[SystemSafety] [External] Re: "FAA chief '100% confident' of 737 MAX safety as flights to resume"

[Driscoll, Kevin]

> most scrutinized aircraft in the history of the commercial transport fleet
Scrutiny is like testing, it can show the presence of problems but not the absence.  Modern aircraft are so complex that safety has to be "baked in" to all aspects of design and manufacturing, via a pervasive safety culture.  Scrutiny is insufficient mitigation for a weak or absent safety culture (and expertise/knowledge).  Note that the parenthetical phrase has to be included to prevent scenarios where a safety culture without expertise/knowledge leads to "the road to hell paved with good intentions".  As an example, the B777 AIMS was designed with Byzantine fault tolerance from the onset; its ADIRU and flight controls discovered the Byzantine issue late in the design cycle and added coverage for Byzantine faults.  The B787 flight control is Byzantine fault immune, mostly due to the influence of Y. C. (Bob) Yeh.  I haven't seen Byzantine fault tolerance discussed for any other aircraft.  If there are some, I'd like to hear about it.  Among avionics designers, there appears to be general ignorance of this issue or its importance (even though thousands of papers have been written on the subject over the past 40 years).

From: systemsafety <systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de> On Behalf Of Tom Ferrell
Sent: Friday, November 20, 2020 6:43 AM
To: Olwen Morgan <olwen at phaedsys.com>; systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Subject: [External] Re: [SystemSafety] "FAA chief '100% confident' of 737 MAX safety as flights to resume"

Seeing this sentiment a lot in the press reporting and find it utterly ridiculous.  This aircraft is now the most scrutinized aircraft in the history of the commercial transport fleet.  Multiple regulators, multiple deep dives through the flight control design and then a fanout into just about every other system-critical system onboard.  Couple that with the overall history of 737 safety and its hard to see how more could be done given the current regulations and oversight bodies that we have to ensure the safety of this aircraft type.  Just my opinion of course, but I, for one, will feel perfectly comfortable flying in this aircraft. The question is really what has the breakdown in processes and safety culture at Boeing meant for other recent aircraft development…

From: systemsafety <systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de<mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de>> On Behalf Of Olwen Morgan
Sent: Friday, November 20, 2020 7:25 AM
To: systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de<mailto:systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de>
Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] "FAA chief '100% confident' of 737 MAX safety as flights to resume"

As the old adage goes, "You won't catch me up in one of those things!"

Olwen
On 19/11/2020 10:44, Peter Bernard Ladkin wrote:

On 2020-11-19 08:54 , Jon Hind wrote:

  " 'I feel 100% confident,' said Dickson, a former airline and military pilot, who took over as FAA administration in August 2019 and took the controls for a 737 MAX test flight in September."

If the head of  the F.A.A. has 100% confidence then what hope is there for the general population in understanding real world risks ?
Assuming he was flying for an hour or less, I think he is entitled to round to the nearest 8 significant figures.......

PBL

Prof. Peter Bernard Ladkin, Bielefeld, Germany
ClaireTheWhiteRabbit RIP
Tel+msg +49 (0)521 880 7319  www.rvs-bi.de<http://www.rvs-bi.de>






_______________________________________________

The System Safety Mailing List

systemsafety at TechFak.Uni-Bielefeld.DE<mailto:systemsafety at TechFak.Uni-Bielefeld.DE>

Manage your subscription: https://lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de/mailman/listinfo/systemsafety
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de/pipermail/systemsafety/attachments/20201121/fae6dcb8/attachment.html>