[ricardobeat]

If the wheels drop off my car at 100km/h and I lose control and hit a wall, is the wall the cause of the accident?

The barrier was 250m away from the end of the runway, the extra 50m if following regulations wouldn’t have changed the outcome. And if the wall wasn’t there, the plane would dive right into a highway anyway. That’s the point.

[JohnKemeny]

The wall is clearly not the cause of your accident, but might nevertheless be the cause of your death.

[ricardobeat]

Technically correct yet missing the point. The plane could have disintegrated in a dozen other ways if the wall wasn’t there, or something else could be in the way.

I think the fact we have dramatic footage of the crash makes it a very attractive topic for engagement. News are spinning it into something it is not. A handful of massive errors happened and we know nothing yet, the focus on the structure for being in the way just makes for good clickbait, gives people an easy target to blame - the airport, engineers, regulators (doesn’t really matter who), and something to get riled up about.

[nialv7]

bad analogy. a better one would be: a wheel fell of an F1 car, car hit perimeter wall, driver dies. should we maybe put a crash barrier in front of the wall?

[ricardobeat]

This airport is basically already complying with the highest possible standard [1]; so in your analogy the crash barrier already exists, the equivalent argument would be for the track to have a 200m run-off area all around.

It's not feasible to plan for every possible freak occurrence, an accident like this is only possible after a long list of other safety procedures have failed (as is often the case for aviation).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runway_safety_area

[wlll]

Standards are the minimum, not the maximum.

Planes sometimes overshoot the runway, building an unecessary wall at the end of it might comply with a standard, but that doesn't make it a good idea.

[xmodem]

Perhaps the standard is flawed and needs to be updated.

[__m]

Not at all. Highest standard would have been a engineered materials arresting system, which the airport didn’t have.

[broeng]

Maybe that section of highway could easily be cleared in time with a warning system, like when we warn for crossing trains. A wall doesn't have to be the only solution.