By the time there were c380 Max's built, two of them had already fallen out of the sky (despite operating for only a year). That's c0.5% of the fleet falling out of the sky every 12 months!

Still not too risky on an individual flight, but if you were a pilot across a 40 year flying career those odds start to stack up across your cohort!

Plus it's a bizzare safety stance to try and sell "So what their planes fall out the sky much more than our competitors... It's still safer than driving!"

I don't know much about car accidents, but 1%/year sounds like a lot. Can one even legally sell a car model if 1% of the cars are going to crash lethally in the first year? Or evne 0.5, or 0.2%?

???

Are you talking about the 737 max?

1) Do we believe that the issues that caused those two crashes were not sufficiently dealt with, such that they might recur?

2) Do we believe that there are other issues that could cause catastrophic failures that could result in further deaths?

I feel pretty safe in saying "no" for #1. #2 is harder to answer. So far the new issues found are unlikely to cause further deaths, but maybe there are other problems lurking.

But even with the uncertainty around #2, I'm still safer (for example) flying from SFO to LAX on a Boeing plane than driving that route. But maybe that's not the best comparison: am I measurably safer on an Airbus plane than on a Boeing? Probably? But is that amount enough to be worth worrying about, logically, if I can get my irrational fears to shut up for a minute? Not sure I've looked at the data (assuming there is enough of it) to decide that.

> Boing and the FAA initially cast the blame on supposedly lower standards at the Indonesian and Ethiopian airlines operating the planes, but this was completely unsupported and incorrect speculation.

This bit feels like it doesn't tell the full story. IIRC there was a report about a third plane that (after at least the first crash, not sure if it was before or after the second) ran into the same issue with MCAS, but correctly followed the recovery procedure and was fine. Now, it could be that the recovery procedure is unreliable, and that third cockpit crew got lucky. But I don't recall what came of all that.

And on top of that, the two planes that crashed didn't have optional equipment (a disagree indicator, IIRC) that would have likely given the pilots extra and sufficient information to understand what was wrong and avoid a crash. My understanding is that all US airlines had already opted for that piece of equipment, and at this point presumably everyone has now opted for that piece of equipment. Given the issues, it should have never been optional (and maybe it no longer is). But GP is specifically pointing out the safety record of US-based carriers, so it should be notable that they seem to be better at identifying what bits of optional equipment are important enough to splurge on.

> And on top of that, the two planes that crashed didn't have optional equipment (a disagree indicator, IIRC) that would have likely given the pilots extra and sufficient information to understand what was wrong and avoid a crash.

The first plane had experienced unwanted/incorrect runaway MCAS activation on the flight before the accident flight; the pilots turned off electric trim for the rest of the flight (which is part of the memory checklist) [1], and the aircraft was subsequently cleared by mechanics for the accident flight.

On the second accident flight, it seems that the pilots were unable to complete the specialized checklist for improper MCAS activation, as aerodynamic forces made manual trim impossible. Wikipedia notes that the earlier 737-200 had a procedure for recovery in this situation, but it had not been part of training for quite some time.

> And on top of that, the two planes that crashed didn't have optional equipment (a disagree indicator, IIRC) that would have likely given the pilots extra and sufficient information to understand what was wrong and avoid a crash.

I don't think knowing that the airspeed indicators disagree is enough to know what to do, in absence of knowledge of the MCAS. Perhaps, it could have helped the 2nd accident crew, if they had been able to connect the dots and disable electric trim before trim position became too extreme to manually correct. For the first airplane, I don't think it would have helped, because the implications of wrong airspeed information were unknown; maybe it would have resulted in the broken sensor being replaced after the penultimate flight though.

Sensible limits on automation would likely have prevented both accidents (and was implemented after the second accident). Transparency about MCAS may have helped with the first accident, but clearly wasn't enough for the second. Separate cutoff switches for automation and electric trim would have helped with the second flight (there's two switches already!), but knowledge of MCAS would be a prerequisite.

In the first accident, both the pilot and first officer were quite experienced, but in the second, the first officer had less than 400 hours of flight time, which is significantly less than the 1,500 hours required to be a first officer in the US. Increased flight experience may or may not have helped in this case, but is an area where US carriers differ from international carriers.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Air_Flight_610#Investigat... see "previous flight problems"

Boeing made several billion dollars a year of profits for ten years prior to Covid, but failed to reinvest it in their manufacturing practices to prevent unforced errors, which left unchecked caused a plane to catastrophically decompress in the sky. Their shareholders may think that’s acceptable, but their customers do not.

(For instance, when there was the scandal over card skimmers, Canadian gas stations upgraded their pumps to use chip cards about two years before US gas stations.)

Airlines in third world countries are a major buyer of the latest planes whereas American airlines (particularly Delta) are famous for having excellent maintenance operations to keep 20 year old planes in the air.

You have a long list of fairly recent problems... the stuff around MCAS that killed people, misdrilled holes, loose or missing bolts, debris inside fuel tanks, etc.

And the reason why no one died on the Alaska flight was more luck than anything. I'm not sure if everyone would be alive today had it happened later in the flight when some people remove their seat belt.

You don’t think twice about hopping into a passenger vehicle. You don’t follow the latest NHTSA crash test reports and refuse to hop in an Uber driving the “wrong” make/model vehicle. You notice plane crashes because they are so exceedingly rare while traffic fatalities are so common they’re boring and routine.

While I'm likely to fly on a 737 in the future, it's perfectly fine to say "well, since there's an Airbus A320 Neo available, I'll fly on that instead". Why? Because while data doesn't show it, there's a list of fairly recent Boeing screw ups and there are even better alternatives not affected by said screw ups.

The Alaska incident didn't kill someone because of luck... a different day or a few minutes later and it's likely someone would have been ejected from the plane. The problem with the plane/manufacturing/Boeing is there, even if no one died and that's why looking at numbers alone without context is as bad as refusing to fly just because of the panic caused by "news". There's a middle ground between these two extremes...

Regarding cars, you probably wouldn't have to refuse to go on a car known for coming out of the factory with loose wheel nuts because if the problem was known there would be a recall and Uber itself would ban the car, something they already do in some places for even less important reasons (space, comfort, etc). I also find it hard to blame the customer for not wanting to go on a car model that has a new major problem every 1 or 2 years.

By the way, I understand the point you're making, but keep in mind that the level of risk people are willing to take is different for different things. To you it might make no sense to avoid the Max if also you take a car to the airport, but that's not how most people work.

The 737 is arguably the safest airliner ever produced. You are specifically talking about a specific line of 737, the 737MAX.

We are discussing a comment that stated "I'd be scared to fly on any new generation Boeing."

That fear is irrational, full stop.

I think twice quite regularly about hopping into a Tesla, and after years of avoiding them solely for aesthetic dislike, I found that they also have been burying quality control issues rather than repairing them — just like Boeing! — and so I intend to continue avoiding riding in them whenever possible.

> You don’t […] refuse to hop in an Uber driving the “wrong” make/model vehicle.

I learned how to select the ride level in Uber/Lyft to ensure I don’t get a Tesla.

> traffic fatalities are so common they’re boring and routine.

Traffic fatalities are unforced errors that I invest most of my energy while driving into avoiding — not just my own errors, but the potential errors of the walking and driving into avoiding. I won’t enter an intersection on the walk signal until I see the car start to decelerate, because I can’t trust that they’ve looked up from their phone long enough to prevent an unforced error that kills me. It’s the same lesson taught by “This vehicle stops at all railroad crossings” and “Don’t sleep under coconut trees”: the odds are slim that diligence saves lives, so remain diligent and occasionally save lives. I am just one life, and while I cannot take every precaution, I can certainly take those precautions that I deem worthwhile.

I recognize I’m more likely to die to a Tesla than in a Boeing and I have more precautions assigned to Teslas than I do Boeings. However: if the plane door blows off, I’ll be traumatized even if I live, and I would rather avoid that. As public transit riders, we do not deserve the increased chance of severe traumatic events that Boeing is inflicting on their passengers, onto us, by their shoddy manufacturing and QA.

But hey, I rode a motorcycle for ~25 years which is definitely riskier than a Tesla.

Being careful as a pedestrian makes perfect sense. I got these things drilled into me as a kid, because when we were kids we walked everywhere.

Thank you!! Just like you're anti-Maxx, I'm anti-vaxx, no matter what the data says, I don't trust Pfizer / Boeing. We're twins and I'm glad the "I did my own research" and "I don't trust the experts" narratives are finally getting their fair shake.

Well, I was a big fan of the Maxx when it broadcast back of the 90s, I think?, but I haven’t rewatched it since then, so I don’t really have any opinion anymore. Maybe I’ll take a look again, though I admit I don’t follow how it’s related.

> I don’t trust Pfizer / Boeing

Their Covid vaccine is second to none for me, of all the different vaccines I’ve received since 2015. You’re definitely missing out — I encourage giving them a second chance for your next booster. Is there some financial connection between Pfizer and Boeing that I should be aware of?

The engine cowling was made by Boeing and was supposed to stay on when the engine lost fan blades, the cowling was what struck the side of the aircraft and broke the window in question. Boeing is redesigning the 737 cowlings to better respond to blade out failures.

Chalk one death up to a Boeing design in the last 21 years.

Whether or not that's a useful distinction to make is up for grabs (I expect the point was to talk about flights that most Americans are likely to take -- and by extension most Europeans, since I believe EU airline safety records are similar), but excluding those deaths is fair based on the specifics cited.

I suspect this is also the case for most western European airlines, but I don't actually know. So I didn't include them.

The majority of HN's user base is not spending most of their air travel on carriers operating on shoestring budgets in Africa or Southeast Asia. They are not flying most of their miles on charters run by operators with fleets of ten planes that carry a dozen or two passengers at most. They are not flying on ancient de Havillands or Grummans. They are not passengers on cargo planes.

The majority of HN's user base is flying on comparatively well-funded carriers operating within jurisdictions that enforce strict controls around maintenance, pilot training, crew workload, and other wider operational considerations. This doesn't make flying risk-free, and it doesn't absolve Boeing of their responsibility in building reliable aircraft. But it does mean that the average HN commenter encounters significantly more danger crossing the street than they do when flying.

737 MAXs are not identical worldwide. There's a number of optional add-ons, which even discount US airlines will pay for, but emerging market discount airlines will not.

Specifically for the 737 MAX crashes, it was from a faulty AoA sensor. Neither of the crashed planes had the AoA disagree alert option, but all US airlines paid extra for it. It's not something you're supposed to need, hence being an optional extra, but for obvious reasons budgets aren't as tight at North American airlines as discount airlines in emerging markets.

This isn't to say we're guaranteed that an AoA disagree alert would have avoided the problem, it was undeniably a faulty design, but it probably provides an additional layer of safety. There's a reason that when the MAX returned to service it became standard equipment for all MAXs sold.

So, it's not entirely correct to totally exclude planes from other countries. But there is a fair point in putting more weight on similarly configured planes.

It doesn’t feel relevant to most people on this site to include airlines operating on a shoestring budget in Southeast Asia or Africa in the statistics. It also doesn’t feel fair to manufacturers to penalize them for operators that barely maintain their planes, overfly inexperienced pilots, and that lack basic safety regulation.

Ethiopia Airlines is the largest in Africa, with a good safety record. It is a Star Alliance member, and has flights to Washington DC.

https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/southwest-airlines...

Put simply, pilots are required to undergo more training, observe best practices in CRM, and have strict requirements on how much rest is required between flights. Planes are better maintained and inspected.

I’m sure there are other countries that do a good job here, but in general America is significantly more strict about these things than much of the rest of the world.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35567986

The implicit assumption that all readers are Americans is ridiculous enough, making it an explicit reason for fudging the numbers to make a tire fire of public safety seem like it's just a dumpster fire is absurd.

If you wish to fly safely, fly in countries and on airlines that observe stricter requirements on pilot training, rest, and CRM, and which are rigorous about maintaining their planes.

South east asia doesn't literally mean "everything that is south and east in Asia". Just like how Europe isn't an actual continent but an arbitrary border that defines itself, in reality, by "the place where white people live in the West of the continent and who aren't Russians". Because the actual contiguous landmass, is, well, Eurasia, and Europe is an arbitrary human color that paints something that doesn't exist over the world.

https://dppa.un.org/en/northeast-asia

The United Nations define Northeast Asia as being: Japan, China, Mongolia, South and North Korea.

From wikipedia :

> The term Northeast Asia was popularized during the 1930s by American historian and political scientist Robert Kerner. Under Kerner's definition, "Northeast Asia" includes the Japanese Archipelago, the Korean Peninsula, the Mongolian Plateau, the Northeast China Plain, and the mountainous regions of the Russian Far East, stretching from the Lena River in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east

>The definition of Northeast Asia is not static but often changes according to the context in which it is discussed.

If you think really hard about what those countries have in common, something that isn't related to a rational view of geography, it's that they're asians who don't look too brown. Yes, the origins of the definitions of SEA vs NEA are racially motivated and they're terms we're stuck with because most of the world knows what you mean when you talk about SEA vs NEA.

https://src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/publictn/acta/15/kotokin/ko...

> "On the intimate frontiers between the Russian and the Chinese empires," Kerner wrote in the 1920s, "are face to face the world's largest, fastest-growing white population and the world's largest, ablest and perhaps fastest-growing yellow population." Much the same could be said seventy years later, even if we would disavow the racial categories that provided much of the attraction for Kerner

Those definitions were written by people who didn't shy away from calling others "Yellow population". But they also became part of the language enough that even entities like the United Nations won't bother trying to change them.

In fact, none have died doing either of those things independently.

And the poster upthread talked about airlines operating in the US, not just US airlines. That would include, e.g. airlines from EU countries that fly to the US, and even have some domestic hops here.

A Delta Connections commuter flight killed 49 in Lexington, KY in 2013.

Note that this was a Bombardier plane, not a Boeing, and it was the pilot taking the wrong runway, not a plane issue.

(Whether to count it as "aboard a major airline" is a semantic question that isn't very interesting.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_airlines_of_the_United_S...

So, the word "major" means that the GP was at least technically correct. (You can argue that it doesn't matter, because if Delta relabeled it, they should own the results...)

Comair started a regional airline. They partnered with Delta. Then Delta bought 20% of them in 1986 and the other 80% of them in 1999.

If you want to call that a meaningful distiction then I don't know what to say.

It's like claiming Instrgram is distinct from Meta because ??? I don't even know, they kept the name separate? WhatsApp is separate?

Still, it doesn’t really change the upshot. No manufacturer was at fault here. And even if you include this flight in the data, flying in the U.S. is safer than any other form of travel.

I chose to limit it to airlines operating in the U.S. due to our generally higher expectations around maintenance, pilot training, and workload, amongst other things. I chose to limit it to major commercial airlines because that is what most people fly on, and it removes extremely small tourism operators who are often far less rigorous in their safety practices and which are crewed by relatively low-hour pilots who are working up toward qualifying for a major. It also eliminates cargo aircraft which are not relevant. And lastly, I’m choosing to include only passengers to eliminate things like people walking onto active runways.

Hopefully you can understand why I chose these limitations. Not to skew the data, but because it is most relevant to most people on this site, and because it’s not really insightful or helpful to point out that there are many more crashes in the many countries out there with lax safety practices.

Indeed it does not, which made the omission more strange or innocent. What was ridiculous was the apologia subthread.

> small tourism operators who are often far less rigorous in their safety practices, with relatively low-hour pilots.

There have been some improvements (in part due to these accidents) but this isn’t so far off from the regionals which was definitely a factor in both Comair and Colgan.

But crucially the majors are going to sell you a connecting ticket on them like any other, and they code share and mile just the same. Many of them are wholly owned to boot.

It was my intent to exclude microscopic commercial operators doing charter flights, tourism, and other similar activities.

I sincerely apologize for the omission, I did not recognize that that Comair flight was operating under the United banner.

I hope you can recognize that a company privately operating a fleet of seven floatplanes is not particularly relevant to a discussion about the safety of mass passenger air travel, in much the same way that a carnival operating a rollercoaster is not meaningful when discussing passenger rail.

They were, prior to the their closure, the oldest operating airline in the US and something like #3 worldwide, post-dating only KLM and one of the other European flag carriers. (Lufthansa, maybe? I don't have the list handy)

I'm also pretty sure that you, nor anyone you know, nor anyone they know has ever flown on Chalk's.

Your whole approach here feels rather bad faith/no true Scotsman-y. Of course you’ll have no fatal crashes if you say every fatal crash doesn’t count for some reason or another as not a real crash.

The high-quality training that resulted in a pilot being unable to discern the correct runway to use?

Your line of argument here and elsewhere in this thread is nonsense, especially because the very US authorities you're lauding disagree with you.

If the foreign operations of Boeing aircraft weren't relevant to their safety everywhere, then the FAA wouldn't have grounded the MAX worldwide due to crashes that happened in Indonesia and Ethiopia.

Is your argument that better-trained pilots are expected to be perfect? Because my argument is that better-trained pilots result in fewer overlapping holes in the Swiss cheese model.

> If the foreign operations of Boeing aircraft weren't relevant to their safety everywhere, then the FAA wouldn't have grounded the MAX worldwide due to crashes that happened in Indonesia and Ethiopia.

The FAA being extremely cautious and willing to take serious measures to protect passenger safety is strongly in line with my argument.

I make no claims regarding the safety of airlines operating in South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. I don't think the safety records of those airlines are particularly relevant to the majority of those on HN nor to the manufacturers of the airplanes they operate (and which are frequently barely maintained).

By hours, flying is substantially safer than car or foot, on par with trains. By quantity of trips, substantially less safe than walking.

But of course, all the historical problems have been fixed...

As for the third, it was later speculated that they could possibly have already died before encountering airport fire and rescue vehicles. This is still controversial; it is also possible that the original sequence of events was correct.

The primary cause of the crash was a profound lack of airmanship by the flight-deck crew. There was also some mode confusion with the autopilot and autothrottle; however they should have overcome this using fundamental aviation skills. Nobody was minding the actual throttle state.

Either way, it is worth noting the other two fatalities. Thank you.

Why link to a source that says directly opposite of what is being claimed? It doesn't make sense to me.