It makes me very angry that these companies are not installing aircraft with true safety features on all planes as part of the package. Just infuriates me and now I have a deep distrust of them. Someone does have blood on their hands and the sad thing is I don’t think they really care at all, or it would have been installed.
@conmama I agree with you wholeheartedly!! The airlines are making money hand over fist, on the bs fees that they charge for everything while squeezing us like sardines onto the plane. It’s awful that they wouldn’t get all of the safety features especially given there is a pilot shortage.
Another example of the ugly side of American capitalism: profits above all including people’s lives.
There is fault on both sides apparently. The non American airlines decided to cheap out on the safety equipment. While it probably should have been standard equipment, the purchasing airlines should also have specced out the features as well.
Until the lawyers get a hold of them.
Just remember all of this when the tech companies start talking about autonomous cars.
Before going off on some sort of evil capitalist/engineer/etc tangent, I think people should read the history of the MCAS. It was originally just a mild automated correction to the stabilizer that wouldn’t cause a crash (I’ve read that the pilots wouldn’t even notice its action, which was intended to prevent a stall and crash). Not a critical component. After test flights, the engineers started increasing the range of the correction allowed. At some point, the range reached what was obviously a critical value to safety. That’s when the whole MCAS system should have been reevaluated.
I have been flying back and forth to San Antonio from Dallas recently to see my Dad, who suffered a severe stroke while visiting me over Thanksgiving. This particular airline (which continued to fly the referenced aircraft until forced to take them out of service) has always been known to have great service. But it’s hard to ignore the small seats that make average sized or even lean people feel their personal space is being invaded by other lean people.
Anyway, I’ve flown 8 legs back and forth recently, and on each and EVERY leg I’ve flown since November, the captain has announced early in the flight that due “to expected turbulence, there will be no beverage service.” On none of those legs did we actually encounter any turbulence. Each time, we’ve gotten the same speech “well, we got lucky with the turbulence, but please understand that the safety of our crew is a top priority!” I’m sorry, I’m not buying that. If they are cutting corners on something like beverage service, are they also cutting corners on even more expensive things like safety? I have to wonder.
D2 flew round trip from Dallas to New Orleans last weekend on this same airline. She texted me that they got this same speech about turbulence cancelling beverage service-on both legs! So I wrote them an email and said I didn’t appreciate feeling like they were lying to their customers. I did receive a response saying essentially that “they would have no reason to lie about this,” but proceeded to give me a $50 voucher. Lol, I figured they would just send me a couple of free drink coupons-that of course would probably end up being useless on my next flight with “expected turbulence.”
I’m going to drive for the next few trips. It is a five hour trip each way, but I like the solitude and being able to listen to audio books that I probably wouldn’t normally choose if reading my Kindle.
The tendency to make additional safety features optional, and for many buyers not to choose those options, is not unique to aircraft.
Consider new cars. When new safety features become available, they are typically optional (remember side airbags in the 1990s-2000s, electronic stability control in the 2000s, and forward crash warning and automatic braking in the 2010s?), and many buyers do not choose them.
The whole MCAS system wouldn’t even be needed if they redesigned the plane to handle the larger engines. But designing a new plan cost money. They chose to skimp instead. As things trickle out about this plane, the design issues, the computer issues, lack of training and manuals, the public will soon ground this plane for good. It will be hard to restore it’s reputation.
I mean, who makes an easy to install, inexpensive safety feature OPTIONAL, and uses it as a moneymaker add-on? Either it was necessary or not–to call it optional implied it was not. Tragically.
Cars: https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/cars-with-advanced-safety-systems/
Houses: how many people having new houses built install fire detectors, CO detectors, and fire sprinklers beyond what is required by building codes?
Regarding aircraft, note that United ordered its 737 Max 9 aircraft with neither the angle-of-attack-disagree indicator nor the angle-of-attack gauge, according to the recent New York Times article on the subject. That article and the previous one in The Air Current mention that American already had both features, while Southwest had the angle-of-attack-disagree indicator and is adding the angle-of-attack gauge.
Go figure, the airline I use the most, didn’t have either.
But the difference between the cars and houses argument vs. the airplane is that the individual that could die makes that decision with the former. Other people are making that decision for us which might result in a horrific death.
When you travel by air to some place, you may get into a rental car at your destination and drive to a hotel to sleep in that night. The rental car company may have chosen not to buy the optional safety equipment in the rental cars*, and the hotel may have been built with minimum-required safety standards by a local building code that may be less strict that you would prefer.
*Actual event in 2006-2008: https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2009/08/report-enterprise-rented-and-sold-cars-without-side-curtain-air-bags/index.htm and https://www.zdnet.com/article/enterprise-rent-a-car-removed-airbags-from-fleet-cars-sold-them-didnt-inform-customers/ . The side curtain airbags were normally standard equipment on those cars, but the rental car company ordered the cars without to save $175 per car.
Even though car accidents stats are far worse than airline accidents, the fact that you feel you have some degree of control is huge psychologically. Complete lack of control over your fate is scary, and that’s part of the horror many probably feel at this situation.
@ucbalumnus , you have a point. But it just doesn’t seem the same, and right now I can’t seem to express why. @Nrdsb4 says part of it well.
I’m not sure if anyone has linked this article yet, but for people who are still interested, I think this article nails it. Really good investigative reporting.
If won’t open on my iPad. Bummer.
Very thorough article, @busdriver11. Thank you.