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Comment by liability | Hacker News Reader

I understand and agree with the suggestion that the whole fleet be grounded, but isn't personally avoiding the planes an overreaction? While the chance of another fatal crash in the imminent future may be high, surely the chance that you would be on it is still quite low.

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If you think the plane should be grounded, then being personally happy to fly on it doesn’t make much sense. Other planes are available.

You're mixing up two different probabilities. The chance of more fatalities is high, which justifies grounding the fleet, but the probability of a crash of the particular plane a particular person is on is still rather low. Not as low as other planes, but still low.

Going on a 737 MAX plane: X% chance of dying

Going on a non-737 MAX plane: Y% chance of dying

Given these two accidents, X > Y

Why sign up for a higher chance of dying?

Is the chance of dying on a 737 Max flight higher than the chance of dying driving to the airport? Have you considered walking instead?

That is: If both X and Y are low enough, it's not worth the inconvenience to get Y instead of X.

Why drive anywhere you can fly? Driving means always signing up for a higher chance of dying.

If both are very small, then why wouldn't some other factor like minor convenience wash out the minor safety concern? I don't know about you, but I pick my flights by airline, time, and price. I wouldn't degrade any of those for a very small increase in safety.

I believe the point is that we don't _know_ that it's very small (_if_ it's a design flaw, it could be significantly higher), and there are (generally) viable alternatives, so it's needless extra risk

Right now the MAX version is at least an order of magnitude less safe than the previous generation (put some rough estimated in another comment)

Airliners are exceptionally safe as a general rule. Small GA planes are TWO orders of magnitude less safe. Would you avoid a flight in a single engine prop plane? I wouldn't. While it's a certainty that many people will die in small plane crashes this year, it's still unlikely that the particular plane I'm on will crash.

I think this is a classic case of people overreacting to dramatic but unlikely risk. And to be clear, I support grounding the fleet.

Showering and then driving to the airport both are have a >> X chance of you dying before you even get on the Max.

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