American Airlines Is Quietly Bringing Back the 737Max
What&#x27;s the alternative? There was a flaw in the aircraft design, a dreadful one. Some fundamental structural issues and conflicts of interest at the FCC (that the NTSB has been complaining about for roughly its entire existence) were again highlighted. Boeing executives turned out to be as subject to lying to themselves when making difficult decisions as the rest of humanity. Other nation&#x27;s certification processes turned out be inappropriately trustful of the American certification process (that&#x27;s widespread through all sorts of areas, but one of the few positives of the Trump regime will be a re-evaluation of that little habit).<p>People make mistakes. Systems (human and technological) fail.  The holes in the Swiss cheese sometimes line up just enough to permit a tragedy, as issues with training and maintenance lined up with an inexcusable design flaw to allow one crash and then bureaucratic inertia and incompetence (and perhaps even a little racism) allowed a second. The reason modern commercial air travel is so absurdly, unimaginably safe is that we always, always make sure we understand these events when they lead to tragedy or even just near misses.<p>This has happened before. If you think aircraft automation vs. pilot is a new problem, take a look at Airbus&#x27; history.  The pre-MAX 737 (arguably the safest commercial aircraft in widespread use) shipped with a flaw in its rudder actuator design that took <i>four crashes</i> and a half-dozen near misses to finally figure out. I&#x27;d happily board one (MAX or otherwise) tomorrow, knowing that among the myriad of things that might kill me, rudder actuator failure or MCAS won&#x27;t be found.  Because we fix these things when we figure them out. And not just the part.  The process that allowed the part to fail so tragically as well.<p>Remember the DC-10? Even a cursory read of its history puts the MCAS affair to shame, and it ultimately killed not only hundreds of passengers but the reputation and brand of the legendary Douglas Aircraft.  Know what else? Still flying. Pilots love them, although they call them MD-10s now and they&#x27;re rarely used for passenger service.  There&#x27;s a good chance your next package from Amazon will fly on one to get to you.  And when the pilots board one they can be pretty certain that even if the plane kills them, it won&#x27;t be with a cargo bay door failure.  Because we fixed that.<p>What do people propose? Shut down Boeing? Let Airbus have a monopoly on commercial air vehicles? That&#x27;s won&#x27;t serve safety.  Start buying our aircraft from Tupolev? Might want to check their record first.<p>Want carriers to just scrap their 737 MAX tails?  Right now?  That&#x27;s the same thing as just declaring bankruptcy.  The investment in a commercial aircraft takes years of steady use to pay off, and no one in the industry is in a financial position to take that hit.  Once the aircraft are deemed safe (and, trust me, the MCAS problem will be solved), they should be flown. If you really want to save a lot of lives, lobby to hold the automobile or pharmaceutical industries to even a fraction of the standards we require of commercial air travel carriers.