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Comment by txcwpalpha | Hacker News Reader

It’s not even just reporting bias, there are other biases involved as well. It’s entirely possible that other airplane types have high rates of FOD in the fuel tanks but they go unnoticed because those other planes aren’t under nearly as much scrutiny as the post-crash MAX.

If there’s a systemic problem that involves issues manufacturing a plane, it’s highly unlikely that it only involves one single type of plane.

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I'd rather fly on a plane that from a manufacturer whose planes might have foreign objects in the fuel tanks than a manufacturer whose planes definitely do have foreign objects in the fuel tanks.

If there’s a systemic problem that involves issues manufacturing a plane, it’s highly unlikely that it only involves one single type of plane.

There isn't though. Evidence for that is Boeing itself - for decades they made excellent planes that had very few problems. The 747 was the safest and most popular plane in the world for years. Boeing have made more than 1000 of them and there have been very few crashes, and most of those have been pilot error or external factors.

Something at Boeing has changed, and that has made some of their newer planes less safe. That tells you nothing about other manufacturers.

> Something at Boeing has changed

MD merger.

This is a good article with some background on why people think that may be the case:

https://qz.com/1776080/how-the-mcdonnell-douglas-boeing-merg...

Wow, top right of the picture, they have actually parked some planes in the parking lot (for cars).

Yes, that’s at BFI. Before production was halted, Boeing kept building planes for months and months. They’ve stuck MAXes all over the Pacific Northwest in what feels like any available space connected to a runway.

Suit yourself, but I’d rather fly on a plane that had problems found, scrutinized, and fixed rather than a plane that may or may not have problems but nobody actually knows because they weren’t pressured to look hard enough.

Re: other manufacturers, if the regulatory environment is one in which Boeing can get by with cutting corners, that means it’s an environment in which other manufacturers can cut corners as well. That, combined with the inherent characteristic of for-profit companies doing what they do, I have no reason to believe that Airbus et al are not doing the same. Hell, the first A320 was infamous for a software issue causing it to crash, too, complete with regulators and Airbus involved in controversy afterwards for trying to alter the results of the investigation.

Your correct of course. The 767 refueling plane has been on hold for almost a year since the Air Force kept finding random parts strewn all over the plane.

Many airlines will not accept the 787 built on the east coast until they are flown to Seattle to be inspected there first.

Really saving a lot of money on those non-union jobs, huh.

Even if this is a systemic problem is doesn't change the underlying logic involved. It's unknown whether other models have this (or similar) issues, so you are still better off avoiding the model you know has a risk/default.

You’re missing the other half of your logic though, which is that due to knowing that this plane has an issue, you also know that the issue will be resolved, so you actually know that this plane does not have the issue. For other planes, as you said, it is unknown if they have the issue or not. I’d rather fly on the plane that I know for sure has had the issue addressed.

But we also know that this plane was poorly designed and the design process followed a path that completely disregarded safety.

You're saying that the best way for a company to get your business is to make a deathtrap and after it kills a bunch of people they'll fix a few of the glaring problems versus just making a good plane in the first place.

So that’s the question: how unusual is this? How severe?

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