You'd better stay in bed then. Everything in life is prone to failure. When it happens with planes, which is bloody rare really, a lot of people die. But that doesn't mean they are unsafe.
As I said, learn about engineering before commenting on it.
Indeed, we should learn from them. But that doesn't mean ignorant people like you should jump to silly conclusions. That's not learning, that's jumping on the kneejerk bandwagon.
Actually, the race cars thing is a very good example. I know which bits are liable to break. I know which bits are least reliable. I know which bolts to check before every race for galling, stretch, tightness etc. I know which things need to be replaced periodically regardless of apparent condition. I get in my car with confidence that nothing will break. My Dad and I do all of this on a 10 year old car using nothing but a pen and paper.
Airbus will do pretty much the same thing. Except they have access to a lot more information, databases to store component life timings, more money to throw at problems.
And neither will ever be totally reliable. But you can't live life thinking the worst like that. Do you drive? How do you feel getting into your car, doing 120km/h on tyres you've probably not looked at for 1000km at least, with other cars that might not have been inspected for a year or more?
Shit happens, even with the best design and production processes. You can, if you are learned enough, learn from it. But you are neither learned nor in the aviation industry. You just want a conspiracy theory to cling to in your meaningless life...
You're over-reacting. There are other planes which better fit the "Ford Pinto of the sky" mantle, like the MD-11.
Having a quick look at its incident records, not counting criminal incidents and a pre-production test flight, I see that only 2 of its 5 major incidents were with reputable operators (Qantas and Air France), with the remainder run by Malaysia Airlines, Philippine Airlines, and Air Transat (a convicted shoddy maintainer). A good record given its popularity and age.
If I compare it to the Boeing 777, I can see that 4 of 5 major incidents (except hijackings) were with reputable airlines (Emirates, two BA, and United). Fortunately, the 777 has suffered only one fatality. Another good record.
But if you compare the A330 to the other major competitor in the market, the Boeing 767, the Airbus wins hands down by a factor of more than 2. In other words, the 767 has twice as many incidents per aircraft in service, and more than twice as many incidents per year in service. Even considering that the 767 is a decade older, it's an alarming rate of incidents (not to mention fatalities!).
The A330 could have a problem with its flight control software, but there is no substantive evidence for that. It's true that such ideas are speculative. What do you expect? Ground one of the most popular passenger jetliners in the world because of a dubious diagnosis? Particularly considering that it is an aircraft with a highly-regarded safety record in the industry?
Investigate the problems and fix them. I say "yes" to that. Witch-hunting? No, thank you.
Personally I'd rather fly in an A330 than a 767, 757 (another safety shocker), MD-11, or A340.
Plenty of Boeing, mechanically/hydraulically controlled aircraft have had serious faults too, especially the fault on the Boeing 737 which caused the ruder to jam, but went un fixed for many years, cauing several fatal accidents.
People seem to think nowadays that accidents should never ever happen, yes a lot of accidents are potentially avoidable and are often the result of some stupidity, like the example above, but sometimes aircraft will go wrong and there will be nothing anyone can do about, you just have to accept that flying still has a certain risk.
I wouldnt diss Boeing...
A Korean 747 actually made the sonic boom during a dive derived to failure of one of it's engines in rough weather. Not to mention survived the stress of high and sustained gforce while regaining horizontal flyng. So it's quite a solid plane. Meh my bad english.
Airbus lost engines too in bad weather.
There are a lot of grey areas in this case, from bad piloting to plane malfunctions. (Still following the case as my father was in accidents investigation commissions and pilot (both military and commercial), so can have sometimes some insides). The very strange thing it's there arent any radio contact from the plane, wich it's quite strange. They still can contact Brasil or Africa (dont remember the country need to ask) but as we know no "sos" were launched. Probably lot of "bad" events together.
5haz: sadly i agree with you no plane can be high percentably safe... and humans can really lower this percentage.
[QUOTE=Racer X NZ;1190276]As the Antipodean Airline that had the crash ( Air NZ ) was flying in an Airbus maintained and flown, ( the pilots were German Airbus employees ) aircraft I'm interested in knowing just why it's now our fault the bastard crashed.
Please explain just how, as we never touched this plane, it's apparently our lack of maintainence that caused it to crash ?
QUOTE]
relax, the point i was making that stats like that prove nothing, if i compiled a list of space shuttle fatalities i could state that if your shuttle's name begins with a C it will eventually suffer a catastrophic failure
Oh, I'm not "dissing" Boeing. As I pointed out in my previous post, their 777 has a good safety record (it's statistically better than the A330).
What I am saying is that Racer X NZ is blowing the A330 incidents out of proportion. Relatively speaking, the A330 is a safe plane, as is the 777, when compared with other aircraft of similar category.