Manufacturers take the blame for this. And they take the blame for things like no global transponder in the loss of the 777 over the Atlantic. Unfortunately the FAA processes, while enlightened in some ways, and firmly grounded in the science of safety, are effectively a strong deterrent for a manufacturer to avoid changing anything in a design.
The result is that many aircraft operate for a very long time with very outdated systems. Replacing designs is prohibitively expensive to prove to the FAA that there will be no corresponding degradation of the system's performance or new safety risk. Unfortunately such a process does not calculate the cost of not replacing the system. No cost is attributed with keeping something that is old and lacking in capability.
The result is that aircraft systems are woefully behind what technology can offer. And this is not just the hardware or the software, it includes the procedures and the overall set of capabilities. The result is that aircraft are being operated to the standards of the 50s, when in fact a much higher standard of crew and aircraft performance is possible. When I say performance I am also talking about safety performance, the ability to operate without harm causing failure.
I do not agree in general, but I admit to not knowing the details of that system. Those of us in the industry have been waiting for 737 rudders to fail for a long time. The data was there. This is the same as waiting for a pilot to rip the tail off an airplane as happened over New York. The certification basis of those aircraft was not in harmony with the information the operators used to fly them and gravely distorted the engineering that had gone into designing the aircraft.
In both cases, there was a certain inevitability given the processes at work, the conditions, the changes and the difference between engineering reality and what is presented in the FAA Type Certification process as the basis for the modification of the Type Certificate. As an engineer working on aircraft, one thing is for certain, engineering data is laundered to the bare minimum in the interests of certification. This is in contrast to the engineering NASA does. The cert process does not achieve transparency, as it is a legal not an engineering process.
One can blame manufacturers, but there really is no way for them to be transparent and ever ship anything (ref. Lear Fan). I am not, however, advocating retracting any responsibility from Boeing. They must bear the responsibility for their product. I am only saying that we have created an environment as a country that makes it unlikely we will see the behavior we desire from manufacturers. As a person who likes to land the same number of times I take off, my interest is in helping the government improve as well as the manufacturers.
So Boeing decided to conclude that the existing system was sufficient. And they proved it to the FAA. There is no precedent or standard applied to the parts of the airplane that are not changed, once they are deemed not to need changing. This is similar to the housing code. Replace a socket in a house with knob-and-spool wiring, and you do not need to fix a thing. Rewire a bedroom in a house with knob and spool wiring, and the code will not let you put new knob and spool wiring in, one must then bring the house's electrical system up to code.
The reason there still is a 737 is the tremendous economic benefit afforded to manufacturers who use safety analysis to show that the previous iteration of the aircraft's systems are sufficient given proposed changes on the aircraft. That's why it has ridiculous engine nacelles, ridiculous landing gear, in many 737's ridiculous avionics. A new airframe is required, but the cost of a new airframe's certification is much greater than the hacky re-certification of an old type certificate obtained when standards and processes were very different and much out of date.
There are many examples too. The concorde is one that has my current prize for being the most extreme example. One crash, retire them all. There was no reasonable way to operate that aircraft by modern safety standards. But it was certified in what, the 60's. One likely could have certified a barn door strapped to a Concorde engine in those days ;-)
The Concorde was not retired directly after the crash. It flew for three more years and was retired for financial reasons. The crash probably reduced the demand though and thus contributed.
I think that is inaccurate. One fleet was grounded quickly. The 30 million Kevlar tank linings were underestimated in cost I think dramatically. As for profit, I am not sure the aircraft was ever a profit center. Any reasonable observer saw Non-recoverable Engineering Expenses that the company any could never recover from as a result of having to mitigate a new safety requirement onto an old aircraft that was never designed with modern standards in mind.
I think it is a very good example of how old systems continue to operate while the public believes they are up to modern standards. We see it in civil engineering now too. A bridge collapses in Pennsylvania and the public is told that over 1/3 of US bridges are outside of their designed life span and more expensive to fix than replace with municipalities that cannot afford to do either. The Concord was old and had what we call Tech Debt. It could not be made modern. Risk is just negative opportunity cost. When it crashed that debt was realized and the company had to write it down. One thing for sure is correct in your statement. It is about money driving the decisions, not engineering.
What is inaccurate? The accident happened in 2000 and the last flights were in 2003 by both airlines. What do you mean by one fleet being grounded quickly?
The exact motives for retiring the plane are hard to know. Safety almost surely played a part if nothing else by reducing demand. I was just correcting that you seemed to be saying the plane has been retired after the accident when it did in fact return to service.
The result is that many aircraft operate for a very long time with very outdated systems. Replacing designs is prohibitively expensive to prove to the FAA that there will be no corresponding degradation of the system's performance or new safety risk. Unfortunately such a process does not calculate the cost of not replacing the system. No cost is attributed with keeping something that is old and lacking in capability.
The result is that aircraft systems are woefully behind what technology can offer. And this is not just the hardware or the software, it includes the procedures and the overall set of capabilities. The result is that aircraft are being operated to the standards of the 50s, when in fact a much higher standard of crew and aircraft performance is possible. When I say performance I am also talking about safety performance, the ability to operate without harm causing failure.