Comment by jquery | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jquery | Hacker News Reader

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>I have no idea how that company will ever earn back my trust

Millions of ongoing safe flights? I dunno. I feel like they're getting savaged (which they deserve... to a point... but we will cross that point I am pretty sure, if we haven't already...)

The thousands (tens of thousands?) of safe flights per day don't make the news. Boeing has been a pioneer in the safest form of transportation in existence. Mentour Pilot (an active 737 pilot on YouTube) goes into detail about why he's not concerned about Boeing (any more than he's concerned about Airbus).

I can also share a story from my (late) father who worked at Boeing from 30 years (and was working at Boeing during the MAX crashes). I asked him why Boeing let the 737-MAX debacle happen. These were a dying man's words (paraphrased): "Boeing wanted to ground the plane after the first 737-MAX crash but the FAA refused until after the second crash. Boeing did not have the authority to unilaterally ground the planes."

Take that for what it's worth.

If you look at the Top 7 safest airplanes in terms of accidents per hours flown you get:

1) Airbus A340 - No crashes

2) Boeing 777 - 5 crashes, 2 intentional (Malaysia x2), 1 engine-related (Rolls-Royce problem), 2 pilot-error (Asiana/Dubai) - [Thanks fishywang]

3) Boeing 747-8

4) Boeing 737-NG

5) Boeing 767

6) Airbus A320

7) Boeing 757

Did you miss the Asiana 777 at SFO? Or is that engine-related?

That one was stupidity-related.

I was always irrationally nervous flying into SFO, worried about precisely what ended up happening. We should all be glad the plane mostly held together through the cartwheel, saving many lives.

I can confidently assert that no airframe is designed with cartwheeling in mind. Nor hitting trees/buildings/cliffs.

True, it's not part of the certification process, but I do know that modern jets airframes are made to be as... um... "flexible"* (? searching for the word here...) as possible in catastrophic situations. An older airframe probably would have disintegrated under the same forces.

Luck and good fortune also played a huge role of course. What the pilots did was unconscionably neglectful. CFIT is often (usually?) fatal for all passengers.

*EDIT: It's similar to software that's written to be extremely robust that encounters an unexpected error (or set of errors). The software wasn't necessarily designed to handle it, but sometimes it can nonetheless.

> as possible in catastrophic situations

That isn't really something engineers can design to. What happens is the aerodynamics group calculates the maximum loads on the airplane. This is increased by 50% and called the "ultimate load", and the parts are all designed to not break up to that load.

Parts stronger than that are overweight, and weight is the enemy of all airplanes.

After parts are designed, they go through an independent "stress" group which verifies that the parts meet the strength requirements.

I think what he is referring to is the modern use of composites and carbon fiber which are both stronger and lighter than older aluminum or titanium components. Titanium, for example, is a very hard metal that will fracture more readily than a softer composite that is able to dissipate the stress better.

If a stronger and lighter material is used, that just means they use less of it.

There's a limit to that. People still need to fit, and parts need to connect so there are constraints in every dimension.

Also worth pointing out that there are 4 times as many 777s as there are A340s. Doesn’t mean A340 isn’t great, just that the odds of no accidents go up with fewer flight hours.

The popularity of A320 and 737-NG makes their safety records particularly impressive.

Also the A320/737NG typically fly more shorter segments so spend proportionally more time in the critical phases of flight.

It also speaks highly of the level of engineering and testing required to determine the limitations of each an every part that must be maintained for safe flight.

Boeing probably doesn’t have the ability to ground their fleet with legal force, but if they said, “these planes aren’t safe, don’t fly them until we can investigate and fix,” most airlines would listen and I don’t think the FAA could somehow block this.

A statement like that would also be corporate suicide. Imagine the lawsuits.

Would it really be worse than having a government agency forcibly ground your planes for safety reasons?

IANAL but I think Boeing exposes themselves to less liability with FAA making the decision to ground them to investigate.

I’m not absolving Boeing of responsibility, just adding some color to the conversation.

If that quote is so[x], that casts a very deep shadow over the FAA. They've gone from handing off their responsibility for validation to outright rejecting the safety advice of the maker of the aircraft.

[x] and I don't mean that to doubt you but I hope you understand I can't be absolute on this without verification

Keep in mind I don’t know exactly how those conversations went between Boeing and the FAA, nor do I know exactly who my dad was referring to when he said Boeing (the head of engineering? head of safety? A group of people inside Boeing? Was Boeing unified in its opinion or was this concentrated in the area of engineering my father worked in?) Grounding an entire class of plane is not a decision made lightly because of the huge financial and political implications. My takeaway is Boeing leaned towards grounding and the FAA did not and on balance the plane stayed in the air while Boeing worked on the fixes.*

*EDIT: This is probably a conversation that happens after every crash/major-incident and hindsight is 20/20.

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