
Crashed jets lacked key safety features because Boeing charged extra for them - patagonia
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/21/crashed-boeing-jets-lacked-key-safety-features-that-were-add-ons.html
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denzil_correa
> Neither safety feature was mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration,
> but experts say it is key to flight safety.

Clearly, the accountability also lies with the authority who allows them. If
these features were key to flight safety - the respective authority should
mandate them.

On a tangential note - I tried to access the full NYT story in "Private Mode"
and NYT detects that I use private mode [0]. The private mode isn't so private
anymore.

[0] [https://imgur.com/a/lKEJD6f](https://imgur.com/a/lKEJD6f)

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marshray
I have the same reaction as most people to want to jump to "well safety
features shouldn't be optional".

But in practice such a policy translates into "no one is allowed to invest in
better safety." Different parties have different threat models, e.g. consider
the differences between passenger and cargo aircraft, or over-land vs trans-
continental. It makes it difficult to exceed safety standards, which were
often just intended to establish a baseline.

Floors become ceilings, as they say.

~~~
anoncake
That argument may make sense for costly safety features, but not in this case.

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marshray
It will _always_ possible after an major airliner crash to say that one
particular thing that would have prevented it would have been worth the cost.

But investing in just the specific mitigation needed to prevent the next
disaster is not an option that we have. We only get to choose a level of
investment in protection against classes of risks based on human judgement of
the probabilities involved.

~~~
anoncake
The feature in question is a warning light if two sensors disagree. You could
implement that with a microcontroller, an LED and two wires. In practice, it
might not even require additional hardware at all. We do know in advance that
its worth the cost because the cost is absolutely neglible.

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StrictDabbler
Society needs to have a conversation about upselling.

The business model of "this is the product, here are your luxury features"
that was popularized in America in the 20th century on products like cars and
blenders is now applied to thousands of product categories because it is an
easy way to get clients to overpay.

Clients will generally keep approving added expenditures until they hit their
allocated budget for a given purchase. It's a hack to prevent clients spending
less than the maximum they're willing to spend.

The consequences of this model being applied to things like jets and bridges
are catastrophic but it's so well-suited to American puritanical values (brass
buttons? on a suit? Good lord!) that few people ever question it.

Should "it won't kill or maim you as often" ever be an acceptable feature, on
any product?

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x2f10
> The business model of "this is the product, here are your luxury features"
> that was popularized in America in the 20th century on products like cars
> and blenders is now applied to thousands of product categories because it is
> an easy way to get clients to overpay.

It's how you raise prices without people noticing. Video games have been doing
this for years. "Your game is still $60! But, I mean, if you want the full
experience, want to be competitive, and want to play all the content, well,
that's $80+."

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GregoryPerry
Or in the alternative, the airline that purchased the jet opted to not pay for
key safety features...

~~~
julianlam
I would argue that a business operating with the possibility of such a high-
impact failure ought to bundle in safety features and redundancies as a matter
of course.

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sschueller
How much does such an option cost?

I mean a plane is in the multiple millions so an indicator light that costs
several thousands is still just a tiny fraction of the cost.

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EarthIsHome
This shouldn't be an option in the first place.

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jwat0v
Crashed jets lacked key safety features because the companies that bought them
didn't want to pay for them

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salawat
Again. Systems required for safe operation of a device by a reasonably
competent operator are _not_ something you consider an option.

It's cheaper and safer in the long run to just do the right bloody thing,
since you get the whole economy of scale windfall.

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k7mqqn
Define required. Required by whom? Not by the FAA, at least. So they are
extra. So operators decide whether they buy them or not. They didn't, and this
is the result.

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salawat
Required by reasonable/responsible engineering principles.

If you add an automated system that has high control authority, which is fed
data by a failure prone sensor, you add redundant information sources,
compare/average out inputs and alert the operator to the possible technical
issue.

This is a well known engineering pattern. No one tells you to do it. You're
expected to be able to identify when something is high risk and act
accordingly. If you seriously believe that regulations change designs rather
than codifying lessons learned the hard way, I don't know what to tell you, as
apparently we start from two completely different sets of axioms when it comes
to implementing things others depend on.

The FAA are there to maintain a collection of lessons paid for in blood, and
to provide a general process to follow which strikes a balance between
manufacturers doing their thing, and the public's interest in not crashing
with no survivors, and maintain a cohesive set of guidelines that govern the
industry. An FAA inspector can't be looked at as outsourceable common sense
for manufacturers and designers however. Due diligence starts at home.

It is up to the people signing off and the engineers overseeing everything to
ensure that design is safe, and all outcomes are such that the public interest
is best served. Executives and sales be damned.

Unethical engineering costs innocent lives. Dollars are _(or should be)_
secondary in all regards.

The fact this is even debatable demonstrates how much safety ethos has taken a
back seat to economic factors in the modern aviation industry.

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free652
A lot of modern can have collision prediction systems, pretty sure that a lot
of them are optional on cheaper trims.

I would say that those are key safety features.

