Ten Plane Crashes That Changed Aviation

Sylvia Else said the following on 7/11/2007 2:32 PM:

The remaining changes, such as preventing people from taking knitting
needles on board, are a stable-door closing reaction that has not done
anything to improve safety, exactly because of the change in passenger
behaviour.

I think the term is security theatre

On Nov 6, 4:55 pm, "wb" wrote:
"Graeme Hogan" wrote in message

What about Tennerife

What was the significant inventions made to aviation to prevent this
happening again?- Hide quoted text -

If you are talking about Tenerife and other accidents like it, there
have been substantial changes to SMGS airport markings and lighting.
Also, substantial changes to low vis operations, ground radar, etc. At
some airports there are higher RVR requirments to taxi than to take
off. Take a look at the 10-9 page for KBOS.

This thread has brought out once again how the truly remarkable level of
safety we enjoy in our civil aviation system has evolved primarily
through the learning experiences of a long series of crashes and
accidents.

These accidents were individually tragic -- but also individually small
in some reasonable sense of that term, and thus acceptable.

It also seems to me they were in most cases largely unanticipated and
perhaps largely "unanticipatable" -- we had to have them, in order to
evolve to the level of safety we have today.

It's these aspects of aviation safety that bother me about the analogous
case of nuclear safety (in the sense of both nuclear power, and nuclear
weapons risks). We've had a few nuclear accidents, and undoubtedly
learned from them.

But we've not had the sustained chain of nuclear accidents to teach us
the risks and the necessary safeguards of nuclear technology -- and we
may never have them until it's way, way too late.

A worst case aviation accident (a fully fueled 380 falling out of the
sky onto a fully filled football stadium) might kill a few tens of
thousands. A worst case nuclear accident might kill or poison many
hundreds of thousands and upwards, and render a major metropolitan area
or half a state uninhabitable for decades to centuries.

And, as my wife keeps saying, "fail safe systems by definition fail by
failing to fail safe".

AES wrote in news:siegman-34243A.11130907112007
@nntp.stanford.edu:

This thread has brought out once again how the truly remarkable level of
safety we enjoy in our civil aviation system has evolved primarily
through the learning experiences of a long series of crashes and
accidents.


No, they were very much secondary in their contribution.




Bertie

Craig Welch wrote:
GB said:

You're absolutely right of course. I'll make a collective apology on
behalf of all members of aus.aviation right now. "Sylvia Else" is our
resident robot/troll. It has no knowledge of aviation, learned everything
it knows about the law from a trashy paperback courtroom drama novel
and wants to be a (nude) politician when it grows up.

Miss Else is, I believe, a licensed pilot.

Well, I was, some considerable time ago, but yes, his claim that I have
no knowledge of aviation has to look a bit suspect in that light.


Apparently innoent
non-sequiturs designed to provoke responses such as yours are its stock-
in-trade, it dodges all failures to agree with it by characterising them
as "ad-hominem attacks" and won't hesitate to invoke actual lawyers if
it feels suitably aggrieved by something you say. It's just a troll and
is best ignored. I apologise for failing to alert you sooner.

I'm not aware of the use of 'actual lawyers'. Can you elaborate?


I did get a will drawn up by one. I wonder if that counts.

Sylvia

GB wrote:
Craig Welch wrote in
:
Miss Else is, I believe, a licensed pilot.

That is entirely compatible with the claim that I made about it's
knowledge of aviation.

You realise, presumably, that there are exams that have to be passed to
qualify for a licence, as well as a test of the ability actually to fly
a plane. It is not really tenable to hold the view that it is possible
to pass the exams and test while knowing nothing about aviation.
Therefore your position has to be that I've forgotten not just most of
what I knew when I took the exams and test, but *all* of it - every last
detail.

Seems a bit of stretch to me.

Sylvia.

GB wrote:
Craig Welch wrote in
:
If I understand you correctly, you are stating that licensed pilots
know nothing about aviation?

You misunderstand me completely.


Now, could you perhaps answer the question?

I'm not going to do your research for you.

Oh, no, not the old "I'm not going to do you research for you" defence!

Sylvia.

GB wrote:
Craig Welch wrote in
:
GB said:
Craig Welch wrote in
:
If I understand you correctly, you are stating that licensed pilots
know nothing about aviation?
You misunderstand me completely.
Well, feel free to have me understand you completely.

The Else bot may or may not be a licensed pilot, but it
demonstrates a markedly ill informed state every time
posts here. It is, of course, difficult to tell whether
it is actually ill informed or just a very active troll.


Why talk in riddles?

When talking to romans...


Now, could you perhaps answer the question?
I'm not going to do your research for you.
Research? I assumed that you knew, and could therefore answer with a
one-liner.

It is said to have

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_words

On Thu, 08 Nov 2007 16:39:45 +1100, Sylvia Else
wrote:

GB wrote:
Craig Welch wrote in
:
If I understand you correctly, you are stating that licensed pilots
know nothing about aviation?

You misunderstand me completely.


Now, could you perhaps answer the question?

I'm not going to do your research for you.

Oh, no, not the old "I'm not going to do you research for you" defence!

Hit and run posting.

--
************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

You correctly identify a change in passenger attitudes. I didn't regard
that as relevant, because it was not a change introduced by the industry
or regulators, but simply a changed perception on the part of passengers
seeking to look after their own interests.

The remaining changes, such as preventing people from taking knitting
needles on board, are a stable-door closing reaction that has not done
anything to improve safety, exactly because of the change in passenger
behaviour.

What the rules have done is to ensure that passengers are completely
disarmed so as to have nothing to use against the next terrorist who
dreams up a novel approach to air piracy.

Sylvia.

Not so. I for one had options before 11 September that still exist
today. It was not for terrorists like 9/11 but the rare whacked
individual who would try to enter the cockpit.

Ron Lee