistics don't magically maintain themselves at previous levels.

What's the evidence for weakening FAA regulation? EDIT: I'm getting downvoted, but I really am curious. It's extremely uncommon for government bureaucracy to roll back regulations, and as far as I can tell from some Googling, the FAA has not done so. So what regulations are being weakened?

> as far as I can tell from some Googling, the FAA has not done so

That's because Google has become useless, not because the info isn't there.

You should try and find some of the analysis articles close to the MCAS disaster that explain how it's not the FAA that certifies airplanes any more, but the manufacturer basically self certifies.

[Yes, they're FAA employees but paid by Boeing. Do you also believe in Santa Claus?]

Re: Is my plane a 737 MAX?

#330

Post by gruez »

Sirizarry wrote: post #260
bostonsre wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe that it would be interesting to know what the numbers actually are. There is the common saying that you are more likely to get in an accident on the way to the airport than traveling on the plane, but knowing what the likelihood of both of those as well as the likelihood of an accident on a max could show this all to be hysteria or actually well founded.

Take it like this: If you have to ride share and you hear that a common car used by drivers of Uber is having an increased failure rate, not passing inspections and have been temporarily banned from being on the road until more is learned; I think a pretty fair response is to try and avoid entering that car regardless of the ratio of incidents when driving that car, and when biking to the dealership to get it

>I think a pretty fair response is to try and avoid entering that car regardless of the ratio of incidents when driving that car, and when biking to the dealership to get it

"avoid" is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here though. If doing so doesn't cost me anything, then avoiding that car is a non-brainer. However in real life nothing is really costless. Avoiding that car at the very least would cause you to wait longer. If that car is your daily driver, and you don't have a backup, then avoiding that car might cost you hundreds per month. That's why you need to factor in statistics and figure what the absolute risk is, and whether it's worth "avoiding".

Post reply on HN