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The Crash of United Flight 232 (2017)

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Re: The Crash of United Flight 232 (2017)

#41

Post by libria »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #16
js2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Between the four pilots they had nearly 90,000 hours of flight time. Haynes had 30,000, of which ~7,200 where on type. Records had 20,000, Dvorak 15,000 and Fitch had 23,000. Fitch had amazingly practiced flying in a simulator with throttles-only after hearing about JAL 123. If any crew was going to land this plane, it was this one.

Amazing how that turns out. Like when Sulley had to ditch that flight into the Hudson, and just so happened to be an instructor of water landings. What are the odds?

Could be some survivor bias here. One 747 Max happened to have a jumpseat pilot who knew how to fix the MCAS issue and the plane flew on without issue and thus without much media coverage. [1]

Presumably, 2 other 747 Max's didn't have enough SME's on board to save them and crashed.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2019/03/jump-seat-pilot-an...

Re: The Crash of United Flight 232 (2017)

#42

Post by jacquesm »

ekianjo wrote: post #38
jacquesm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Is today national strawmen day or did I miss a memo or something?

Re: The Crash of United Flight 232 (2017)

#43

Post by ineedasername »

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...

Commercial airline travel, yes. Fatality rates from personal and private aircraft rival automobiles.

Re: The Crash of United Flight 232 (2017)

#44

Post by ineedasername »

ekianjo wrote: post #40
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.”

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.

If you replace "capitalism" with "competition for low prices" then I think the comment is a little less inflammatory while still making a similar point. The fact that a capitalistic system is what gives rise to macro economics that facilitate building planes like this doesn't mean it's perfect and can't be improved upon, say with regulation that doesn't outsource the checks to the company making the planes. Capitalism is fantastic, but the extremes it gives rise to can be checked by assiduous oversight. I'm not saying the government is a paragon of efficiency here, but it's better than nothing, and with some reform could be much better.

Re: The Crash of United Flight 232 (2017)

#45

Post by yostrovs »

ineedasername wrote: post #44
ekianjo wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you replace "capitalism" with "competition for low prices" then I think the comment is a little less inflammatory while still making a similar point. The fact that a capitalistic system is what gives rise to macro economics that facilitate building planes like this doesn't mean it's perfect and can't be improved upon, say with regulation that doesn't outsource the checks to the company making the planes. Capitalis…

Can you point to safer commercial airplanes built by non-capitalist enterprises?

Re: The Crash of United Flight 232 (2017)

#46

Post by roelschroeven »

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…

Good question. Maybe they were too busy flying the airplane and could divert attention to dumping the fuel? Or maybe they need hydraulics to dump the fuel?

Re: The Crash of United Flight 232 (2017)

#47

Post by roelschroeven »

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…

Apparently they did dump some of the fuel: "While dumping some of the excess fuel, ..." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232#Cra...)

Possibly the pilots were reluctant to dump too much fuel, since the two remaining engines were their only method of steering the plane. A lack of fuel was the last thing they needed.

Re: The Crash of United Flight 232 (2017)

#48

Post by rconti »

roelschroeven wrote: post #47
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…

Apparently they did dump some of the fuel: "While dumping some of the excess fuel, ..." ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232#Cra... ) Possibly the pilots were reluctant to dump too much fuel, since the two remaining engines were their only method of steering the plane. A lack of fuel was the last thing they needed.

Interesting. Or perhaps it would create more balance issues. Regardless, it sounds like it was considered by someone with more experience flying airliners than myself.

Re: The Crash of United Flight 232 (2017)

#49

Post by mlyle »

js2 wrote: post #3

Al Haynes passed away last week: https://www.npr.org/2019/08/26/754458583/al-haynes-pilot-fro... This talk by him is well worth reading: http://clear-prop.org/aviation/haynes.html (The talk used to be available on YouTube, but was removed sometime in the last year by copyright claim. I can't find an alternate source for it. The video was at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZYHMMMeHic ) Denny Fitch passed away in 2012…

It's such an inspirational story to read about, even though a lot of people died.

This was one of the strongest proof points that crew resource management really worked. It was the final nail in the coffin for forces that resisted or only reluctantly adopted CRM. It's clear that it took a whole lot of teamwork to get that plane down.

Aviation is much safer than it was in the 80's, and the lessons learned from relative successes like the Sioux City crash can be thanked for it.

Re: The Crash of United Flight 232 (2017)

#50

Post by BostonEnginerd »

js2 wrote: post #3

Al Haynes passed away last week: https://www.npr.org/2019/08/26/754458583/al-haynes-pilot-fro... This talk by him is well worth reading: http://clear-prop.org/aviation/haynes.html (The talk used to be available on YouTube, but was removed sometime in the last year by copyright claim. I can't find an alternate source for it. The video was at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZYHMMMeHic ) Denny Fitch passed away in 2012…

It's a real shame the talk was taken down. I really enjoyed watching that lecture a few years ago.
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