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Comment by kerng | Hacker News Reader

Wondering if Boeing will be able to recover from this in regards to keeping the MAX flying at all. I mean, I will always pick a different plane from now on - just not a risk I'm willing to take in the foreseeable future. Not sure if my stance is common though.

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Do you look up the safety history of all your potential rides, or just focus on recent headlines?

Why not both? It's not that hard.

The real question isn't whether the autists on HN will be researching every flight they schedule, it's how many Average Joes will care. Short answer: to a close approximation, zero.

Airplane crashes are rare, and it's quite easy to remember some unique plane crashes (like I would also not fly in a Concorde). With Boeing MAX right now there is definitely some bad decisions they made safety wise, and it be not surprising that there were other tradeoffs made also.

At this point no 737 pilot has any excuse not to understand MCAS, including what it does and how to disable it if there's a problem, and will be watching for issues vary closely.

I wouldn't have a problem flying on one.

> At this point no 737 pilot has any excuse not to understand MCAS

Exactly the same after the Lionair crash.

So you think the MCAS system is the only deadly surprise the 737 Max has in store?

I'm not comfortable making that assumption, especially after learning more about Boeing's decision-making process and the way they misled the FAA.

Remains to be seen but I am sure all the major certification authorities will be asking this now. Probably by the time it's flying again there won't be any need to make assumptions.

I will also refuse to fly on one anytime soon.

How easy is it for a consumer to make that choice? Is the information surfaced to consumers?

Yes, you can find out which plane you are going to fly on. .

and airlines can change that plane at any time after you booked

Many (most?) airlines list the aircraft type during the booking process. Even for those that don't, you can look up the flight number and date on a site like FlightAware or SeatGuru, which will tell you.

But, if the airline needs to, they can swap out the scheduled aircraft for another one at any time up until takeoff. So you might book with the belief that you'll be on a 737 NG, but get to the airport and find (or not even notice) that you're on a 737 MAX.

You can see it in most search engines, and after the Ethiopian crash Kayak announced they'll add an aircraft type filter. Other flight search engines will probably follow suit.

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