
How the American fervor for deregulation contributed to the 737 Max crashes - CaptainZapp
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/03/boeing-737-max-crash-faa-regulations.html
======
randrews
Commercial aviation is one of the most regulated industries in America, so
you'd expect that if deregulation were the cause something like this would
happen somewhere else first...

~~~
eesmith
Like the Volkswagen emissions scandal? The various times when mining waste
enters drinking water supplies? The many times when E. coli or other diseases
enters the food supply (up 10% since 2013 says
[https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2019/01/17...](https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2019/01/17/food-
recalls-increasing-romaine-lettuce-beef-pirg-usda-fda-ecoli-
salmonella/2595775002/) ). The sorry state of effectively unregulated cyber
charter schools where students have "extremely lower learning growth in cyber
charter schools ... when compared to other schools" \-
[https://theconversation.com/what-cyber-charter-schools-
are-a...](https://theconversation.com/what-cyber-charter-schools-are-and-why-
their-growth-should-worry-us-68471) .

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benjohnson
Slight counter-point:

Boeing hid the new system so that they could avoid the regulatory process that
makes it very difficult to introduce anything new. Hiding the new system was
the problem that cause unsafe situation.

Another problem of same regulatory process: most private airplanes
manufactured today use leaded gas combined with 80 year old engines designed
in the 1950's. These engines have carburetors that are quite finicky.

Other aspects of this problem:

Most of us speed about 6 miles above the speed limit on the freeway - if you
travel exactly at the speed limit you'll have a new set of problems.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but I think it's necessary to suspect that
regulations that are over-burdensome can introduce odd behavior and counter
intuitively make the very problem they're trying to address (in this case
safety) worse.

~~~
marcosdumay
You shouldn't be downmoded as that's a perfectly valid point.

Yet, it looks like this time the details Boeing hid from regulators were
incredibly relevant and regulations were right in placing a high evidence
burden on their safety.

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stillbourne
There is only one way to fix this problem folks. Privatize the FAA, deregulate
airplane manufacture, and use the money saved to give the rich a tax cut. The
rich will then trickle down on the planes to save us from these software
issues.

~~~
newdayrising
Not really the type of attitude HN wants on here.

~~~
liberte82
Who made you the gatekeeper?

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deweller
> [Boeing's] own engineers ... “concluded that the system complied with all
> applicable FAA regulations.” Four years after the engineers wrote that
> opinion, the system failed twice, killing more than 300 people.

It is a really big leap to conclude that this system would not have failed 4
YEARS after inspection if the FAA had done the inspection itself. This
conclusion assumes that both:

1\. FAA certifiers would have found something that the Boeing engineers did
not.

2\. The system was not modified for four years.

#1 is debatable and hard to prove. And I doubt #2 is how things work in the
real world.

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smrtinsert
By American standards the process is working correctly. The free market has
responded by avoiding Boeing or carriers that fly the 737. Only slight loss of
life required.

~~~
goalieca
Move fast and break things!

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craftyguy
Has the invesitgation into the cause of the second crash concluded yet? I
didn't thing so...

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Simulacra
No, I think it’s the airlines fervor for cost cutting and seat maximization
that leads to dangerous problems.

