Flying won't stay safer than driving if aircraft manufacturers can get away with letting their standards slip.

Well nobody is proposing a free pass here. Of course they'll all need to be fixed, and ASAP. I'm just saying, it's no more a death trap than your average Honda Civic so it's probably okay to let them stay up in the air, depending on what the confounding external factors end up being.

Cars kill people primarily due to human error in judgment or lack of attention. Mechanical or software failures causing fatalities are the overwhelming minority of cases.

Remember how big of a deal the Toyota accelerator pedal recall was?

Didn't Toyota turn out to be a few old people that probably shouldn't haven't been driving anymore anyways.

No, it was a buffer overflow in the ECU. It's an interesting read if that's the kind of thing that strikes your fancy :)

This could be as bad as the Toyota "unintended acceleration" glitch.

The way this particular glitch plays out sounds suspiciously like software, or a software-like function of the MCAS unit.

There was never any evidence that a software glitch caused sudden unintended acceleration in Toyotas. The problems were caused by defective floor mats and driver error.

https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a15125313/its-all-your...

The specific causes were determined to be non-software, but when they took a close look at the software, the software was atrociously bad.

I'm not sure Boeing's software, even if not at fault, will be entirely flawless.

No complex software has ever been entirely flawless. The best we can probably ask for is that it's safe within certain defined boundaries.

I have a family trip booked next month on Southwest, who has many 737 Max 8. I'm relieved that they won't be able to use it now. I'm still expecting my flight to happen, Southwest and Boeing will have to figure out how to get the plane.

Southwest was actually grounding these flights yesterday (Tuesday) before the FAA decision. Source: flight was cancelled along with multiple other 737 MAX flights out of SJC yesterday.

Oddly enough they were also claiming to be surprised by the faa. It seems like a huge miscommunication from different departments and people.

It's about 5% of their fleet, and they fly, on average, with their planes ~85% full. There will almost certainly be some cancelled flights.