This is in truly poor taste. People died. Some got run over by rescue trucks. Some of the crew were ejected from the plane when the tail broke off. Now you make fun of their national origin? This sort of joke is not just juvenile. It is effectively racist.

I call on the moderators to erase these posts.

I agree Bingley.

The joke is on the idiot media people who dutifully read the obviously wrong names on air. I'm laughing at the TV station talking heads, not any people on the airplane. Thought that would be plain, but apparently No Dam Wei.

Relax, quit being so PC, and build some thicker skin.

I was of the impression that this is a safe forum.

Jeanette Isabelle

Sorry, I would have to agree with Bingley and AKSAR on this. It's just poor taste, and well below the usual level of discussion on ETS.

I think this is a serious abuse of statistics. There are too few accidents to make meaningful analysis. I also wonder if that claim takes into account the Russian Navy experience.

Large commercial jets are still safest. Getting to and from the airport is the riskiest part of a trip.


Electronic devices can be made reliable the same way as flight crews: redundancy.

The Space Shuttle was at best 1970s era technology, yet came close to fully electronic flight control. No part of ascent was under human control, and the only critical/challenging part of descent done by humans was rotating the nose gear onto the runway.

The switch to drones in military aviation will force the issue by drying up the supply of qualified pilots to civilian airlines. Once routine military cargo flights begin using drones there simply won't be enough human pilots any more.

Bigley:

My thought on this is that after a plane crash most people are disoriented, panicked. this level of chaos and stress can make a person try a seat belt (remember it isn't like a car seat belt) and when it doesn't instantly release or has some resistance they panic and think that it won't open.

Secondly keep in mind that "Seat belt maintenance" isn't normally a high priority, I mean when was the last time you brought your car in and told them to service the seat belts? It is possible that the force of the impact can notch the retaining metal and thus make it, "locked up."

Weather by rescue hook, box cutter, or opening the seat belt, I don't thing that the method matters, just that the people are OUT of there seats and are in a safe location. It would be my hope that no-one would try to salvage the seat belts from an accident like that.

Just my thoughts.

It has been confirmed that one of the fatalities was due to a rescue vehicle:

http://www.kcra.com/news/money/travel/asiana-victim/-/11797110/21062156/-/9g181o/-/index.html

This morning I was reading a link about powerful photographs of 2013. It has a bird's eye view of the Asiana crash site and I was struck at how massively burned-out the passenger cabin was:



I recall reading that fire & smoke in a crashed plane spreads very fast. Plan accordingly.

Prayers out for the people on that plane, and their families.

Here's an update from Popular Mechanics on the crash. The photo of the cabin interior is instructive.