txp

Fatal hull loss rates per 1,000,000 departures:

DC-10: 1.28
B737MAX: 1.48

1.48 > 1.28

ExplorerWannabe

And again, you repeat statistics without understanding them. The 2 (TWO!) hull losses of the 737MAX were both directly attributable to poor maintenance and flying practice -- and to the point of this thread, neither had anything to do with United. I'm pretty sure United wouldn't replace a repeatedly failing equipment item that was under warranty with a remanufactured component from a fly-by-night third party company. One might wonder exactly why Lion Air didn't ask Boeing to replace that component for free under warranty.

I don't know what the exact crashes were for the DC-10 but if you subtract the fatal hull losses due to pilot error (i.e., turning on auto-trim while experiencing runaway trim), the 737MAX rate is ... wait for it ... 0.00.

On the other hand, I don't recall any incidents on the DC-10 similar to the 737MAX plug door (i.e., failure to reinstall mandatory bolts). That latter condition does relate to United because United found similar problems after the Alaska Air incident and that seems to be why Kirby took United to task and the United CEO and a couple other top level executives are "retiring" this year.

djmp

Incorrect, per the FAA report and resulted in safety related design changes to the MAX series. And relevant to United as they were flying the same plane type.

LarryJ

What Explorer is pointing out is that you are over-simplifying a complex series of events.

Lion Air installed an unairworthy AoA vane/sensor on the accident airplane in an attempt to fix an unrelated problem. It was that unairworthy part which caused the unscheduled MCAS activations on the next two consecutive flights. They also failed to replace the unairworthy part after the first incident of unscheduled MCAS activation and sent it back out on what turned out to be the accident flight.

Egypt Air had a bird strike on takeoff which caused the the left AoA vane to detach. That's a very unlikely occurrence but could happen to any flight. That crew was also aware of the findings from the first accident and the importance of following the established procedure.

During certification, every potential failure mode is analyzed and assigned a risk level which ranks the seriousness of that potential failure. Mitigations are created to reduce the risk. In the case of MCAS, an unscheduled MCAS activation was given a relatively low risk score because it could easily be mitigated by the existing stabilizer runaway procedure. (Every transport jet I have flow as had such a procedure and we were trained to accomplish it)

Another possible mitigation would be to compare the values from the two AoA sensors and require agreement before an MCAS activation. This was not done because combining the two inputs creates additional failure modes in which the data from one bad sensor could corrupt the data from the good one because there is no third source to serve as a tie-breaker. This type of dual system is used in many aircraft, including the 737, where two independent data sources are used to separately drive the data to the Captain and F/Os instruments. When a discrepancy occurs, the flight crew uses procedures to isolate the bad data and use the good data going forward. Most long-haul aircraft use triple-redundant systems which give the third tie-breaking source for when one system fails or is corrupted. The only transport jet that I've flown that included the triple-redundant system was the 767/757.

That leaves flight crew performance. Neither accident flight crew followed established procedures in their response to the unscheduled MCAS activation. This was almost universally ignored in the media's reporting of the accidents. I've commented, at length, on this in other threads. The bottom line is that both of those airplanes were flyable using established procedures and the skills that every qualified jet transport pilot should posses.

After the two accidents, the assumption that the unscheduled MCAS activation failure mode could be mitigated by the existing procedure was reevaluated based on the two accident crews failing to follow the procedure. The lengthy delay in recertification was due to the complexity of providing the cross checking and mitigating all of the new potential failures that it created.

WineCountryUA

Again, let's return to the UA discussion
There are multiple generic Boeing thread already

Dublin_rfk

To get back to the original question. Do I feel safe flying United? As a 1K with 2+mm, YES! I had to check my flight memory to confirm that over the last 5* years I’ve flown other airlines 4 times in over 400 flights.

zombietooth

It's never even entered my mind that I would be taking a risk by flying (not completely true because I've been on some hairy chopper flights).
However, UA has a PR problem. My extended family, who admittedly over-reacted to the risks from COVID and quit traveling altogether for fear of being exposed to the virus during the outbreak years, now are unwilling to fly on any 737. I try to tell them that it's safe, and they know that I fly around 150K miles a year without incident, but the media markets fear very well, and there's just no reasoning anymore with the majority of the public. Fear sells.

uanj

I feel safe flying United.

I would likely NOT feel safe flying United on a Boeing plane if Boeing is taken private by KKR or Blackstone. KKR has a target investment window of 5 years. Potential issues beyond that 5-year window are just not their focus, they want to be able to sell and exit within 5 years. That is not the kind of company I want to be making the planes (or spacecraft) I am flying in. If Boeing needs to be stripped of its assets and sold in pieces, then private equity companies are the experts in that field. However, I don't see how that can be anything but a negative for short term safety.

I would also likely not feel safe flying United, or any airline, on a new Airbus plane where Airbus had magically been able to increase production in the short term. Something which they themselves say is not possible.

I don't know what Kirby and team are doing in detail but they are definitely communicating their issues to Boeing and looking to Airbus to fulfil their needs. You seem to think United is not doing this or have not threatened Boeing with this outcome. I would bet money they have.

I would feel safer flying United or, frankly, any other airline, if there were 3 companies capable of manufacturing aircraft, not 1 or 2. It's kind of a ridiculous situation we have allowed ourselves to get into with only 2. You talk a lot about the free markets, when the number of competitors diminishes to a monopoly or near monopoly the remaining supplier(s) will always raise prices and reduce investment in product, whether it is innovation, safety or design. It is in their best interest to do so and this behavior is entirely predictable. Competition, on the other hand, exerts an opposite pressure to improve product in all its aspects be it safety, quality, or design.

I agree, private equity is best at packaging assets of a financially failing company and selling them off. So far I have faith in United's safety policy and Kirby's approach to this situation. If only we could wind back the clock and undo the Boeing Douglass merger. But we can't, and I think Kirby is doing a good job finding the best way forward in a challenging situation.

UA_Flyer

If you ask whether it is still safe to fly United to different people rather than just Flyertalkers, I anticipate the responses will be quite diverged.

In the US, news media has a lot of influence on what to report and how to report, I expect larger numbers non-frequent flyers will say yes.
If you ask the same questions to those who fly frequently outside of US especially in emerging markets, some may be surprised with the question. There is no flag carrier in the US, but United is close to be America's flag carrier in the eyes of many overseas,

Tires falling, panels falling, landing gear door jammed, etc. - these tend to be more visible and images sometimes may make things a lot worse than what they are. United's problem, as other has mentioned, could be PR related. It has been a legacy PMUA issue, and United just does not seem to be able to address its PR issue.

I feel safe flying United. IMHO, United has a team of well trained and some of the most experienced pilots in business. You don't become the largest long-haul carrier in the world without a team of experienced professional flight crew. I have flown quite a number of airlines including many considered to be five-star in terms of on-board amenity and services offerings, and I feel safe flying United based on how the planes are flown, take off, landing and during turbulence resulting from almost 7 million BIS miles (a whisker away from 5 Million BIS on United)

Recent incidents or issues have not changed my opinion.


Totally agree with this and thank you for putting logics into the discussion.

halls120

This. And I felt this way even before UA hired my nephew as an A320 pilot.

bmwe92fan

I have 100% confidence in the quality of the pilots at UA -- full stop. What I am starting to become slightly worried about is the maintenance operation given the incidents UA seems to be experiencing. I guess it's mostly due to my ignorance of the operation which I am certain is world class -- but panels flying off planes that should have been caught in maintenance and then the FAA increasing inspections of UA maintenance - make me think about something I honestly never worried about before...

WineCountryUA

Perhaps, heard a speculation by a pilot that could have been done by debris on the runway kicked-up into the well. We need to await the NTSB report before getting definitive on cause.

halls120

Wait for the facts? Surely you jest.

mfirst

I know a thread is started elsewhere about the most recent SFO-CHG 777-200 diversion to DEN
maybe UA is having a lower threshold to divert vs everyone else at the first sign of a problem - or maybe they are having more problems that are resulting in diversion
(I would hope an engine problem within a few hours of a long TATL flight would prompt a diversion)

but my current concern is not about making it to my destination alive - I have 120% confidence in UA on that - but rather making it "on time"
I sometimes have tight travel schedules, for work, as many of us do and a delayed or missed connection can be a substantial problem.
UA has been great with since during and since COVID - but I am becoming more concerned about the increasing number of delays that I have been experiencing and a handful of diversions that are impacting my travel plans

- I am not sure if there is enough data on yet given the number of routes and planes as I want to be reasonable

-m

WineCountryUA

Trying not to go off topic too far, to track UA reliability, the BTS Air Travel Reports compares (a bit delayed) the USA carriers for delays and cancellation. In Dec 2023, UA was #2, a bit behind DL for delayed arrivals and 4 of 10 for the year 2023. Similar data for cancellation. With details down to the airport level.
Realtime UA data is available at https://jetstream.united.com/#/public-landing