[hannasanarion]

Airplanes don't have the right to a trial of their peers with presumption of innocence.

Two crashes within six months is very abnormal. Abnormalities are evidence of problems. Airline regulators are tasked with keeping people from dying, not with protecting manufacturers' feelings.

[snowwrestler]

The Boeing 767 experienced three crashes between the months of September 2001 and April 2002. I think you can guess what caused the first two.

You need more information than just a calendar and a model number to make determinations of flight safety.

[hannasanarion]

Those three crashes had one thing in common: terrorism.

These two crashes have one thing in common: brand new planes.

Unless you know of an islamist terror organization that has a grudge against Ethiopian desert wilderness, I don't think terrorism is a more likely common cause than the brand new airframe.

[Alex3917]

> I think you can guess what caused the first two.

You do realize they redesigned the plane after 9/11 to prevent that from happening again, right?

[Baeocystin]

...and those changes are what allowed the GermanWings crash to happen. Sometimes there just isn't such thing as a fully-technical solution.

[snowwrestler]

Yes but my point is that people don’t avoid the 767. Look upthread please, this whole sub thread is about whether these incidents will cause consumers to avoid 737 Max planes in the future.

My (apparently very controversial) opinion is that we don’t know enough to predict that now, because we don’t know what caused the Ethiopian Air crash yet.

[brazzy]

People never avoided the 767 because it was clear all along that the crashes had noting to do with the plane.

People are avoiding the 737 MAX because given the current information it definitely could be a problem with the plane, in fact the information we already have from the first crash makes it look like it's very likely to be a problem with the plane.

You option is not controversial, it's just wrong.

[snowwrestler]

> People are avoiding the 737 MAX because given the current information

Again: the topic here is predicting long-term damage to consumer confidence. I understand what is happening right now.

The entire 787 fleet was grounded not more than a few years ago due to battery issue. How many people actively avoid 787s today? Long-term consumer trust depends not just the root cause of an accident, but also the perception of how it was addressed. As the GP correctly points out, the 767 (and all other planes, and security screening procedures) were redesigned to protect against the type of attack that succeeded on September 11.