[TrueDuality]

A part of me joins you in this pessimistic view, but the other side of me recognizes that the rudder issues took place in 1991 and most likely the vast majority of the public was never made aware of those issues. I had never heard of it, though that doesn't mean much as a statistical sample.

I know a lot of people are now aware of this particular design flaw and I would put money on it being more generally known now then then.

[georgeplusplus]

You can’t really compare the two.

The 80s and 90s were loaded with severe accidents where the NTSB was really giving the taxpayers their money’s worth since there would be a major accident almost every month and the agency had to create a new division to handle all the cases.

Most weren’t design issues like the MCAS and the 91’ rudder issue but faulty 3rd party parts, poor maintenance, unknown stresses on aging fleets, pilot issues, and on and on.

We are in an unprecedented age of aviation safety and the MCAS issue is a huge blow to that record, thus you’re hearing about it in this level because it is fresh in the news. Accidents were common place back then, so common that I’d wager the 91 crash wasn’t on peoples radars since they just accepted that aircraft crash frequently and to be honest the general public doesn’t know what a rudder is in the first place.

[puranjay]

In 1991, the number of deaths in air crashes was also nearly 5x the number of deaths in 2017. A plane crashing in 1991 was, for better or worse, just news.

But today, a plane crashing due to an engineering failure is rare enough that it makes headlines that people don't forget easily

[rangibaby]

> A plane crashing in 1991 was, for better or worse, just news.

IDK, the Lockerbie and TWA crashes were all over the news for what seemed like years

[NeedMoreTea]

They weren't "just" plane crashes. Most of the follow up surrounded the terrorism and hunt for the bombers...

[orisho]

I also believe most people hadn't heard of it. For one, news gets around much faster and easier nowadays with the advent of the internet. Anecdotally, it appears as if anyone who flies would've had the right exposure to Western media to hear about it.