Boeing 737-800 Passenger Jet Crashes in Iran Due to Technical Issue | Hacker News Reader

Boeing 737-800 Passenger Jet Crashes in Iran Due to Technical Issue

bloomberg.com

51 pointsfrutiger32 comments

There's almost no information here—not nearly enough for a substantive discussion. We should wait until more becomes available.

On HN, there's no harm in waiting: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

737-800, not a MAX. ALJazeera has better detail than the linked story.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/ukrainian-airliner-cr...

Here's the specific tail number / aircraft: https://www.flightera.net/planes/UR-PSR

Crash site photo: https://twitter.com/isna_farsi/status/1214762556289667077

Ok, we'll add 800 to the title above.

my god, it was going down in flame before crashing...

That makes it a 737 NG. The NG’s structural components were mostly manufactured (badly) by a subcontractor, Ducommun, but Boeing insisted on installing them anyhow. In 2010, there was a cover-up and a whistleblower; Al Jazeera broke it in a long-form documentary that apparently no one watched.

Considering the current climate, be interesting to see who was on the plane and/ or what the fallout from this is.

Assuming this isn't some kind of political attack, you have to wonder how much this is due to Iran's inability to trade due to sanction would impact its airlines ability to get updates to their aircraft. (Update: Not an Iranian jet so likely not an issue)

Which suggests Russia might be at the heart of this. Back to the original question about who was on the plane.

Geez. The fire from wreckage is probably not even out yet and you've done dove headfirst off of "speculation" cliff!

In your defense, though, you certainly aren't the only one. There's nothing but rampant speculaion in this thread -- some from folks who should know better.

Iranian media is reporting that most passengers were Iranians.

You watch too much CNN or MSNBC to dredge up the disproven Russiagate conspiracy theory FUD. Maybe you should wait for investigators to provide their preliminary findings, eh?

What a bingo card of an article. Iran, Ukraine, 737.

Synchronicity (or pareidolia?) makes me want to think there's intentionality here, when in reality it's probably just a tragedy.

No matter what happened, it is a tragedy.

Seriously.

180 people crashed in an airliner. Even for HN, have a little compassion.

Absolutely, it's easy to lose sight of it from such a vantage point.

https://www.flightstats.com/v2/flight-tracker/PS/752?year=20...

Interesting it's showing as en-route.

n/m. Bloomberg updated it with better tracker. https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/ps752#23732569

I wonder if the "technical" issue would have anything to do with measures we (the US) may currently be taking against Iran?

Could just be a Boeing related error, but that is definitely one of the hottest places in the world tonight.

Edit:

Just so this isn't misconstrued as me implying that the US shot down the plane or something, I meant some sort of passive signal scrambling type thing that would confuse instruments on the plane.

Not knowing a lot about the technical possibilities of all this, just wondering.

Navigation systems are built on very conservative assumptions. They fall back to autonomous inertial guidance, if satellite and ground-based navigation aids become unavailable. This reduces airspace throughput (airplanes need larger separation distances due to lower navigation accuracy), but is completely safe.

See: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/a/2276

Interesting timing to say the least.

Video and reports suggest it was accidentally shot down. It’s not even a question when you see it.

There’s no way state media could’ve concluded it was a “technical issue” so quickly. They are trying to pass blame on Boeing but they really messed this one up.

It's worth not trying to understand what happened in the first few hours, you'll rarely be correct.

The video could have been an old one that someone uploaded as misinformation.

The video can show you that the plane looks like it was shot down, but it can't show you that it was done accidentally by Iranian military.

The "reports" of it being accidentally shot down could just have been made up by someone, unsourced. Actually, it looks like they're coming from Al Hadath, which appears to be a Saudi-controlled news TV channel.

I’m pretty confident on this one. So much so I will buy some Boeing stock if it irrationally crashes tomorrow as futures are suggesting

As if things could not get even worse for Boeing. Double the attention from the press, and I'm sure it'll also be misreported to hell and back. They might even have to fire the bean counter CEO they've just appointed.

it seems like every day there is a new 737/747 plane headline on hn. what gives? is it that interesting??

This is crash just happened.

Headlines aren't crashes. Not much info on this accident so far. If that was 737 Max 8, things are going to get MUCH worse for Boeing.

Edit: Max 8 is still grounded, my bad.

It'd get much worse because they aren't even supposed to be flying currently.

737-800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21988137

Yes. The 737-MAX breaks a history decades of planes not generally not crashing, and introduces instead a plane that tries very hard to crash with hundreds of people onboard. The process and leadership errors and regulatory capture that led to that afflict tech companies as much as any other. It’s going to remain news for some time to come.

ps. I flagged this post. It has no content and doesn’t deserve to be on HN yet.

A plane crash from an american constructor in a country that was just attacked by US army is rather interesting. Then maybe it is not related to any "hacker" topic, but the potential engineering fails behind the boeing 737 Max is probaly rather interesting for "hackers".

No 747 has been used for mainstream commercial passenger service for almost a year because it’s an old, uneconomical design that simply can’t compete anywhere except in cargo.

Are you sure?

According to this [1,2,3] there are currently 99 747s in the air, a quick check [4,5,6,7] shows, that at least some are passenger planes.

[1] https://de.flightaware.com/live/aircrafttype/

[2] https://de.flightaware.com/live/aircrafttype/B744

[3] https://de.flightaware.com/live/aircrafttype/B748

[4] https://de.flightaware.com/live/flight/BAW117/history/202001...

[5] https://british-airways.flight-status.info/ba-117

[6] https://de.flightaware.com/live/flight/DLH462/history/202001...

[7] https://lufthansa.flight-status.info/lh-462

I flew a 747 on El Al last year. It's a great plane and I'll be sad to see it go, but it's not gone yet.

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