Why on earth would I do that? The only thing I'm thinking about during such a situation is solving the problem at hand with the knowledge and tools available.
Because that'd be part of the knowledge and tools.
Boeing are
ready to begin issuing their software update for MAX aircraft. MCAS warnings will be standard. It's not clear if three AoA vanes will be used for "two out of three" fault detection, I guess we'll find out more.
This is concerning. They haven't even completed the investigation of Ethiopian Air (to the best of my knowledge). I haven't even heard it reported that it has been identified as a linked event. I mean, I get that everyone assumes it will be, and that the evidence so far has pointed us in that direction, but to date I've not seen findings that say it's the same phenomenon. I've heard nothing about black box recordings of the pilot on EA, I've heard nothing about what procedures they tried or didn't try during that flight. Perhaps I'm just not well connected enough to the news (I'm not the most connected person here), but this seems
extremely premature, and it seems premature precisely because of how much money Boeing and all of the airlines they service are losing during the grounding. So if you're looking for a money grab at the expense of safety, this kinda looks like that to me.
I was not excited to tie the EA crash to the Lion Air crash early on until we had some evidence. We got a little bit, and that was enough for some people to call for grounding. Fine. But until we get some more, I have no idea how they can know how to fix the issue.
Also I don't care who or what makes Boeing look bad, don't conflate me wanting logical and intelligent conversation and fact gathering with me wanting to protect Boeing. I have no stake in Boeing and in fact as said previously when someone jumped to this conclusion due to lack of a tangible argument,
I know this will seem unbelievable to some but I'm right there with you. This is going to seem self-serving, but I'm going to say it anyway:
I don't want to die in a plane. I know that comes as a shocker, but it's the truth. I think about aircraft safety a lot, and I have two degrees in Aerospace Engineering. I studied all of the ways that they come apart, and how the control surfaces work and fail. I don't work in this industry, I opted for the "space" part of Aerospace, but I studied it enough to know a little bit about the industry and about safety concerns. Maybe not as much as some in this thread.
Back to my thesis, I don't want to die in a plane. I trust my life when I board one to, ostensibly the pilot, who has the same interest I do. If the plane is crap, and the airline is crap, the pilot should refuse to take off. The buck stops with that person, and at the end of it that's where my chips have to be placed. But beyond the pilot, I expect the airline to care a great deal about safety. They're responsible for maintenance and configuration of the aircraft, for vetting pilots, and for staffing all of it appropriately. Ethiopian and Lion are the brands that are first and foremost involved when one of their planes goes down - so they have a strong interest in not flying aircraft that are not airworthy. I get that they'll pivot to blaming someone else (Boeing in this case) when a plane goes down, but prior to the crash I rely on their sense of self-preservation to keep their airplanes in the sky. After the crash, I want to see them pay in terms of PR, because that maintains every other airline's sense of self-preservation.
Beyond the pilot, and beyond the airline, I expect the manufacturer to not want their planes to go down out of a similar sense of self-preservation as the airline. But I do not trust big companies. I've seen too much first hand how big companies screw things up (even without intending to). People like to pretend that big companies are big nasty greedy evil people who act as one concerted force for darkness. It's not that at all. Big companies are full of individual self-interested people. Many of whom are myopically focused on impressing their boss or making their quarterly numbers or just making sure that if something goes wrong someone else gets the blame. Almost all of them take some degree of pride in their work, but that manifests itself in different ways. Some of them want to see a good product, but some of them take pride in shaving time and money off of the product and raising profits - not for themselves, but for the company. They view it more holistically as helping keep the lights on. The larger the company, the more difficult it is to run, and I'm not sure I've seen a very large company run very well. So I expect Boeing to keep their planes in the air, and I also expect to see some dumb-something-ery out of them.
Beyond Boeing, there is the FAA. But the FAA is the one I trust the least. The FAA has no self-preservation interest. None of the employees there are going to get fired for a crash, certainly not for a crash happening outside of the country. But even within, a crash is bound to happen. The FAA employees no doubt have a sense of self-worth and accomplishment, and that is all we have to rely on to have them push for safety. Government agencies are run typically "by the book" with very little leeway for creativity or innovation. So often there is a checklist, that has served them well in the past, and the checklist is adhered to. And if the checklist is adhered to, the job is done. This I do not trust.
This is the network that I have to give me confidence to step on a plane. In order of criticality and trust, it is 1) pilot and staff, 2) airline, 3) manufacturer, 4) government. I practically expect nothing out of number 4. So you tell me they abdicated responsibility and I say "of course, what more would you expect" and move on without raising an eyebrow. I also expect some moronic behavior out of the manufacturer - mostly because I don't believe that large companies can really and truly be competent. Still, criminal behavior or cover-ups will happen from time to time and that's totally unacceptable. Also unacceptable is repeated incompetence (as Boeing is currently demonstrating with their rush-to-fix). I do not tolerate moronic behavior from airlines, though it's bound to happen. You're getting too close to my seat at that point. And an incompetent pilot is somewhat criminal (depending on the details of course).
I hope this explains my reactions to some of these stories.
