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Comment by ijidak | Hacker News Reader

Flying already evokes an illogical visceral fear in most humans. (Listen to the screams, and white knuckled grasps, during strong turbulence.)

The 737 Max is likely dead, forever, for passenger traffic.

There's just too much for every stakeholder, but Boeing, to lose.

Most likely Boeing will need state help (like the auto company bailout) while it transitions to some new post-737-Max reality.

The 737 Max rise and fall will likely become a popular business school case study.

(I could be wrong, but I just don't see this plane ever being palatable for much of the flying public. The fear of flying is just to visceral, to simply act like none of this ever happened.)

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I'm not sure the fear is illogical in a case when over 300 people have died due to a known design fault, particularly when the manufacturer in question tried to sweep it under the rug the first time it manifested itself.

I have no problem at all with flying and do it regularly (as recently as yesterday, on a 737-800 no less) but I wouldn't set foot on a MAX, even if I was assured that the fault was fixed.

The fear is illogical because there is a 1 in 2,925,000 odds of dying on commercial aircraft [0].

Before the MAX 8 was grounded, it had well over 2,000,000 hours of flight time on 387 aircraft performing 8,600 flights/week for 56 airlines [1]. Two out of 800,000+ flights crashed due to MCAS taking input from a broken AoA sensor, related to the poor maintenance of the airlines, and poor training by the airline and possibly pilot error.

Imagine the level of detail of scrutiny the MAX 8 is currently undergoing. I'll wager it'll have been the most scrutinized aircraft to have ever flown once it's re-certified, if not the safest. Plus, everyone knows about MCAS now so a crash due to it misbehaving in the case of a _double_ AoA vane failure is incredibly unlikely now.

So I think the fear is still illogical.

[0] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2013/02/14/danger-o...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX

Well there are still a lot of 737 Max around, I don't think they will all be written off? Maybe if passengers continue to avoid the plane. But this is also not the first time in history something like this happened, usually people forgot after some time. Or is it the broader media coverage this time around?

yeah I'm not sure, I want to think we are living in an information vacuum where we are aware, but I feel like a lot of people are really watching this one

they could attempt rebranding the max and all the college aged people looking for deals might pile onto them indiscriminately

but I think a lot of people will notice. like if third party apps and website said Model B (Formerly 737 Max), then there is still high chance people will notice and demand something else.

Yeah, I'm not even scared of flying but I'd raise a stink if they tried to push me into a 737 Max, mainly based on principle. Given how FAA tried to initially defend the status quo and kept the planes flying to not shake the boat, trust is gone. Boeing would have to convince the regular public that the problem with the plane is solved - which might be an impossible task because public do not understand what really went wrong and how it would be fixed. So someone else can sway them the other way around just as easily. People would still choose the "safer" option.

The screams during turbulence are one of my highlights when flying. Doesn't happen very often these days unfortunately... 20 years ago flying used to be like going on a theme park ride.

Flying 100% scares the shit out of me. I know it's illogical, I know how safe it is etc, but when I'm on a plane all I just can't relax at all.

> The 737 Max rise and fall

Too soon

pop a THC edible in your uber ride and it kicks in soon after you are on the plane and then boom you're landing

calling it time travel

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