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- The aftermath of two fatal crashes involving Boeing’s 737 Max planes have shaken the US aviation industry, prompting new reflection on how planes get made and certified.
- Throughout the history of aviation, major disasters have shaped legislation and technology to ensure greater safety and stronger regulations.
- Business Insider looked at some of the incidents that changed the way we fly.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
The aftermath of two fatal crashes involving Boeing’s 737 Max planes have shaken the US aviation industry, prompting new reflection on how planes get made and certified.
The fatal Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes that killed almost 360 people between them has shaken confidence in the US Federal Aviation Administration, leading to new scrutiny on how it allows manufactures to help certify their own planes and federal investigations into its processes.
Christine Negroni, an air safety specialist and the author of "The Crash Detectives," a book about aviation disasters, told Business Insider that Boeing is unlikely to get away "unscathed" as its safety processes come under scrutiny.
Any changes to how planes are made and certified will be in line with the aftermath of past disasters and flaws in aircraft design, which have resulted in permanent changes in how aircraft are made, flown, and regulated.
Negroni said that "necessary havoc" comes as the aviation industry changes, but that each disaster results in a greater understanding of how to make planes safer.
Here are other disasters that have permanently changed the industry:
Three crashes by the world’s first jet airliner changed the structure of planes
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Three de Havilland Comet aircraft broke up in the air in the 1950s, just after they were unveiled in 1952 as the world’s first jet airliner.
The three planes licensed to British state-owned airline BOAC broke apart between 1953 and 1954, leading the British government to ground the aircraft.
Investigators concluded that the metal on the plane was fatigued due to the pressure in the cabin, made worse by the square shape of the windows, which didn’t alleviate any pressure.
Planes then got new features like the round windows we see today.
Negroni told Business Insider that the plane’s crashes led designers and engineers to learn about vital concepts like "structural fatigue," describing the moment as one of the most significant for designers who were asking "how do we make the machine better?"
Two planes colliding over the Grand Canyon led to the creation of the Federal Aviation Administration
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A Trans World Airlines jet collided mid-air with a United Airlines plane mid-air in Arizona in 1956, spilling debris into the Grand Canyon and killing all 128 people on board both planes.
It was the deadliest civil aviation disaster in the US at the time, and the fact that pilots did not see each others’ planes with enough time to avoid crashing woke the country up to the need to regulate airspace and communications.
It led to the creation of the US Federal Aviation Administration, which now regulates the industry.
The worst plane crash in history changed how pilots and air traffic control communicate
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583 people were killed when KLM and Pan-Am jets, both Boeing 747s, collided on the runway of an airport on the island of Tenerife on a foggy day in 1977.
All 248 people on the KLM jet were killed, while 61 of the Pam Am plane’s 396 occupants survived the deadliest aviation disaster in history.
But neither jet was supposed to be there: the planes were diverted to the airport because of a bomb scare at another airport. A mix-up in communications between air traffic control and the pilots led to the KLM pilot starting to take off down the runway and crashing into the Pan Am plane that was still preparing to take off.
Negroni told Business Insider that the crash is considered the "the birth of crew resource management — or what are the ways that people communicate badly or fail to communicate that leads pilots to continue to go down an unsafe path."
She said it was the start of a big effort to understand how human communication, from pilots to air traffic control, could be improved in the aviation industry.
The disaster was also a catalyst in making clear, English phrases standard across the industry, to avoid the same confusion in the future.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
See Also:
- Even more airlines are demanding payback from Boeing for its 737 Max disasters — here’s the full list
- The SEC is reportedly investigating whether Boeing was transparent enough with shareholders about problems with the 737 Max
- Boeing could have prevented 2nd 737 Max crash by listening to pilots, a union said as it accused the company of a ‘poisoned, diseased philosophy’
Source: Business Insider – sbaker@businessinsider.com (Sinéad Baker)