With the recent crash of the Nepalese airplane, I saw a lot of comments on :reddit-logo: talking about how Nepal has poor safety standards, bad piloting certifications, and how they buy second to third hand planes that they don’t maintain.

I’m sure that has nothing to do with capitalism.

But I also saw comments about how Euro and American standards are much, much better. I’m sure that’s true to some extent, given how many airplanes fly over these regions with so few incidents. But… I don’t really see why.

Wouldn’t the center of capitalism be more aggressive with its cost-cutting measures and safety shortcuts? It would improve their profit margins and given the Tendency, they have to take every chance they get, right?

Are we just waiting for a huge, huge sudden spike in airplane crashes as these measures start catching up?

Or is government regulation (and enforcement) still somehow strong in this industry?

  • VILenin [he/him]M
    ·
    2 years ago

    Well it really depends. Could be anything from broken in flight entertainment system to structural failure. Also depends on when it happens. Generally the higher up the better, except for fires.

    I would say that in the vast, vast majority of mechanical or electrical failures, the worst case scenario is the plane gets written off and you get a few bruises. Critical systems have multiple redundancies built into them and if they all fail at once, you're having a really bad day.

    We all know the 737 Max fiasco, but inherent design flaws have been pretty rare this century. You just have to trust that the mechanics know what they're doing. The biggest cause of accidents is pilot error.

      • VILenin [he/him]M
        ·
        2 years ago

        Sorry for the confusion I was just using it as an example of a minor issue. Although hypothetically if you out a lot of tvs in the wrong place you could cause a center of gravity issue which could lead to a stall.

        Aviation nerds will note that technically speed has nothing to do with it, but as a corollary anything that makes the plane go slower and the nose go higher increases the risk of a stall.

        With most modern airliners it is almost impossible to put it into a stall situation. I believe the ATR 72 plane in this crash had a "stick-pusher" to physically stop you from pulling the nose up any higher, requiring about 70lbs of force to overcome.