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Comment by iso1631 | Hacker News Reader

737 NGs have a better safety record than any Airbus model.

There is only one model made by another manufacturer that has a lower accident rate, the Embraer 170/190

A-220, A-320neo, A-350 and A-380 would like to have a word with you.

It's hard to measure an accident rate for a plane that has never crashed. And that in turn is mostly because they're all relatively new and rare and thus haven't accumulated even a fraction of the working hours of something like the 737NG, which is the most popular passenger jet ever made.

Yes, of course. I wouldn't directly compare them, but the guy above was talking in absolutes to make it seem Airbus is somehow inferior.

I'm not saying Airbus is inferior. I'm saying: if you won't get on an NG, what will you get on? There's no data to indicate that modern Airbus models are unsafe, but there's also no data to indicate that an NG isn't. All Boeing planes didn't suddenly become the MAX after 2019.

I'd be more worried about when/where/who is flying my plane than anything else.

The 737 NG was designed and built in a different time effectively by a different company to the Boeing which builds planes today.

I think Qatar airways would beg to differ on the A350 [1]. Is it an accident? no, but it's 100% an issue.

[1]: https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/qatar-rel...

737 ng has been flying since the 1990s. Those planes are between 4 and 15 years old.

Fair enough. The list I was looking at had some of those excluded because of their limited time in service.

Meaningless. I'm more concerned about the culture

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/how-boeing...

Is a far better outline of the problem than I could put in a HN commend while I wait for my compile to run

The comment above states a fact. You throw it away as meaningless, and claim that only your opinion matters. Never change internet.

It's completely meaningless as a counter of the point that corporate culture at Boeing has changed for the worse from the company that built the 7x7 series to today

I am with you with respect to newer Boeings, but it is nearly impossible to know in advance, which I see as a major issue. You could book thinking one thing and the airline swaps in something else before the flight.

I think if passengers could make these decisions that would filter into the decision making of airlines which would then hit the manufacturers in terms of orders.

Yes realistically you don't get a choice.

The phrase at the start of the Jet age used to be "If It Ain’t Boeing – I Ain’t Going". Boeing was a reliable company that built planes.

That culture has been missing for a couple of decades, and the rot takes a long time to set in. It's not about specific planes or specific technologies, it's a shift from Boeing being a cmopnay that survived by making a high quality product which happened to make some money, to one that needs to make ever increasing money and happens to make products

The solution is to not book airlines that use Boeing equipment. This is easier for Europeans than Americans, arguably, but it is not impossible.

There’s no indicator at all that this plane suffered a technical failure.

This early, absence of evidence is definitely not evidence of absence.

It's too early to say anything authoritative about it, isn't it?

It's not a Max

It's not a Max, but it's extremely clear that the 737 is an outdated aircraft family. It's not directly relevant to this crash, probably, but it makes me a bit sad that we can't find our way out of this kind of local minimum.

The 737-800 was launched in 1994, which is not old at all by aircraft standards. And it is in the top 5 lowest crash rates of any airliner.

The 737 family is from 1967, so it's fairly old.

and some cars are fairly old too (pick any long-running somewhat-consistent model for a fair analogy), but they've changed since inception to be safer, more efficient, more reliable, etc. (minus the max, that's shoehorning something new to an old family)

Simply saying the family is old does not do it justice. It's possible for some "old" setup to continue to be effective even if other things change.

GP didn't say it was. They said the Max was just a symptom of a larger problem.

After the Max crashes, there were reports of sloppy production in Boeing factories. If those were correct, it's conceivable that other planes would be affected.

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