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0 pointsavar8y ago0 comments

Flying jumbo jets is bad business these days, but the immediate reason for why these carriers dropped the 747 in 2017 was because starting in 2018 they wouldn't have been allowed to fly due to new FAA rules around fuel tank inerting.

Of course putting "we won't be allowed to fly them since the regulator thinks they're too likely to explode coming next year, but we're still selling flights on them!" in your own press releases is bad for business, so most of the news only mentions other reasons.

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tomalpha8y ago· 3 in thread

Do you have a source for that?

I’m particularly interested because I’m due to fly on a British Airways 747 in a couple of weeks to the US.

As an aside, BA appears to have the largest remaining passenger 747 fleet[0] and doesn’t plan to fully retire them until 2024.

[0] https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/last-ba-747-400-t...

avarOP8y ago

Start with this thread[1] from HN a couple of months ago (search for "inert"). This has been a long time coming[2] and is in response to TWA 800 which was a 747 that exploded in 1996 due to lack of fuel tank inerting[3].

The FAA issued a directive in 2008 saying that by December 26, 2017 (not 2018, sorry) [4] passenger planes flying within or into the US had to have fuel tank inerting. Many operators such as Delta and United (can't find a better source for that now than this reddit comment [5]) decided not to retrofit and flew their 747s pretty much right up to the deadline.

Other operators, such as BA (presumably) have already retrofitted their 747s and will continue flying them.

So obviously Delta and United weren't very interested in flying the 747s anyway since they consider it more economical to turn them into beer cans or cargo planes than continue flying them, but the immediate reason they're stopping at this time is because they couldn't legally continue past the deadline.

Which is all I'm pointing out here, that they've known this was coming since 2008 but didn't value the safety of their passengers enough to retrofit the planes, and continued flying them right up to the deadline.

It's worth calling out corporate doublespeak and convenient omissions whenever they occur.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15478442

2. http://www.iasa.com.au/folders/Safety_Issues/FAA_Inaction/in...

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_800

4. https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/...

5. https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/7bxs0x/final_unit...

valuearb8y ago

The 747 without fuel tank inerting is still has a very good safety record. It's been over 20 years since one has had a fuel tank explosion. FAA estimates are without inserting a passenger jet risks a fuel tank explosion every 60M hours, or roughly every 30,000 years. Lastly, it's unclear how well the FAA inerting requirements will even work, they only reduce oxygen levels to 12%, while military jets require 9% to eliminate explosion risks.

It's silly to spend a large amount of money to retrofit planes near the end of their useful lives with safety equipment of questionable benefit. Especially when every bit of equipment introduces it's own new risks.

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tomalpha8y ago

Thanks. I’ll get reading.

Edit: completely agree with calling out corporate doublespeak

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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