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Comment by vlovich123 | Hacker News Reader

No, they’re correct. “End up being” does not imply that you ignore the existing track record. That’s why OP clarified “only if you ignore their existing safety record” - given that other planes have had 0 crashes and 0 fatalities, I’m not sure how the 737MAX could even ”end up” being “safer” even if you ignore existing issues - you can’t get better than 0 issues, so at best it would be as safe as most other aircraft.

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A plane that has a perfect track record now may not be perfect from now on.

Meanwhile, a plane with a bad track record right now may never have another incident from now on.

So, the 737 MAX may have 2 crashes now... but every other major plane might have that many crashes (or more) over the next 30-40 years. This would make the 737 Max "One of the safest planes" generally speaking.

Maybe but the A380 had already been flying for 17 years. It seems unlikely that it’s going to have foundational issues with the program at this point vs normal things that would apply to any airplane like airlines not maintaining the air craft properly or pilot error / suicide by pilot.

If you want to be pedantic, you're conflating 'having a safe record' with 'being safe.' It's just an indicator.

Not really. All safe planes have a safe record and a safe record implies some amount of inherent safety. Since safety is really hard to quantify and compare and in some ways is qualitative, the safety record is a justifiable and defendable proxy for comparing safety.

We’re on the same page.

You’re acknowledging that the safety record is just a proxy for safety. That’s what I’m saying too.

I would argue that using the number of incidents as a proxy for safety ignores the trend.

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