Daily Insight: Monday 11 March 2019: Speculation isn’t Productive

News Speculation over the cause of a fatal accident involving a Boeing 737MAX over the weekend, along with the government mandated grounding of aircraft in China and Indonesia and voluntarily by a number of airlines, abounds in the aviation community today. While we believe it premature to ground an aircraft until the cause of the accident becomes known, this does provide a sense of urgency to find out what happened. Fortunately, the “black boxes,” which are really bright orange, have been recovered and analysis is likely ongoing as this is being written.Pundits and financial analysis are speculating on the importance of the 737MAX program to Boeing, and what if scenarios are being played out before the facts of the case are even known.We choose not to speculate on accidents until all known information from the investigators is in, and a cause has been discovered. At that point regulatory actions may or may not be appropriate, depending on the facts of the investigation. Analysis Boeing’s stock price took a premature dive on the news of the crash. Financial analysts have even joined the game, citing how important the 737MAX program is to Boeing, providing about 25% of the company’s revenues and a bit higher percentage of profits. Add to that headlines like “Major US airlines also fly new type of Boeing jet that crashed in Ethiopia” or “Ryanair among airlines heavily exposed to potential MAX8 grounding” seen simply aimed at stoking fears, rather than examining the facts. The old adage “if it bleeds, it leads” still holds sway in newsrooms around the world.This is the second crash for a relatively new aircraft, with the first being operated by Lion Air of Indonesia. That accident was apparently caused by the pilots not being aware of how to disable an automated on-board system, the MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System) which was pushing the nose of the aircraft down. Boeing was chastised by pilot groups, who indicated that this topic was not covered in their transition training to the new model, something that has since been corrected. Some pundits are even suggesting a possible link between the two crashes, as both occurred shortly after take-off.We do not know whether the Ethiopian crash is, or is not, related to that system, or in any way to the Lion Air crash. The two airlines are quite different, and have markedly different industry reputations for safety, quite positive for Ethiopian and questionable for Lion Air. Until the investigation is completed and conclusions are published, it is premature to speculate on why this accident occurred. Insight It is easy to jump on the bandwagon and stoke fears in the flying public. But we don’t really know enough today except to state the known facts - there was an unfortunate crash of a relatively new 737MAX 8 aircraft that had no indication of problems, and the cause of that accident remains unknown.Aircraft accidents are scary, and sometimes result in the loss of life. Many close calls, like aborted takeoffs and safe returns to an airport when a problem occurs, receive much less or no coverage at all. Fortunately, aircraft accidents are also quite rare, which is why they are newsworthy. Traveling by air remains much safer than traveling in your car, with a much lower chance of a fatality or serious injury. There has been a lot of speculation associated with reporting on this accident that is inappropriate, and may cause pundits to eat crow once the investigation is completed. It seems that CNN’s 24 hour coverage of MH390 began the process of rampant speculation, and speculation about the speculation, that started a downturn in the quality of media coverage. Where is Sargent Friday when we need him - “Just the facts ma’am.”

No results