That and the fact that to be legal to fly in the US (possibly elsewhere) as of 2018, they'll need an expensive fuel tank inerting system retrofitted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inerting_system
Have been talked about for many years, but became a formal rule only recently.
https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/aviation-internation...
To answer your question, no, the 747 is not "safe". No aircraft ever made is "safe". They will all crash and kill people given sufficient flight hours. The question is what we consider acceptable risk, those standards change over time as technology improves, and as regulators phase out older models by sunsetting certain exceptions.
As that's done older aircraft either need to be retrofitted, or sold to jurisdictions with laxer rules.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_800
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inerting_system#Aircraft
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747_hull_losses#1970s
I'd argue that modern aircraft are safe especially after you factor in how many hours these things fly compared to the number of deaths. Of course, air travel has become significantly safer over time. Check out the early history of 727 hull losses. While the 747 had a number of poor designs (especially early on), the deadliest 747 wrecks were due to pilot error (e.g. Tenerife).
book: https://www.amazon.com/TWA-800-Crash-Cover-Up-Conspiracy/dp/...
movie: https://flight800doc.com
I think you mean C-SPAN. Unless the more nefarious of the Perl hackers have been working overtime. :)
No aircraft ever made is "safe". They will all crash and
kill people given sufficient flight hours. The question
is what we consider acceptable risk,
When the other poster asked if 747s were "safe," do you really think they meant to ask if 747s were literally indestructible? Or do you think the other poster meant "safe" as in "safe, compared to other aircraft, which are things that any reasonable human being understands can have accidents from time to time?" I really believe it was the latter.
This isn't how e.g. trains, buses and even taxis are regulated. E.g. I believe in most of the western world you could still operate an antique car without seat belts as a taxi.
This is how I read the GPs comment of "I take it 747s have been safe up til now". The only way the bus/train/taxi in my example would lose its license is if it could be shown if the vehicle didn't adhere to the safety standards at the time, whereas the same isn't true for airplanes at all due to how the FAA & EASA regulate them.