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Comment by dsfyu404ed | Hacker News Reader

Would you be happier if I called it a knee jerk reaction?

The fact of the matter is that 2 is a pretty bad sample size to draw conclusions from and we don't yet have ANY idea what caused this most recent crash. It's easy to say "just ground them" when it's not going to affect you.

Throwing medium sized wrenches into the global transportation network has very real costs and shouldn't be done lightly. People's lives are disrupted, sometimes catastrophically. The lives lost already are a sunk cost. It comes down to a calculation of risk vs the cost (in human terms, in case that wasn't obvious) of the disruption.

Unfortunately it's impossible to have an adult discussion about that kind of thing on the internet.

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I disagree that it's a knee-jerk reaction, drop of the hat, or whatever you want to name it. We are talking about hundreds of human lives. We are talking about an industry that consistently chooses safety above all else, regardless of profits and minor inconveniences. And for some reason that just doesn't seem to be the case here.

> Unfortunately it's impossible to have an adult discussion about that kind of thing on the internet.

So unless everyone agrees with you it isn't an adult conversation? Entire countries are grounding these planes. The evidence is pretty clear that folks are worried and aren't interesting in risking the loss of a few hundred more lives because a bit of money may be on the line, or there may be a minor travel disruption.

Edit: I see the original poster has since removed the bit about not being able to have an adult conversation on the internet. I quoted and responded to that before it was removed.

> We are talking about an industry that consistently chooses safety above all else, regardless of profits and minor inconveniences. And for some reason that just doesn't seem to be the case here.

Or maybe it is the case here. We all seem to think it's obvious Boeing should ground this plane and yet they aren't. I hope Boeing aren't idiots and are making their decisions based on engineering factors we don't have.

But if they have information that leads them to a completely different conclusion, why aren't they sharing it? I'm having a hard time coming up with a scenario where they have more confident data, but can't share it (or if not what, at least share that they have it).

The idea that at some point the additional cost of trying to save lives is more than the value of the life being saved is incompatible with the beliefs of many people. Yet that reality and trade-offs like that are all around us. For example, OSHA could decide that overhead lifting now requires a safety factor of 15 on everything (IIRC it's 5 but it's been awhile). That would probably save a couple lives because by starting off at 15 you could still have a safety factor >1 with totally clapped out equipment. Would that be worth it? This is the kind of dilemma that gets discussed in the "engineering ethics" course that most of the college graduates here had to take and I'm not going to expand on it because there's plenty of other people who have but the takeaway should be that there exists a point where the return on investment of trying to prevent life lost is negative depending on which externalities you count and how you count them.

Personally I agree with the airlines grounding the aircraft because the air-frame failure rate is too high IMO so clearly something is up with them. I fully disagree with the "every life is precious" + "OMG we have no idea what's going on" sentiment being used to justify that. That's now how you're supposed to make these kind of decisions, especially when the recorders from the second crash are in hand and we will soon have a good idea of the cause.

Based on what we know at present, the first crash would likely have been prevented had the pilots been made aware of the new possible failure mode of MCAS, recognized it and disabled the system, the steps for which are the same they've always been. Any 737 pilot not living under a rock is very aware of that new possible failure mode now. While crashing aircraft and publicity like this might not be as good as retraining it has likely accomplished a similar end so if the cause of these accidents is what we currently think it is then the press it's receiving will go a long way toward solving that albeit at unfortunately high cost.

FWIW I removed that sentence from my comment because I didn't want a self fulfilling prophesy but I've added it back to my comment because it mostly came true. No "I disagree because X" (where X is not an appeal to emotion). Just people mashing the "bury this" button and appeals to emotion. Basically Reddit sans the sarcasm.

You know as well as I that any discussion about trade-offs involving human life (or any other emotional topic) eventually just get drowned out by name calling and general bullshit and an adult discussion isn't really possible.

Your comments imply that the aircraft industry functions in a manner that allows for human life to be calculated as a tradeoff. This shows an ignorance on how aircraft is expected to function and the industry standards for aircraft development and engineering. Given that loss of life of paying clients is the worst-case-scenario of an aircraft it makes total sense for it to be treated with severity, entirely without bringing virtue into the discussion.

> Your comments imply that the aircraft industry functions in a manner that allows for human life to be calculated as a tradeoff.

It's true though, just like in any engineering discipline. If loss of life was 100% unacceptable then the only resolution would be to not fly any aircrafts. The fact that we still use flight technology is a tradeoff in itself.

Unpreventable loss of life may not be 100% unacceptable. But ignoring signs and allowing preventable loss of life is. Not taking action after having reasonable reason to do so is actually criminal negligence [0] in some cases.

> failure to foresee and so allow otherwise avoidable dangers to manifest. In some cases this failure can rise to the level of willful blindness, where the individual intentionally avoids adverting to the reality of a situation.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_negligence

What's reasonable? Some people refuse to fly altogether due to the risks. Are they reasonable? I don't think so, personally, but it's not a black and white issue like you're implying. Every accident is preventable if you just demand less from the underlying technology.

Your comparison is exaggerated. Two crashes of the same model and similar circumstances in less than 5 months, for a model that's under 2 years old and only 350 built in total raises suspicions. It's not a good record. The very fact that the suspicion exists is enough to back up the reasonable claim. Whatever the problem is (design, pilot training, etc.) it's hurting this model and its passengers so it should be investigated without risking more lives. Precautions are always based on suspicions. Otherwise they're no longer a precaution.

With aviation experts, governments, and even airlines (bearing the costs) agreeing with the grounding measure I think I'm not too far off. The list in the article above just gets bigger. The current situation lends a lot of credibility to the idea that the plane might be to blame. Grounding them could be expensive. Not grounding them could be criminal. Which one would you choose if you had to?

Also this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19369485

I agree with you in this particular case. What I was arguing against is the grandparent's claim that the aviation industry doesn't make any tradeoffs involving human life. It is absolutely necessary for them to make such tradeoffs as I was trying to show with my hyperbole.

You're making discussion about 350 lives lost potentially due to design failures into discussion about statistics. Such a cold-hearted approach won't find you much support anywhere.

Clearly most people react very differently to this topic compared to you, even purely for-profit companies start to do so.

There are 350 737-MAXs in service

There's about 6500 737s, and a similar number of A320s.

Grounding 2.5% of the world's fleet of mid-size planes isn't really a medium sized wrench.

Personally I'll fly on the 98% of mid-sized planes that haven't had 2% of them crash in the last 6 months.

It’s a solvable problem in the medium term, but a real mess short-term if your fleet has a high proportion of 737 MAXs.

True, but that’s part of the risk equation of deciding to go for a monoculture in the first place (as with most business choices). There are benefits (ease of maintenance and training highest) that need to be judged against potential problems (like in this case where a model is grounded).

Even in my airline’s case, they’re not monoculture, but I’m booked on one of their longest routes. They can only sub another plane if they make a refuel stop (or so it seems by my estimation).

We’ll see what happens.

Which fleets do? Southwest and American don't, 5% and 2% respectively.

Norwegian is 11% and have grounded their planes. Air Canada 10%. China Southern 3%, Air China 3%.

FlyDubai seems the largest, with 14/62 planes (23%).

> haven't had 2% of them crash in the last 6 months

Wait, 7 (= 2% of 350) planes crashed in the past 6 months?!?

The sample size isn't actually 2... It's 2 crashes in tens of thousands of flights of the 737 across the multiple airlines that use the model.

However, that having been said, the crash rate is now very poor (by modern standards) for this plane model, and 2 is enough to raise some serious questions about mere coincidence.

Boeing's taking a real risk because a third crash of a 737 regardless of cause will be a long-remembered black eye.

The existence of a design flaw does not need any crash data to prove that it exists. It like saying that a software vulnerability needs to be proven by successful hack attempts. The issue exists regardless.

What we don't have data on is the effectiveness of recommendations designed to mitigate the risk. A repeated crash is evidence that the mitigation is not sufficient.

You have a poor understanding of stats if you think 2 is always a small sample size. In the case of theoretically rare events 1 event can be exceedingly significant.

The fact that airlines and governments are doing it anyway kind of says this is the right reaction. It's a precaution and you take it even if you don't have the full picture yet.

> People's lives are disrupted, sometimes catastrophically

Not unlike a what happens in a plane crash. As a passenger I'd rather pay more for a ticket or have a delayed/missed flight than accept the current risk of flying with this plane.

> The lives lost already are a sunk cost.

This isn't just cynicism or pragmatism, it's plain wrong. Another crash could happen at any time if the issue is indeed with the plane and your argument is "we can't bring the dead back so we might as well pile some more"?

>The lives lost already are a sunk cost.

You are either Autistic or you work for Boeing.

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