I think the worry people have is that safety standards are slipping, when it comes to building airplanes, specifically Boeing building airplanes. This is not something that would be noticeable in an accident statistic while it is actually happening, yet it is an extremely serious matter for the safety of aviation in the future.
That is a very condescending reponse. Auditing the procedures and documenting the problems is not panicking. Such methodical analysis is largely the opposite of panicking.
You are looking at a very superficial trailing indicator, the number of accidents.
While that's an important consideration, it is not very useful in terms of predicting future events.
Given that we now know that procedures are not being followed and records are not being kept, this tells us that the quality standards have slipped abysmally. That does not result in more accidents in the short term, but largely guarantees them in the longer term.
Boeing is equivalent to a software company with a great track record of not having security vulnerabilities who decides to get rid of the entire security team since nothing is happening and then patting themselves on the back quarter after quarter for all the money they save. Of course, we know the quality will be slipping and slipping and by the time the first vulnerability is exploited a few years later the codebase will be so riddled with holes that there might be no way to recover.
Rapid cabin depressurization is in fact a major issue for obvious reasons. The fact that no one died was a matter of luck (not at a super high altitude yet, no one sitting directly next to the door, seatbelt light still on, etc.)
The fact that airlines found many loose/missing bolts on doors in other 737s indicates that Boeing has a QC problem that could lead to future accidents. Systemic QC problems at a major plane manufacturer with aircraft components that are essential to maintaining pressurization is a major issue. The FAA is certainly treating it as such.
The door issue revealed severe quality control issues at Boeing.
How much is Boeing paying you to post this crap?
One would think there is a slightly more risk of a major disaster for flights where the door plugs haven't been properly attached, compared to others. But I guess you've looked into the numbers in order to make the strong claims you make in your comment.
> can be right now so please stop panicking.
Just because people write about this whole thing doesn't mean people are panicking, so please stop trying to stop people from doing something they probably aren't even doing in the first place.
Meanwhile, people are afraid that the manufacturer standards which have been very high since the 80s are starting to slip, with very new planes having problems.
And to fixating at door issue... isn't MCAS debacle still relatively new?
No. This is a major issue, because it demonstrates that the safety protections which have been built into the industry can actually fail on such a basic level. There has been an enormous amount of work to try to make sure that Airplanes never miss critical components of their structure. Failing to install a bolt isn't one mistake it is dozens of mistakes which need to have happened and which show that the overall mistake rate has to be high.
If the door at failed at a different point, if the seating had been different, then there would have been deaths.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Air_Flight_610
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Airlines_Flight_302
as OP said:
> I think the worry people have is that safety standards are slipping, when it comes to building airplanes, specifically Boeing building airplanes. This is not something that would be noticeable in an accident statistic while it is actually happening, yet it is an extremely serious matter for the safety of aviation in the future.
Credit is mostly due to the government here. The NTSB[1] has been a shining success.
And yes, hysteresis must be considered for transport safety.
To be fair to the author, this is very much mentioned.
And yes, luck has played a role as well. We closed out 2023 with a near-perfect record, but not without a few close calls.
Despite being a criminally negligent organization, Boeing still failed to kill anyone because of the FAA (their direct action and also airlines' fear of consequences).
By sheer luck. Loosing a door mid flight could have ended very differently.
If you counted whistleblowers sitting in their truck in a hotel parking lot, this number increases to 1.
And you're actually raising a good point here: Only US citizens get to vote on the US federal government, which controls FAA, yet many countries indirectly rely on the FAA as the primary regulator for Boeing, as far as I understand.
Maybe the regulators of a few large industrial nations or the EU have the size/staffing/funding and leverage necessary to make a difference (and that's still a few steps removed from the FAA!). Others (Ethiopa and Indonesia come to mind) are effectively at the mercy of the FAA.
Quick edit: But also the article is talking specifically about deaths, and as far as I recall no one died with the Boeing incidents. Granted the door plug one was probably pure luck (no one was sitting next to it).
- January 13, China Southern Airlines returned the MAX to service (i.e. still grounded for a small part of 2023)
- In April of 2023, it was revealed that US engineers had recommended grounding 737 Max immediately following the Ethiopian Airlines accident.
- December 28, the FAA revealed that Boeing had asked airlines to check newer 737 MAX aircraft for a possible loose screw in the rudder control system. The FAA wants to "closely monitor" the targeted inspections and consider additional measures if further loose or missing components are discovered.
> Two years later, hundreds of Max planes were grounded worldwide after the crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people.
> Combining jet and turboprop operations, IATA says there were 37 million commercial flights last year. Among those, the only deadly crash was that of an ATR turboprop in Nepal last January.
Someone both died and didn't die?
> the only deadly crash was that of an ATR turboprop
Turboprops are not jets.
At the same time, the incidents last year are not excusable. This is all the noise about, the quality control problems are inexcusable and having a safe year does not do anything to save face.
Technological advances also increase complexity which can increase risk in unforeseen ways. Here is a perfect example where a single action within a 180 millisecond window was almost enough to crash a plane [0].
Could software be made to handle it even better? Absolutely. But it's not a software error per se that caused this.
The same thing happened with vaccines to a large degree, right? A generation grows up without measles, and then they think maybe vaccinating against measles isn't really that important. After all, they never knew anybody who got it, how bad could it be?
Successful public health and aviation both require both deep engineering & science, strong top-down policies and enforcement, and robust & knowledgeable on-the-ground personnel.
And of course a public bought-into all of this.
The closest I can think of-prior and surely because I’m a poor student of history—goes back to Roman aqueducts and roads, where so many things had to go right and maintained.
[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/186184/passengers-boarde...
Even more so in case of adverse weather or any systems failures. It quickly becomes too much for one pilot, that's why only small jets are certified for single pilot operations.
Culture problems have a tendency of not showing themselves until things are extremely dire.
