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Comment by dghlsakjg | Hacker News Reader

The only thing silly is comparing the construction industry to the airline industry. Construction is pretty notorious for openly encouraging unsafe work environments, airlines are not.

Airlines are much more tightly bound by the FAA than any construction company is to any regulatory agency. Airlines have to get permission to let their pilots read documents off an iPad instead of paper, for example. It just isn't a good comparison to compare the most safety aware industry on earth to one famous for ignoring safety rules.

I've worked construction. I have a pilots license in multiple countries (including the US). They aren't the same.

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Pilot gets more veto power than the crane guy who gets more veto power than the residential concrete crew but they all still get talked to if they can't get their jobs done.

I didn't say the same. I said the pressure was probably there too. But you can construe it as the former because that's a way easier thing to argue with.

Fair enough.

I assume that since the NTSB database makes every single incident investigation public you can point to at least one instance where an ATP was pressured into avoiding a go around?

I mean... The problem is common enough that there are industry specific terms to describe it. Go search that database for "commercial pressure" and I'm certain you'll find what your sealioning self is demanding from everyone else.

0 results for the search term “commercial pressure” within full narratives or synopsis on Ntsb.gov. https://www.ntsb.gov/Pages/ResultsV2.aspx?queryId=dc2a25cf-b...

Can you point me to one of the specific incidents you are citing since both the new search and the old search seem to be broken for that specific term?

Edit: just to be clear: I’m not saying that companies don’t pressure transportation workers into bad decisions. My original supposition is that I have never heard of, nor would it make any sense, for a US airline to have a policy of avoiding go arounds. “Land rhe plane on the first try, or else…” is an exceptionally stupid policy.

Specifically avoid a go around? IDK.

Commit to an action that ultimately caused a crash because they wanted to achieve ancillary goals (e.g. not be late)? Tons.

They call this "get-there-itis" (makes me feel so dirty trotting out buzzwords like that).

There is one thing an airline never wants to have happen and it is a fatal accident. Everything else is secondary. Having one caused by corporate policy would lead to mass exodus of passengers.

21Air isn't a passenger airline though, it's cargo. It's conceivable that they have lower standards, hire less experienced pilots, and just don't emphasize safety culture in the same way that passenger airlines do.

> It's conceivable that they have lower standards, hire less experienced pilots, and just don't emphasize safety culture in the same way that passenger airlines do.

In German railways there is a saying "Fracht motzt nicht, Fracht kotzt nicht" - freight neither complains nor vomits.

I would not be surprised at all to find this kind of attitude in air freight transportation too.

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