Comment by perfectstorm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by perfectstorm | Hacker News Reader

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I agree with this. As someone who grew up in India and now live in the U.S, i'm very scared whenever i visit India. Human lives have very little value in India.

i can think of two aircraft accidents in the past 15yrs that could have been avoided (at least the second one if they learned from the first incident and if safety was a priority). I'm talking about the Mangalore airport accident in 2010 and the Calicut airport accident in 2020. Both have tabletop runways and i believe both planes skidded off the runway under poor weather conditions. if they learned something from the first accident, they would have deployed countermeasures (something like an arresting mechanism to stop the planes from skidding off. i forgot the technical term for it).

when i was a kid, i remember hearing about rickshaw accidents frequently. most of the time, these rickshaws pack 10-15 children when 5 kids could barely sit comfortably.

i'm sure i can think of many more examples showing lack of value for human life.

> (something like an arresting mechanism to stop the planes from skidding off. i forgot the technical term for it)

I don't think arresting mechanisms are common, and they require extra space to install them. The crew having the training and authority to divert to an alternate airport when it is wet and they are overweight is probably a better focus.

> most of the time, these rickshaws pack 10-15 children when 5 kids could barely sit comfortably.

Of course, it's also important to avoid criticizing poor people for being poor. What were the alternatives? It would be much safer for each kid to be in their own family SUV, as is common in the US, but this increase in child safety is due to increased wealth, not increased virtue.

> I don't think arresting mechanisms are common, and they require extra space to install them. The crew having the training and authority to divert to an alternate airport when it is wet and they are overweight is probably a better focus.

so during the Mangalore flight landing attempt, the first officer asked to divert to another airport (twice) but the captain refused. doesn't that show the lack of safety concern for captain or lack of repercussions if they made it safely? i bet the first officer would be laughed at if they landed safely and s/he wouldn't even bother complaining about it.

if they don't have the space to install the arresting mechanism, how about installing them and limit the size of the aircraft that land at that airport (if expanding the runway is out of question). i mean any nation that care about human lives would do that.

> Of course, it's also important to avoid criticizing poor people for being poor. What were the alternatives? It would be much safer for each kid to be in their own family SUV, as is common in the US, but this increase in child safety is due to increased wealth, not increased virtue.

the alternative would be to find another rickshaw driver who limits the number of kids to 5. sure, it will be expensive but human lives should have more value than a 100-200Rs/month savings.

> so during the Mangalore flight landing attempt, the first officer asked to divert to another airport (twice) but the captain refused.

I didn't know this, but guessing that something like this happened is precisely why I brought it up. The fix for a broken safety culture in aviation isn't arresting mechanisms so that it's impossible to crash: it's addressing whatever series of events and incentives led to the captain making that decision, whether that means providing extra training, or finding the source of pressure from his superiors to avoid the diversion.

It is probably the case that Indian airline aviation has actually made these changes now. If so, it is a dramatically better intervention than your proposal for an arresting mechanism at one airport. India received the highest grade for airline safety last year.

> the alternative would be to find another rickshaw driver who limits the number of kids to 5. sure, it will be expensive but human lives should have more value than a 100-200Rs/month savings.

Why stop at only that 100-200Rs/month savings? There are probably many other sources of avoidable safety risk in India. What percentage of a poor person's income would you dedicate to more expensive safety improvements?

> The fix for a broken safety culture in aviation isn't arresting mechanisms so that it's impossible to crash: it's addressing whatever series of events and incentives led to the captain making that decision, whether that means providing extra training, or finding the source of pressure from his superiors to avoid the diversion.

sure but at the end of the day the decision is mostly made by a single (or multiple) human being(s) who can make honest mistakes or be arrogant (this sounds like what happened in the Mangalore case). in any case, having an arresting mechanism would safe lives. no matter how many hours of additional training is given, they can still make mistakes. even if it doesn't get used in 100,000 uses but if it saves 10 lives on the 100,001th use, it's worth it.

> India received the highest grade for airline safety last year.

do you mind providing some sources for that? afaik there were no airlines accident last year anywhere that resulted in a loss of live.

> Why stop at only that 100-200Rs/month savings? There are probably many other sources of avoidable safety risk in India. What percentage of a poor person's income would you dedicate to more expensive safety improvements?

sure. i'm giving out examples of poor safety. nowhere did i say this is the leading cause of avoidable deaths. this is one of the many i have seen there.

https://simpleflying.com/india-retains-faa-category-1-status...

As mentioned here, India's also moving up the ICAO ranking.

The SUV would decrease the safety for pedestrians in the area, so not really the ideal suggestion. It sounds like they needed more rickshaws, or trains.

I was taught by my advanced riding instructor that riding/driving safely was about making sure that everyone inside and outside the vehicle was safe, not just the vehicle occupants. Protection and safety are different concepts in this regard. Everyone has a right to be safe, so "don't ride like a twat" in this case.

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