Yes, driving is STILL more deadly than flying in this particular model of plane, by far. ““Motor vehicle traffic” deaths in the U.S. in 2013, the most recent full year of data available, totaled 33,804, for a death rate of 10.7 per 100,000, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Considering deaths in the U.S. that year totaled slightly less than 2.6 million, the individual American driver’s odds of dying as a result of an injury sustained in an automobile crash (which include pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists involved in car crashes) come out to about 1 in 77 — making it one of the highest-probability causes of death tracked by the CDC.”
10.7/100,000 as opposed to 2/100,000-200,000. And that is while I hope they will fix this plane’s problems soon, I would still fly in it after being more nervous about driving to the airport.
Safer per trip, but I don’t know about “per vehicle” when it comes to the Max. 350 in service, 2 catastrophic accidents. If we had a new bus model that blew up 2 out of the first 350, they’d be taken off the road. And partly because the bus lobby isn’t nearly as strong as the corporate airline & plane manufacturing lobby in the US. The fact that the US is close to the only country that hasn’t grounded them is a mark of the influence of lobbyists here.
Ah…car recalls. We have two right now on one of our cars, but they are not grounding the fleet of cars. It’s our choice whether to drive the car…or not. Let’s just say…we aren’t using the passenger seat in one car until that recall is done.
We don’t have the same choice when planes have issues. The airlines choose our aircraft. I am concerned that if they don’t ground the planes, that the airlines will swap them with different route aircraft.
@MaineLonghorn And you only did the odds for dying in a car crash in the US. The Max 8 hasn’t crashed in the US, so that data point by comparison would be zero. Add in world-wide car crashes (at least for countries it flies in) to get the whole comparison. (Even the Americans who died, died in other countries, so compare those to those who have died in car crashes in other countries.) I don’t feel like doing that math, but I’ve no doubt as to what the end result would be.
And I’m still glad we’re flying on the 700 instead of the Max 8. There’s no doubt that 2/350 is worthy of seeing if a fix is needed to make it even safer, but if we had no choice, I’d still fly.
Read this morning that one of the pilot unions is telling their members that they can request not to fly the max 8 and there won’t be any penalties. I would suspect that would ground the planes pretty quickly if no one was willing to pilot them.
I saw a couple news reports this morning that 5 US pilots have reported some kind of issue with the MACS - but no crash, so no publicity (sorry, can’t search for source right now),
There’s a similar article on pilot complaints on cnn too @intparent Scary and maddening. Seems like enough to ground the fleet for now until the issue(s) can be fully understood and fixed.
Quote @intparent ? Re: negotiations. What I read said the FAA was not doing any reviews of the correction plan proposed by Boeing for 5 weeks during the shutdown.
The Politico article is missing some details that were included in the Seattle Times article on same subject. The pilots were able to turn off autopilot and stabilize the plane so that was not apparently the same issue as the one that crippled the Lion Air flight. Can’t find the article right now but will - I remember the details well because I read the article out loud to Mr last night.
I have read that a flight attendant’s union said that, but haven’t heard that a pilot’s union was telling members that. Regardless, I doubt that many pilots would turn the airplane down (without having full details of the accidents), because pilots have pretty big egos, and most think this wouldn’t happen to them because they can handle anything. It’s a common personality trait.
Incidents where the autopilot and/or autothrottles not doing what is commanded and what is expected is not uncommon, for any aircraft. There are incidents that happen all the time, which is why you have to monitor the autopilot/autothrottles to make sure they are doing what you want them to. Most of these incidents don’t end up in safety reports…usually people only write up reports when they think they have done something they might get an FAA violation for (covering their butts) or if it’s really egregious. Generally the fix is to disconnect the autopilot and/or autothrottles, put the airplane in the position that you want it to be in, and then connect everything back up again. If it keeps malfunctioning, you switch to the other system or continue to fly manually. What is weird about the MCAS is that it only is working when the autopilot is off, so if it’s malfunctioning, it’s not like you can just disconnect the autopilot and fly it manually and fix the problem (which is the normal response for pilots, you do it immediately).
Too funny. I don’t monitor Twitter, so I didn’t see that. But I’d suspect that many of those people are either not pilots, or have 50 hours in a Cessna 152, claiming to be experts.
