Look at how the story had all but disappeared until there was a non-fatal incident that happened to a US airline. Everyone across the media and anyone from regulators to legislators sprung into action focusing their attention and making demands of accountability.
I have zero doubt that had the door-plug came off the plane on a non-US airline, that excuses would have been made, the usual insinuations about poor quality maintenance, and issues would still be brushed under the carpet.
Likewise, had the first crash been a US airline, I'm sure there would have been an immediate grounding.
Instead, after the second crash on March 10:
> On March 11, the FAA defended the MAX against groundings by issuing a Continued Airworthiness Notice to operators.
Absolutely 0 doubt about that. Just look how at the beginning they tried to blame it all on incompetent african pilots. Human lives have wildly different values to us based on race, ethnicity, religion, remoteness etc., I don't like it but this is still very much part of human nature.
How much do you care if plane with 150 civilians falls down in remote russia or china and everybody burns to charcoal? Now compare it to same number of your neighbors or even just unknown people from your own town meeting the same fate.
It had nothing to do with racism against the victims. It’s quite literally that the level of rigor to be a pilot in Africa is not the same as what the FAA requires.
Airlines very frequently get banned from US airspace because their procedures do not meet the strict safety bar set by the FAA. So it’s very reasonable to assume that what was identified as a training gap on the MCAS operations was due to sloppy regional airline training procedures.
So it’s true that it would have been taken more seriously in the US, but it’s because the FAA and NTSB set the bar for aviation safety and crash investigation rigor world wide.
It would not have been possible on any pilot (not up just US) trained on the auto stab trim. The mistake people made earlier was assuming that Boeing made this new critical piece a critically called out training area.
xnorswap|1 year ago
I have zero doubt that had the door-plug came off the plane on a non-US airline, that excuses would have been made, the usual insinuations about poor quality maintenance, and issues would still be brushed under the carpet.
Likewise, had the first crash been a US airline, I'm sure there would have been an immediate grounding.
Instead, after the second crash on March 10:
> On March 11, the FAA defended the MAX against groundings by issuing a Continued Airworthiness Notice to operators.
jajko|1 year ago
How much do you care if plane with 150 civilians falls down in remote russia or china and everybody burns to charcoal? Now compare it to same number of your neighbors or even just unknown people from your own town meeting the same fate.
kortilla|1 year ago
Airlines very frequently get banned from US airspace because their procedures do not meet the strict safety bar set by the FAA. So it’s very reasonable to assume that what was identified as a training gap on the MCAS operations was due to sloppy regional airline training procedures.
So it’s true that it would have been taken more seriously in the US, but it’s because the FAA and NTSB set the bar for aviation safety and crash investigation rigor world wide.
kalleboo|1 year ago
kortilla|1 year ago
barryrandall|1 year ago
fuzztester|1 year ago