Ask HN: Would you fly on a Boeing 737 MAX?
Flying is one of my greatest fears, to the point where I require medication before each flight to avoid panic.
Despite doing my best to book flights which I am most comfortable with, I often worry about last-minute changes to my itinerary which somehow require me to board a Boeing 737 MAX to reach my destination. I feel like if this were to happen, however unlikely, I would not be able to continue my journey. I'd cancel the flight (or simply refuse to board).
Perhaps I'm behaving irrationally due to fear, but with all the news surrounding Boeing's quality control and this particular line of aircraft, I'm curious how others would feel flying in a 737 MAX? Would you be comfortable with it, or do you avoid it at all costs?
66 comments
[ 14.8 ms ] story [ 129 ms ] threadI will avoid Ryanair, for example. And check all other airlines.
Fundamentally there are many greater risks out there that I am ignoring. Boeing definitely has problems, but those problems are still less risky than many other things in my life.
On the other hand, 737MAX planes have flown thousands of times and millions of miles so far.
Even knowing the extensive QA apparatus and the level of experience in the aviation industry, no, I would personally not.
I have a far higher chance of dying under a bus / taxi in the airport drop off zone.
That is, we accept far far higher risks in other areas of our life because it would be too inconvenient and/or too expensive to solve. How much positive impact would occur if we loosened air travel safety controls?
Caution that I suggest this and a thought exercise; not an actual suggestion.
Air travel just gets more newspaper headlines than “drunk driver kills family in accident”
Almost none? I can't think of what positive impact could possibly result from that.
Increased/cheaper travel would also come with some bad externalities: Increased CO2 emissions, and possibly increased rates of cancer (high altitude is a high-radiation environment - not enough for the occasional flyer to worry about but it can add up). ...and of course the externality that lower safety controls means occasionally one of these more frequent flights will fall out of the sky.
One way to think about these kinds of questions is to reverse it - suppose flying had 10x stricter safety controls than it does today. Would the world be a better place as a result? What would be the downsides?
EDIT: I almost forgot perhaps the most important one: If flying is more convenient/cheaper, even if it's slightly less safe than currently, it is still FAR safer than driving and a shift from people driving to people flying means that relaxing flight safety may actually SAVE lives.
Yes, probably. Many places would have e.g. better rail infra if domestic flights were more expensive, and the climate would be better off.
You can argue this is anti-growth or whatever, but this is the same site complaining about RTO initiatives: Perhaps incentivizing personal travel isn't what we want to do or need anyway, and for cargo the air route really doesn't look that good.
And to re-iterate: I don’t personally think we should intentionally increase harm in this area, I just find it intriguing where we do and don’t seemingly allow harm
Not only is it great content, but the way Peter breaks down accidents and goes through all the safety barriers modern airplanes actually have, it has over time lowered my fear of flying.
Without wanting to cause undue anxiety (given it's an anonymous posting), this apparent anonymous posting by a Boeing employee on an aviation forum regarding the 737 Spirit line is pretty shocking (there's two posts, and multiple reporters in the comments are asking to contact the person for interviews):
https://leehamnews.com/2024/01/15/unplanned-removal-installa...
That said, I would pay (have paid, taking a family trip for Spring Break) slightly more for a trip on a different aircraft. It was only ~$20 per ticket and a slightly longer layover to go with a different airline that ran Airbus A320s. NB: I have little fear of flying, I love flying. I'm mostly just running the math.
Similarly, and probably more importantly, my rusty old Pontiac Vibe is a less safe vehicle (for the occupants) than my Toyota Sequoia. And my road bike is less safe for the rider than either. But I still drive the Vibe when I don't need many passengers or tow capacity, because it's way cheaper and less polluting to use, and I'm still really looking forward to commuting on my bike again when spring arrives because that's enormously cheaper and less polluting and also more fun.
I think these planes do present a greater-than-usual risk, but the risk is still very, very low.
The likelihood of me dying in an aviation accident is far lower than me dying while taking a walk to my mailbox. I used to work in aviation and trust the safety processes and culture that it has established in North America. That we continue to uncover these faults tells me that the process is working as intended.
Of course if you want to find some deaths you could broaden your selection to include other 737 MAX variants, any 737, any Boeing airplane, or perhaps even airplanes in general. Hopefully you consider the corresponding safety records in terms of flights or miles flown, perhaps even adjusted for time (modern planes are safer than 1960s planes; the first years of service for a model may be measurably, albeit typically negligibly, less safe than later years)
The flaw that caused the fatal 737 MAX crashes was something that that better trained pilots would have been able to overcome. And this would likely be the case for most problems. The recent door plug blowout did not cause a crash, for example.
So I would not be afraid to fly on a 737 MAX from a major US airline over US territory. It wouldn't be my preference but I wouldn't be afraid to.
On my last flight I smelled the distinct smell of plastic which was too hot, and it occurred to me that we were two and a half hours out of Kona and still two and a half hours from the west coast. Maybe that was irrational, but it certainly got my fears amped up a little.
It also didn't help that we were in strong turbulence for 4 straight hours and the flight was just plain uncomfortable. I wanted out of that plane in the worst way, LOL.
In short, on a forum where lots of writers could imagine founding a startup, you will find quite some people who are much more risk-affine than what is common in the general population. :-)
Most likely. But it's totally worth doing at least once. If nothing else, so you can say you've taken off in a plane more times than you've landed. It's a very unique experience in any case, I totally recommend it.
Yes, the Boeing safety issues are concerning but the odds of something happening on your flight are astronomically low. It's riskier for you to climb on a ladder to trim your trees or to be on the road driving somewhere. Check out your comparative odds of dying here[0]
The FAA claims that it's Air Traffic Controllers handle 45,000 flights per day [1]. That is only the USA. Any accident makes the news. So, do the math.
One thing that helped me was reading about the engineering that goes into the airframe of the planes. For example, no plane has ever crashed due solely to turbulence. The plane frame and wings are engineered to withstand massive loads, lightning strikes, etc.
[0] https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/preventable-death-o... [1] https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/by_the_numbers
Now that right there is a crime, and a damn shame.
Alaska has always given me the whole can, but I don't think I've flown on any of their 737 MAX's yet so it might be a MAX-specific policy. On the 737-990ER we flew on to Hawaii, not only did they give me the entire can of coke, they gave me an extra handful of Biscoff cookies! (to be fair, I was with my 11 year old son, and I think that may have had some influence...)
It also helps (or hurts, depending on your perspective) that I spend enough time perusing AVHerald to appreciate that planes break fairly routinely, and Airbus planes are as well represented as Boeing. Crashes are exceedingly rare.