Earlier this year, a Boeing aircraft’s door plug fell out in flight – all because crucial bolts were missing. The incident shows why simple failures like this are often a sign of larger problems, says John Downer.
Earlier this year, a Boeing aircraft’s door plug fell out in flight – all because crucial bolts were missing. The incident shows why simple failures like this are often a sign of larger problems, says John Downer.
Ordinary failure in that ordinary process went wrong as opposed to some black swan event like the bolts broke when struck by lightning.
They’re failing on the easy stuff, while air travel demands they get the hard stuff right 100% of the time.
Exactly. That’s why there’s redundancy in everything on airplanes. Most commercial airliners can land with one functioning engine and half (most) of the steering systems offline, but they’ll make an emergency landing at a nearby airfield if just one of those fails. There’s an automatic, digital, and practical override for pretty much everything.
There’s a reason commercial flight is the safest method of transportation, and it’s because of all that redundancy.
A door shouldn’t just blow out, there’s supposed to be checks and rechecks of all safety equipment.