I’m not flying anymore. Between the GHG annual personal emissions and the stunning staggering massively deadly failures of rushed Boeing product launches. Finally I will note the whole damn process is dehumanizing and terrible.
The worst part of these revelations is that the aviation industry is exalted as the standard other industries should look up to when it comes to safety.
If Boeing can't escape the perverse incentives that tempt every company, then what company can and why are we relying on this economic model to drive such a high stakes industry?
>The worst part of these revelations is that the aviation industry is exalted as the standard other industries should look up to when it comes to safety.
I don't see why that's "the worst part". Flying is the safest mode of travel, and among airliners the 737NG is one of the safest planes in aviation history. The fact that cracks have been discovered doesn't change that, and the routine inspections which have discovered these cracks and will lead to them being fixed is precisely the reason why these aircraft, and the aviation industry as a whole, are so incredibly safe.
In fact, finding and correcting faults in airplanes happens constantly. Up until the Boeing debacle this was just something that happend while nobody was looking. Now journalists are riding the scare wave generated by the relevations following the 737 max crashes and dragging all these fairly routine happenings out into the open with disproportionate coverage.
The primary reason why air travel is so safe is that each and every failure in production becomes a major news item for days.
So the system broke somehow, and the news will keep hammering it until someone somewhere learns their lesson. We hope.
Yes, they will go after a bunch of false positives too in the process, but the thing with weeding out the true negatives reliably is that you have to be paranoid about the false positives too.
Cutting the margins too fine and skipping the 'paranoid, inefficient' checks is how we got here.
Focusing a really big spotlight on the entire industry is part of the feedback loop.
The media is ignoring 80 to 90 percent of incidents that happen in aviation that lead to investigations. A fair bunch results in technical changes to aircraft, but it is mostly too boring for a layperson.
The Politics of Attention means we've always been reactive. Too much outrage. Too few eyeballs. Resulting in triage. Made worse as investigative journalism has been gutted these last few decades. Made worse as engagement driven business models (ad revenue) begat outrage culture.
>and the routine inspections which have discovered these cracks
Unfortunately this was not a routine check, it seems that routine checks did not found this issue and only after checks were done specifically to look for this issue more cracks were found.
By mile or by minute? It might seem pedantic, but it just means you're better off flying from New York to LA than driving. It doesn't mean you're better off than staying put.
Cracks are not necessarily something critical. As long as they are identified early enough the affected parts are simply added to the relevant checks (C, D, whatever) and after a predefined number of cycles or hours. Also ad-hoc checks might be required.
Aviation is the standard exactly because defects are identified and handled the way they are, they also tend to be remedied quickly. If not all affected aircraft are grounded, like the 737MAX.
These 737NG cracks can by no means be compared to the 737MAX clusterfuck. The former is pretty normal while the latter is a safety and certification issue of enormous dimensions.
> The worst part of these revelations is that the aviation industry is exalted as the standard other industries should look up to when it comes to safety.
It's crazy how much the flight experience varies between countries. I recently traveled between Sweden and Germany and the entire experience from online check-in to reaching my destination was painless and very convenient. There was very little queuing and the longest one was on the tax free when I bought water... Didn't even have to show my passport during the flights and I was never checked by security.
Returning to America always makes me feel like I'm entering a place that's slightly more dystopic and police state than Norway. From the long queues at the border crossing, to the appearance of military worship advertisements, America feels a bit weird these days.
There must have been some security checkpoint when you entered the departure area of the airport. But the rest I agree with.
I'm used to the european airports - they are unfortunately like shopping malls, and totally in your face about it. Enter through security right into a big display of perfumes and other overpriced goods, that's the standard thing.
What surprised me when I was over in Newark airport (and in NY JFK too) was actually how underexploited it was commercially. That's great, just surprising.
I flew from finland to germany yesterday and had the same experience. Checked in online, didn't wait in any lines, and never had to show an ID in the process. I am american, and did not even have to enter my passport details into the online checkin.
It's weird. I never used to be afraid of flying at all, but the 737 MAX crashes sort of "triggered" the fear for me. I still fly frequently but I find the experience terrifying now.
As a data scientist, I know the odds of something going wrong are extremely low, but unfortunately I'm not able to rationally control my emotions during flight; the fear is involuntary and difficult to suppress. It also doesn't help that I work at a large tech company and see how many bugs are in the codebase (even with some of the best software engineers in the world), and the fact that airplanes are increasingly run by software makes me feel kind of queasy.
As for direct GHG emissions, the most efficient mode of travel depends on many factors involving the models, occupancy, and route, but generally speaking, planes can become more efficient than trains for distances >= 700 miles.
Yeah, electrified rail is by far the most energy-efficient way of transportation. How that translates to CO2 emission of course depends on how the electricity is made.
