Ethiopian 737 Max 8 crash and Fallout

[cambriamarsh]

1W doesn't appear in my ExpertFlyer list of airlines...

1W = Oneworld

 

[Franky]

1W = Oneworld

OK - I would have been looking for OW...

Or perhaps that is another airline in its own right??

 

[cambriamarsh]

1W doesn't appear in my ExpertFlyer list of airlines...

1W = Oneworld

 

[MEL_Traveller]

But by the same token, plenty of other airlines were flying over the same space (e.g. Singapore Airlines). How do you assess between who is right and who is wrong?

It shouldn't take the shooting down of a commercial jetliner to establish 'who was wrong'. SQ and other airlines were also in the wrong. They have no right to accept that risk on behalf of their passengers. Nor perhaps should they be accepting risks with respect to dangerous cargo.

Perhaps the provision of some of the safety information is two fold. DFAT (smart traveller) regularly updates critical travel advisories. Maybe the link that needs to be made is between those advisories and the airspace above (where these are relevant links and risks).

 

[Quickstatus]

Society by and large works on the notion of 'trust'. We trust that engineers build bridges than don't fall down, we trust that when we go into a stadium, it won't collapse.
Largely, it has to be this way. We can't possibly analyse it.

A friend told me once that he does not listen to the blah blah of safety briefing because air travel is extremely safe. His implication is he has trust in the systems in place.

 

[serfty]

1W = Oneworld

The industry standard abbreviation for oneworld is *O ...

 

[Quickstatus]

It shouldn't take the shooting down of a commercial jetliner to establish 'who was wrong'. SQ and other airlines were also in the wrong. They have no right to accept that risk on behalf of their passengers. Nor perhaps should they be accepting risks with respect to dangerous cargo.

Perhaps the provision of some of the safety information is two fold. DFAT (smart traveller) regularly updates critical travel advisories. Maybe the link that needs to be made is between those advisories and the airspace above (where these are relevant links and risks).

Problem then arises if DFAT advises to avoid area and ticket already purchased but airline is still flying that route. How much weight does a DFAT advisory carry?.

Even after the QZ (Indonesian Air Asia) crash people were still happy to hop on one to go to DPS. DPS still has OZ visitors (albeit reduced) after the bombings despite DFAT warnings.

I suppose some will heed DFAT advisory and not go but many will.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Problem then arises if DFAT advises to avoid area and ticket already purchased but airline is still flying that route. How much weight does a DFAT advisory carry?.

Even after the QZ (Indonesian Air Asia) crash people were still happy to hop on one to go to DPS. DPS still has OZ visitors (albeit reduced) after the bombings despite DFAT warnings.

I suppose some will heed DFAT advisory and not go but many will.

Again, this is an issue with how information can be provided, not whether or not it should be provided at all.

An airline may choose to ignore issues presented by a DFAT advisory in terms of what's happening on the ground and how that might affect operations in the air. But ultimately it might inform the passenger.

Whether the passenger is prepared to change or cancel their ticket is the issue. There may be no recompense if they decide to cancel.

But, as we saw earlier in this thread, some people are willing to incur significant financial penalties to change plans if they deem the situation as potentially unsafe.

 

[I love to travel]

I am surprised at the anti AF sentiment. It appears two pilots did an awful job on one incident but overall I thought they would be considered safe.

 

[kelvedon]

Found this video of my first visit to Addis Ababa airport and the last time I flew Ethiopian Airlines. I'm the one in my mothers arms!

 

[RooFlyer]

The industry standard abbreviation for oneworld is *O ...

News to me! "Star One" ?? *A, "Star Alliance", sure.

 

[jb747]

Well a non LCC nearly took out an entire suburb of New York City.

They actually did it in NYC twice, and also had a pretty good attempt in Moscow.

My supposition of LCC is that they are Cheap and Nasty rather than Cheap and Cheerful. Its personally difficult separating Safety from that.

LCC most certainly does not necessarily equate with unsafe. In exactly the same way that traditional carriers are safe. There are good and bad on both sides of the coin.

But think for a moment how your perspective might change if your family was in one of those crashes. What if they were on MH17? An incident that was totally avoidable if the airline had chosen to follow the example of other airlines and avoid that air route.

Very few airlines were outright avoiding area, and even then, those that were had only just started doing so. Nobody expected high power anti aircraft weapons to be so misused. And yes, you'll now say avoid any area where they're emplaced....fair enough. But how are you now going to fly anywhere? They exist throughout the Middle East, India and Pakistan, just for starters.

A policy statement by an airline that they will not fly over a war zone, or that they will not carry dangerous goods as cargo, does not require third party analysis. Airlines would need to take a commercial decision as to whether they published their policies.

What sort of war? A declared one between sovereign nations. An insurgency. A guerilla war. A civil war. Something like the Irish "troubles"? Kashmir on a normal day? I think you need to define some sort of level...

And by the same token...what sort of dangerous goods? All of them? The book is huge, and there is a vast array of items that are technically dangerous goods, but which are really quite safe when flown. I guess we'll need to get rid of powered wheel chairs. Thermometers. All of your duty free grog. Shooters ammunition.

 

[serfty]

News to me! "Star One" ?? *A, "Star Alliance", sure.

Hopefully it won't surprise you that *S represents skyteam.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Nobody expected high power anti aircraft weapons to be so misused. And yes, you'll now say avoid any area where they're emplaced....fair enough. But how are you now going to fly anywhere? They exist throughout the Middle East, India and Pakistan, just for starters.

Agree that trying to avoid any anti-aircraft system is neither practical, or necessary. The USA must have them? But there's a difference between having a system in place, and it being actively used at the time you decide to fly a plane over it.

That some airlines did avoid that airspace is evidence they assessed the risk.

What sort of war? A declared one between sovereign nations. An insurgency. A guerilla war. A civil war. Something like the Irish "troubles"? Kashmir on a normal day? I think you need to define some sort of level...

And by the same token...what sort of dangerous goods? All of them? The book is huge, and there is a vast array of items that are technically dangerous goods, but which are really quite safe when flown. I guess we'll need to get rid of powered wheel chairs. Thermometers. All of your duty free grog. Shooters ammunition.

All good questions that should be addressed by airlines in accordance with their policies and risk assessment.

 

[drron]

Is there any evidence that more than one BUK missile was launched from Ukraine.
In the investigation of MH 17 it has been established that the missile launcher arrived at it's site in Ukraine just hours before the MH 17 incident and the next morning photos showed it was one missile down.
So I doubt anyone knew of that possibility before the incident so as to give a warning.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Is there any evidence that more than one BUK missile was launched from Ukraine.
In the investigation of MH 17 it has been established that the missile launcher arrived at it's site in Ukraine just hours before the MH 17 incident and the next morning photos showed it was one missile down.
So I doubt anyone knew of that possibility before the incident so as to give a warning.

Other aircraft were shot down in the same area in the preceeding days/weeks. An escalation of that situation, with more powerful weapons, may have been forseeable. Even if it is established that it wasn't a risk, what about other risks such as an airliner suffering a decompression which would have required it to descend within range of previous missile intercepts? If some airlines had identified the risks, hard to argue that others couldn't.

 

[Himeno]

Is there any evidence that more than one BUK missile was launched from Ukraine.
In the investigation of MH 17 it has been established that the missile launcher arrived at it's site in Ukraine just hours before the MH 17 incident and the next morning photos showed it was one missile down.
So I doubt anyone knew of that possibility before the incident so as to give a warning.

There were other anti air weapons in the area, which had been used in the days prior. They were shorter ranged and had only targeted confirmed military aircraft.
These known short range weapons is why there was a NOTAM in place preventing aircraft from flying low enough to be in range of the weapons known to be present.

 

[drron]

Yes there were short range missiles fired before but MH 17 was above their range.A BUK had not been fired from that area before as far as I am aware.

 

[p--and--t]

There is that talk in the office. Often when one of the papers prints 'amazing deals to Europe for $800' (but on Scoot ). I don't know of many people that actually end up booking these fares.

But it also works both ways. A lot of people in the office won't even consider Garuda because 'they've heard bad things'. Doesn't matter that they have full service, bags, meals and entertainment included, and can be at the pool with a coughtail by lunchtime rather than missing a whole day with JQ or VA.

Who knows the effect of making safety information available. But as yet, while people have raised valid questions as to what information should be made available, and how it could be presented, no one has come up with a reason not to do it at all.

FYI:

Actually my neighbours, semi retired well seasoned travellers who like their comfort, fly Biz-Scoot quite a bit to Asia and love them (but won't travel on Garuda).

Previously it was always a pendulum between multiple trips in Y or much fewer trips in Y+ or J on MAS or SingAir.

Now it's multiple trips in relative comfort and they love it.

 

[bPeteb]

So you turn up to the airport, read the 'your flight today' info and decide you're not comfortable boarding. Then what happens?

What next? Demanding a psychological profile of every passenger so I can decline to sit next to/in front of/behind someone because it had indicated they were possibly x, y or z?