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by gregmac 1250 days ago
If this system fails when needed, every cent spent on it will be considered a waste. Nobody is going to say "sure, 300 people died and a couple $150m planes were destroyed.. but we saved a couple million dollars when it was installed 7 years ago".
2 comments
dsfyu404ed 1250 days ago
It would be ideologically convenient for you if people died but statistically it's just gonna be another close call since close calls outnumber accidents in this field by a ton to one.

If/when it happens the professionals who deal in this stuff will say something mundane like "this system prevented ten close calls before we actually had one slip through, that's pretty great". And they'll replace the $5 lightbulb and move the "check the bulbs" from the monthly maintenance checklist to the weekly checklist. And you'll complain much like you're complaining now.

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bumby 1250 days ago
>close calls outnumber accidents in this field by a ton to one

The irony is that the reason the safety numbers are that good is because aerospace is one of the only 5+ sigma quality/safety industries.

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dsfyu404ed 1250 days ago
All industries have close calls outnumbering real accidents by a ton.

The fact that the absolute numbers are low does not change any calculations that follow from that ratio.

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bumby 1250 days ago
Look at the history of aviation before it was a 5-sigma industry. The safety record was much worse.

If your point is that close calls will always outnumber the actual accidents, that’s like saying the number of doctor visits will outnumber the number of cancer diagnoses. Safety incidents are always a subset of a larger set that also contains close calls. By their nature, most safety incidents require multiple things to go wrong, which means there will be more times that some, but not all, things will go wrong to create a close call. It’s almost such a trivial point that it’s hardly salient enough to mention.

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ars 1250 days ago
Obviously, but that's not the question I asked. Right now it's not there at all - so would it be worth installing a less reliable system, but then you could have it in more places?
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