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Comment by rfugger | Hacker News Reader

They claim this is based on new "validated" satellite tracking data they received this morning showing similar altitude fluctuations to the Lion Air crash. Somehow every internet forum had this figured out within hours of the crash using public flight tracker data. I find it worrying that it took them so long to come to the obvious conclusion for lack of "validation" of widely known information, and that it took so long to validate this information given the potential risk to every passenger every time one of those planes takes off in the meantime.

It seems clear that safety is being weighed against level of disruption, which may be justified, but they haven't been transparent about this calculation.

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>I find it worrying that it took them so long to come to the obvious conclusion

Aviation regulators and internet forums are literally at the opposite end of the spectrum with regards to jumping to conclusions.

Frankly, it hasn't even been a week. Thousands of flights happen every day, and these two accidents were 5 months apart. If it takes 2 weeks to make the decision, that actually sounds quite rushed. In the meantime every pilot on the planet is probably paying attention so they know what to do if they find themselves in the same situation, so likely the risk has already gone down slightly. I think that waiting 2 weeks until we have better facts represents a very reasonable tradeoff between safety and paranoia. It sounds to me like grounding the plane is a good idea, but I don't know exactly how the anti-stall system works, and I have no context for making the decision.

Yep a lot of papers have mentioned how these groundings by airlines was a very rare occurrence. Especially without any FAA confirmation and the day after an accident.

I don't think it would be so bad if aviation regulators did jump to conclusions by erring on the side of safety.

That's a truism. You're kind of ignoring their point though, which was that the data existed and was readily available.

Internet forums may be "jumping to conclusion" but regulators have had this data for days, and didn't act on it. They only acted after regulators in Europe and elsewhere acted first.

Maybe the operative word is validated, then.

If you're a regulator, and you have unvalidated data that suggests a plane may be unsafe, how long do you wait for validated data before deciding to ground that plane "out of an abundance of caution"?

Three days?

It's their job to keep people safe. They do that by looking at data they trust. I don't envy the position they're in this week one bit.

The "data" being ADS-B information gathered by amateurs over homemade receivers?

If I was a regulator I'd want a verified and traceable data source as well.

Timing does not carry much information here. Those decisions are taken by bureaucracies, and we are talking about days.

The Brazilian flight authority, for example, makes this kind of decision once a week, and there's a backlog. Even if all the technical analysis was ready minutes after the accident, it wouldn't have decided on it yet. Most western ones have a similar organizational model.

Data gathering takes days, data verification takes days, every time one has to contact somebody in a timezone with 4+ hours of difference, it takes a couple of days, informing superiors takes days, scheduling a decision takes days, even publishing it takes days.

The conclusion in this case is, "two of the same type of plane crashed under similar circumstances so until we know more, no one should fly this plane." I have no problem with a regulator jumping to that "conclusion" until they are absolutely certain the plane is safe.

What bothers me is that yesterday, Garneau was basically saying, "until we're sure the plane is unsafe, we're going to keep flying it." That's backwards.

> Somehow every internet forum had this figured out within hours

Rather like the identity of the Boston Bomber.

"But this time it's different" they'll say.

It may very well be different. Sometimes knee jerk reactions are right. Sometimes they are wrong. This whole thing reeks of tunnel vision but without the data from the second aircraft we don't have any way to tell tunnel vision from legitimate well reasoned decision making.

I'm in the "ground them just to be safe" camp but the way this whole thing is being conducted leaves a very bad taste in my mouth.

You can bet the FBI didn't wait two days to take action on that lead. It turned out to be nothing, but "out of an abundance of caution" should be the standard here, not balance of probability.

Canada is extremely tightly tied to the US economy, and the US government is still taking Boeing’s side on this.

I wish this didn’t have to be about politics.

It's not just US/Canada relations. The biggest canadian aviation company has dozens of Max 8.

Air Canada have 20, about 10% of their fleet. Similar level to Norwegian. Westjet has 12 -- or 7% of their fleet.

> US government is still taking Boeing’s side on this

It's all fun and games until a Max 8 nosedives on US soil

It'll still be fun and games. It's just that the game will be "CYA".

The game has been "CYA" for a few days ago. Grounding the aircraft without information about the second crash is fundamentally a CYA exercise. It might be the right action to take but until we have the information we need to see if we are right or wrong it is a CYA exercise. Just because it's CYA doesn't mean it's wrong. Just because you turn out to be right later doesn't mean you didn't initially do it to CYA.

CYA generally refers to avoiding responsibility rather than a precautionary approach - one covers one's own ass (protects one's interests) while leaving everyone else exposed to risk.

The EU has grounded the Max 8s, accepting the disruption to commerce and inconvenience to travelers up front as the cost of avoiding an unlikely but potentially catastrophic accident. It's possible that if this were an Airbus instead of a Boeing plane that the situation might be reversed, but I'm inclined to think they would actually take the same action in that circumstance because EU regulatory culture is rooted in a precautionary rather than a palliative approach.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47562727

But it is about politics. Ted Cruz spoke out in favour of grounding the 737-MAX, presumably because Southwestern Airlines is a major operator of these misengineered deathtraps and is based in Dallas. If a pilot lost control of his place and there was a crash shortly after takeoff it would hurt his ambitions.

> presumably because Southwestern Airlines is a major operator of these misengineered deathtraps and is based in Dallas.

Or maybe, just maybe he spoke out because he chairs the senate subcommittee for aviation?

> Canada is extremely tightly tied to the US economy

Canada also is home to one of the four major aerospace companies that make planes people are willing to fly on. Think of all the CRJ700s you could sell if people got flighty about using 737s.

I'm sure the Canadians are grounding them for all the right reasons, but let's be clear: they stand to gain if the 737 loses favour.

CRJs do not compete with 737s. If the 737 loses favour, the A319/320/321 would replace it.

The C-series is much closer to competing with the 737/A319.

It's not so much about politics as process. Canada and the U.S. have a bilateral acceptance process, whereby airworthiness in one country is accepted in the other. Since the FAA was the certifying authority in this case, the default position would be to trust their process until evidence suggested otherwise.

https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/air_cert/international/bilatera...

> Somehow every internet forum had this figured out within hours of the crash using public flight tracker data.

They didn't. Every internet forum is speculating right now, none can support a conclusion.

> It seems clear that safety is being weighed against level of disruption

It is more than disruption. Democratic societies have some concerns about Rule of Law and fairness, all societies have concerns about not bankrupting the air-transit providers, and about providing confidence in a stable environment for business.

Besides, air-traffic disruption kills people too.

Democratic countries tend to be very transparent about this calculation, but you probably won't be able to get it this quickly. In a few days we will probably learn the details why Canada made their decision.

> Somehow every internet forum had this figured out within hours

Assuming "figured out" was not sarcastic: can you recommend any particular threads? I'd love to go beyond the coverage in major newspapers.

Here is one:

https://www.pprune.org/showthread.php?p=10415517

Note how some engineer explains how MCAS works and there is a lot pilots who are completely surprised. That's quite damning for Boeing

Yes, the data has been available for days. It's obviously a convenient excuse for the late reaction.

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