[dynisor]

74gear[1] on YouTube is a 747 Captain. It's a great aviation channel in general if anyone is interested in that stuff. He had mentioned two things that really illustrated to me your point a while back:

A) Stuff breaks on planes. All the time. They are complex machines, but they typically have so many redundancies that unless there is a completely catastrophic failure, they are still perfectly safe to fly. An example: a starter is out in one of the engines, but there are four starters for an engine. Once the issue is known, if they can't fix it where they are currently at, they will do an empty flight (well, crew only) to the next maintenance hub and get it fixed. Before a plane even gets off the ground they have a checklist and do their best to determine if the plane is airworthy and safe to fly or not. If they feel the plane is unsafe, they can refuse to fly it. It is important to them to make sure the plane is safe to fly because:

B) They also don't want to die.

That last bit really hit hard for me for some reason, it's hilarious but at the same time eye opening. I think that I just never really thought of it in that way before. Maybe it's just me.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/@74gear

[breadwinner]

> They are complex machines, but they typically have so many redundancies

But Boeing reduced redundancies, presumably to cut costs. The 737 MAX planes that crashed only had one AoA sensor. Where else did they cut costs? Where else did they reduce redundancies? The public trust has been lost. Boeing needs to design a new plane from scratch, this time let engineers design the plane without interference from accountants.

[Reason077]

The 737 MAX, like all 737s, always had two AoA sensors. The problem was that Boeing engineers wrote software for the 737 MAX which could make critical flight control inputs based on the data from one sensor only. And didn't really tell pilots about it.

The fix, amongst other mitigations, was to have the MCAS software cross-check inputs from both AoA sensors.

[schlauerfox]

This is VERY bad engineering practice, you throw away knowns for unknowns. A blue sky design isn't a fix. Especially if your corporate culture has the wrong leadership. First year engineers take engineering economics for a reason. Money is always an object.

[cesarb]

> The 737 MAX planes that crashed only had one AoA sensor.

IIRC, it had two, but each of the computers only used the sensor on its side; which was OK for the original (pre-MAX) design because of they way these sensors were originally used by it.

[satellite2]

Yes but do the flight crew have the ability to tell if a plane is safe to fly?

Without a deep understanding of the design of the plane they rely a lot on the metrics that the plane manufacturer display and on the manufacturers manuals to interpret them.

[burnte]

> Yes but do the flight crew have the ability to tell if a plane is safe to fly?

Yes, it's literally part of the job of the pilots, by federal regulation. If the captain feels the flight isn't fit to fly, the captain can say it's a no go, period.

[vkou]

> Yes but do the flight crew have the ability to tell if a plane is safe to fly?

Do you have the ability to tell if a street is safe to cross?

Most of the time, yes.

Sometimes, you can't tell for sure, but you cross anyways.

Sometimes, you are dead wrong about your judgement. Shit happens. Nobody expects 100% certainty.

The problem here may be that Boeing may be falling to meet the expectation of 99.????% certainty, and regressing down to 99.????% certainty, due to a broken corporate culture.

[trompetenaccoun]

>It's a great aviation channel in general if anyone is interested in that stuff.

It's an aviation channel for people who aren't into aviation. Lot's of clickbait + obvious optimization of titles and topics to appeal to the masses. The Mr Beast of pilots.

[rpmisms]

Mentour Pilot is for people interested in aviation. He does breakdowns/analyses of plane incidents—not just crashes. He's also a certified trainer on at least one type.

[dynisor]

Hmm. I think that's interesting. I don't agree with you, but let's take your statement as fact.

What's wrong with that?

The content itself is generally him explaining from a pilot's point of view situations that have happened, like crashes or ATC issues, or responses to clickbait misinformation from other places on social media. His responses tend to be reasonable and enjoyable and for people who "aren't into aviation," maybe his videos will make them more interested. He has never made it about himself, the guy got promoted to Captain and didn't (and hasn't?) even mentioned it. Even his avatar and banner have him at 3 bars. It seems to me that he genuinely cares about aviation and informing people who aren't familiar with it. I feel like he brings a lot of value.

If you're not into it's fine, but I think it's a bit unfortunate you feel the need to play gatekeeper.

[dotancohen]

Sounds just up my alley. I know nothing about airplanes yet find them fascinating.

[Arn_Thor]

Ok, so you don’t like the titles. Do you have any problems with the actual content—the thing that matters?

[_ea1k]

Regarding that last part, you'd be surprised at how many people at the FAA/DOT also haven't come to this realization.

[bombcar]

The last part doesn't always work the way you'd like it to - most aviation disasters these days have very definite things the pilots could have done to save themselves and everyone, which they failed to do.

[mckn1ght]

They should be forced to read all the certification application material during test flights of the vehicles in question.