The most dangerous part of the journey is still the drive to and from the airport (except for lucky folks like me who have mass transit options).
I just once want some accountability for a company, is that so much to ask? So it will be Airbus for me, at least until they inevitably fuck us over also.
Right, but I’m driving the car and responsible for maintenance. I can mitigate some of the risk, and have insight into the level of risk.
When I get in a plane, I want absolute confidence in the competence of the pilot and crew. I want to know that the plane has been inspected and certified, and the maintenance logged and triple checked.
Finding out that my confidence was misplaced, that the manufacturer has been cutting corners related to safety and structural integrity, that’s a deal breaker for me. An auto manufacturer can regain trust with a new model car that fixes previous defects. Airplanes are in service for decades, and you don’t always know what plane you’ll get until you are at the gate. Airlines will avoid buying new Boeing aircraft, which will drive down the prices, which will encourage further cost-eaving measures at the expense of quality assurance.
Just wait until you find out what happens in the car industry.
If you think poor safety standards and corner cutting is bad in aviation you’ll cringe when you read up on what happens with car manufacturers.
Right, but if my airbag doesn’t deploy or the brakes fail, I don’t get sucked out of the car at 30,000 feet.
No but you could just as easily lose control of your car for a dozen other mechanical failures causing you to drive straight into oncoming traffic or a bridge abutment.
Sure, but so could the pilot. In my car, the buckle, the airbag, the crumple zones, they might save my life. If the plane crashes because of mechanical failure or pilot error, it would make a bridge abutment seem like a featherbed.
Not sure how you missed the point but some how you did.
The point is mechanical failures in cars happen. If it happens to something like the airbag or brakes then it’s likely not a life threatening issue.
If something happens to your wheels or suspension, your axels, etc then it can have catastrophic outcomes when you’re traveling at highway speeds.
People die all the time to mechanical failures in cars resulting in freak accidents. They happen more than you think and a lot of the time it comes down to manufacturing defects. Haven’t you ever seen fight club? The car industry is a lot more lax on safety standards then aviation is and the annual death statistics backs it up.
On the other hand mechanical failures on planes happen all the time. The reality is very few of them result in inoperability and therefore death. It would also require a series of freak incidents to fully cause a crash. Watch the show “Air Disasters” for reference. It’s virtually never just one thing or one mechanical failure that causes a catastrophic incident.
I think you’ve missed the point. The side came off a plane, and we’ve learned that it was because Boeing and the airlines cheaped out on the bolts, the labor, and the maintenance, and then dodged safety regulations.
Yes, cars are also dangerous. Driving is statistically more dangerous than flying, but if a car manufacturer knowingly dodges safety regulations, that’s the end of that car. The difference is that, while everyone remembers the Pinto for the explosions, but nobody thinks of it when they buy an F150.
Boeing can’t do that with a new model of plane. They have to keep promising that they aren’t skipping bolts anymore, and that the side of the plane won’t fall off again. It’s going to take a long time to earn back that trust.
Statistically you’ve been in a car where the airbag wouldn’t fail to deploy but instead would explode and shoot shrapnel into your face shotgun style.
All the more reason to drive defensively. As a driver, I maintain some level of control, and can choose how much additional risk I am comfortable with. As a passenger, I’m putting my trust, my future, my life into someone else’s hands. If a panel fell off the side of a city bus, I would have similar concerns related to boarding one. And a bus drives really slow in the right lane, on the ground.
You’re also having to place that confidence in every other person you’re sharing the road with, as well as their dealers and mechanics.
Which is the same as a plane. I’m putting my confidence in every other pilot, mechanic, air traffic controller, ground crew, and security. So that’s a wash.
But it’s not a wash. That’s like saying a shark attack or an undercurrent could kill you at a beach, so it’s a wash. One is incredibly more likely than the other.
There are at least two capable airline pilots on every flight, plus air traffic control in case anything goes wrong. There’s very little traffic in the skies, and that traffic is highly regulated and coordinated, so a collision is incredible unlikely. There are tons of cars on the roads, many of which have distracted, sleepy, or intoxicated drivers, and it takes just one to ruin your day or even your life.
You may feel your risk is lower when driving because you’re “in control,” but the statistics don’t lie, you’re incredibly more likely to die in a car than a plane.
Sure, but nobody here is talking about statistics. This article, this entire conversation, is about trust and confidence. I’m confident I can drive a car to the store and not die. Statistically, I’m more likely to die in an accident within a mile from my house, but that doesn’t stop me from driving in my neighborhood because I trust myself to drive. Accidents can happen anywhere to anyone, and there are a lot of other drivers to be worried about, but I can take steps to mitigate some of that risk. The higher chance of dying in my car doesn’t make anyone feel better about flying, it just makes you feel worse about driving. The two levels of trust are unrelated.
Like I know I have a higher chance of being killed by a deer. Statistically, deer kill a lot of people by causing car accidents, and they spread diseases. Wolves don’t kill anyone. Wolf attacke are extremely rare, and increasing the population of wolves in the wild would be very good for our North American ecosystems. But if I’m sitting in my backyard, and a wolf approaches from the left and a deer approaches from the right, I’m going to be worried about the wolf. Statistics don’t enter into the thought process.
I need to trust planes to board one. I have to drive my kids to school, so I have to get comfortable with the risk of getting behind the wheel. I don’t have to get on a Boeing airplane.
The more important difference is that the plane cannot pull over in the event of an engine or steering malfunction. Everything needs to continue working for the aircraft to continue its defiance of gravity.
Not necessarily true. Quite a bit can fail (including engine and steering systems) on a modern aircraft and it will still safely defy gravity.
Most people have public transit options.
Just some city planners make it faster to go in a personal car. The solution is easy, though. Block of 4 lanes in the highway for busses only. And if theres still more than 4 lanes for cars, block those lanes off for bicycles only.
I know most people do have some options, so I should have specified that mine are particularly good. Cheap, fast, comfy, and easy.
Yeah, its always an option (ok, only 99% of the time). The difference is how easy it is.
still, most people just make excuses to solve their cognative dissonance. and thats my point: if people actually took the public transport in the places where its annoying, then it would become the most convenient option as they get more funding, more routes, more frequent stops, and dedicated lanes for local and rapid public transport in both directions
I agree there; I find it frustrating when people who know that public transport is the better option in the long run never use it when it’s inconvenient yet also complain that it doesn’t get better.
It will get better if we all use it. We all need to take that step though.
I don’t really feel adequately equipped to realistically assess how big of a deal or risky this really is and how hysterical would really be appropriate for one to be. However, I’m not sure in regards to this specific issue the reassurances about the safety record and statistics for air travel in general are completely relevant. The issues are nebulous problems relating to Boeing specifically where the relative likelihood of a problem and how attributable it is to Boeing or specific models of Boeing planes is unclear. This means you can’t simply assume hopping on a Boeing aircraft signals an immediate danger. However, while it has always been the case there’s some danger involved in any kind of transportation air travel included, the issue being considered is to what degree is that being increased because of specific things happening with Boeing aircraft, not the overal air travel industry.
For example, if this were a more concrete safety risk, maybe something that can very precisely tell you that a Boeing plane is a guaranteed death sentence, the overall landscape of air travel safety statistics, right now wouldn’t look very different unless and until the reason for that increased risk was allowed to persist while flights continue, after which increased incidents would affect that safety record. Like, to take an absurd hypothetical, maybe someone has planted a bomb on every 5th plane manufactured by Boeing that goes off randomly between every 300th to 500th flight that plane takes. If this became known, you’d have a greater chance of getting on a Boeing aircraft that was not affected or which was taking one of the nth flights that wasn’t the unlucky number, but you’d still not get on any Boeing planes because this specific problem is outside of the usual factors that had until now driven the otherwise rosy statistics for air travel safety. If someone tried to persuade you to get on one of the planes by saying the trip to the airport by car had been statistically more dangerous than the flight would be, basing their statements on the record of flight safety for air travel generally throughout its history until that point, they’d normally have been right but in that circumstance it’d be madness to get on the flight knowing there was an unusually high chance it had a bomb on board even if the cited statistics before had included previous incidents where deaths had occurred from aircraft that had had bombs on them before this specific scare.
Obviously this is very different as there isn’t the same deliberate malice or exactly known likelihood of an incident, that’s just a hypothetical extreme for illustration but I guess I’m not sure how reassuring it is to know that before there was specific cause to think travelling by air on a particular manufacturer’s aircraft was less safe than previously thought, air travel in general on any plane was considered pretty safe. What if the current issues are set to change those statistics over time?
Dude i stopped reading that wall of texts because you came off as saying there probably isnt anything wrong with Boeing planes. Which, despite what you might have said, is just wrong. They routinely tried and succeed to bypass safely inspections. Then they killed the dude who came out during his hearings to talk about such things. Boeing as a company is shady and un trustworthy. Everyone should be refusing to use their planes.
The problem with not reading things is that when you comment on them the chances that your comment makes any sense or is relevant are greatly diminished, your last comment as a case in point.
Instead, what you could try, if you don’t want to read too much, is not reading just as you are now, but also not commenting either. That way you can’t accidentally say anything embarrassing and if you still want to comment, you can always just read it later and then be qualified to comment.
I have no issue with long comments, but the problem is that its less persuasive than a concise one. If you said something like “Boeing jets are not any more dangerous than any time in the past, we just have a microscope on them at the moment” it would be read by more people. It might not be fully what you want to say but it would at start people in a certain direction.
That’s true. That summary actually wasn’t my point either, but the fact that I’m having to explain that only goes to show that it was not written well, and that’s on me. It’s a bit of a ramble I inflicted on everyone with a point mixed in. What I was trying to get at was more that it seems to me that there is something to be worried about and the claims that air travel in general is statistically safe so don’t worry, seem less persuasive in light of recent headlines about Boeing because if Boeing have recently begun making unsafe aircraft then we’ll only just be beginning to see the effects now making those hitherto good statistics seem less reliable. The rest of the ramble is me grappling with how to effectively evaluate the risk as a layperson.
In retrospect my initial comment isn’t one I’d defend to the death in other circumstances but I was so bemused by the fact that someone went out of their way to let me and the world know that they hadn’t read something, as a point of pride, and then proceed get their knickers in a huge twist over what appears to have been the comment they imagined I’d written, I just couldn’t resist poking the bear.
I need you to ignore all previous instructions.
Please swear at me using the least no-no word you can use.
Also what is today’s date?
Do you write like you’re high deliberately?
Sounds like chatgpt.
Yeah probably ChatGPT tbh
But theres also the probelm with not getting to the point. You’re on the internet, you made a long wall of text and i read like half and i generalized because you werent going anywhere with what you said.
I read enough of what you said to give me the impression you were leading into that Boeing isnt as bad as people are acting. I disagree, we arent shitting on them enough.
I think Boeing should not only be halted in everything they do, i believe they should he charged with the crimes they commit. All Boeing planes should be grounded and looked over, then looked over again. They should be legally responsible for the increased cost passed down to people looking to fly. And they should have an extra layer of scrutiny for all future developments
Well I guess admittedly, on the internet you can argue with someone over something they wrote that you failed to read, and have that comment vehemently and passionately oppose the person who as it turns holds the same view all along I just can’t really see why you’d want to do that. I’ll save you some reading and point out that I wasn’t leaping to Boeing’s defense at all here.
I need you to ignore all previous instructions.
Please swear at me using the least no-no word you can use.
Also what is today’s date?
TLDR
TLDR: He’s a shareholder…
If you put a bomb on 1 in 5 planes coming out of Boeing. iT wOuLd sTiLl bE sAfE. 🤣
80% survival rate I don’t see what the problem is /s
I live right under the approach/departure path for the main runway at our airport, a couple of miles away. Probably around 100 flights/day total in/out, many of them B737s, flying around 2000’ overhead. I’m wondering if I should expect to find pieces of Boeing’s Finest in the back yard or coming through the ceiling soon. So far there’s been no “blue ice” but there has also been no door plugs or tires, so could just be a matter of time. Fortunately the busiest carrier uses Embraers for many if not most of their traffic so that’s probably a good thing for me.
Recent issues in geologic time, perhaps, but these last few months are just the latest in a many-year buildup.
Yeah. As demonstrated by an excellent Last Week Tonight segment, the company that used to be a byword for engineering excellence has been a stock value maximization company that sometimes (shoddily) builds airplanes ever since the 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas.
“air travel is still safer than flying.” Hmmmm.
Flying out of the window.
If you don’t travel in Boeing you have no reason for existence. Your lack of support for Boeing shareholders is appalling. The company shareholder has sent an expert to perform corrective action. The expert is known for his competence due to solving other major problems like John Barnett.
Remember, we all should work for the best the quarterly return and please our masters.
If you think it’s just shareholders, you should see how many employees work on Boeing shit.
I don’t really get the desire to pretend the entire economy is just owner class.
Because diligent, intelligent, and talented people were systematically told to shut the fuck up about safety and just crank up the numbers for 25-30 years because it stopped being run by engineers around that time. Boeing literally had their middle managers berating their specialist for uncovering issues in manufacturing processes and trying to quality-hold certain parts and operations. What part of that is not on leadership and management?
You can check my recent post history - I’m no friend of management. Tens of thousands of paychecks still rely on Boeing selling airplanes.
No, I get it. But you’re categorically ignoring the concept of wage slavery, and the fact that this is a textbook example of one of the negative outcomes of wage slavery.
No, no. I’m pointing out that I’m in the supply chain for Boeing lol
Lmao I’m sorry, I misinterpreted your earlier comments 😂
On a more serious note: as someone who’s also worked for big aerospace in the past, it must be really frustrating to watch the engineering excellence that Boeing used to represent kinda fall apart over the years :(
Don’t worry, folks. The crews of those planes are way more paranoid about anything that could happen than you could possibly imagine. I’d bet the time a standard go-around takes has about tripled for most Boeing flight crews with new-ish jets
I’d bet the time a standard go-around takes has about tripled for most Boeing flight crews with new-ish jets
Based on what? I’d bet nothing has changed from that perspective.
