"I don't know", that's the answer I have given since the Malaysian 777 disappeared and people asked me what happened.
"I don't know", is what aviation experts should have answered as well when media asked them.
"I don't know", is what media should have stated daily instead of hypothesising and spreading rumours.
But they don't. No, apparently we live in a society that expects answers right now. No time to wait, we need to know immediately and preferably with all gross details attached and at least some self made youtube movies posted on the internet. That's the least we can expect. So if an airplane goes missing, media and society don't seem to grasp the concept that it may take years before answers are clear on what happened. If an airplane crashes at an airport it still takes years, and rescue workers and accident investigators are on site within minutes. When the SA-227 Metro crashed at Cork airport in February 2011 killing 6 people, it took almost 3 years before the final accident report was published (January 2014) identifying what happened, why it happened and the lessons to learn. Why does it take so long? Because aviation is complex, distilling what happened exactly is very complex and there is no room for error.
What worries me as well is that since the Malaysian crash we have seen in every newspaper and media report wonderful graphics (like the one below) showing how safe flying is. And it is, no doubt about it. But I don't like these graphs. They risk turning us, aviation professionals, decision makers and authorities into turkeys.
I don't make sense? Let me explain with the example that Taleb (yes yes I know) thought me: every day the risk management department and the economic department of the turkey sees the human coming into its pad with food. So every day the turkey learns from his risk management and economic assessment that the human brings food which makes the turkey happy. As days go by, the confidence of the turkey in the human grows and grows. And then after hundreds of days where the signal has been confirmed over and over again, the human walks into the turkey's pad with an ax. It's the day before Christmas (or Thanksgiving for the American turkey).
When I see graphs like the one below saying aviation has never been safer, I don't want to be a turkey. Yes it is safer than ever. But that should not make us complacent. Complacency is the biggest enemy for aviation safety.
When you do something stupid and hurt yourself in the process, you tend to learn the lesson and not to repeat the stupidity any more. When we all dived into the 2008 financial crisis, the lesson learned (amongst others) was: too much derivatives on the banks balances and not enough capital to guarantee losses on their (derivative) investments. Basel III (the rules devised by the Basel Committee (composed of central banks and chaired by Mario Draghi)) was supposed to solve this. They adopted the international standard for the leverage ratio* on January 12. Without going into the technical details, here is what you should know about it (but only very few media have reported upon):
it eases the requirements for products, such as derivatives, which make up large parts of the banks' balance sheets
according to Financial Times sources, the effect of the adjustments could be a raise of big global banks’ average leverage ratio from about 3,8% to just over 4% -> This means that the Basel fiddling on how to count derivatives gives the banks a free 0,2% leverage ratio avoiding a capital increase of billions of $ or €.
entry into force is only 2018, and the minimum required ratio is still not defined. Basel has proposed a minimum of 3%, but the US wants to strengthen this (higher %). Europe is lobbying to stay with the 3%. Go figure...
You want to have it crystal clear? Here's a quote from an analyst at BNP Paribas, who said the result was “more of a win for the industry than I was expecting”.
As a result of the Basel III agreement bank stocks went up 2-3% on Monday.
Lessons learned? None. At least we and our politicians have not learned any. The banks on the other hand have learned an important lesson: We (the banks) can gamble the global financial system, be bailed out with public money if it goes wrong, not be punished for it and even better, can start all over again playing the same game.
Often I get the impression that many of us who live in the Western world still haven't grasped that the centre of gravity on economic, political, hey on every level (except for earth's centre of gravity) has shifted to the East. This picture courtesy of the Worldbank should give those who believe they are (still) the centre of the world something to reflect upon. More people live in the highlighted area than outside of it.
Worldbank - More people live inside this circle than outside of it.
* From the Basel website: The leverage ratio "promotes the short-term resilience of a bank's liquidity risk profile. It does this by ensuring that a bank has an adequate stock of unencumbered high-quality liquid assets (HQLA) that can be converted into cash easily and immediately in private markets to meet its liquidity needs for a 30 calendar day liquidity stress scenario."
Seems that nor the politicians nor the media are asking the right questions about Syria, let alone answer them.
So in an attempt to help them out here is what I like to have answered (truthfully if possible):
1. Can we believe the US this time when they claim they have irrefutable evidence?
2. Is it really so that the US and some European countries are appalled that chemical weapons have been used?
3. Or is it just a good excuse and is there a different agenda (gas pipeline?)?
4. If chemical weapons are so inhumane why has the US not disposed off its own chemical weapons yet? (It is working on this, but they still have a stockpile left according to wikipedia: The Chemical Weapons Convention signed in 1993 stipulated a deadline of April 2012 to fully dispose of all chemical weapons, the US missed the deadline and the Pentagon indicated that they are looking at a 2023 target!!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_Weapons_Convention)
I am sure that the media will keep us informed over every nitty-gritty detail leading up to the US Congress discussion and vote on Syria. Whilst you are watching that theatre, bear in mind the words of Noam Chomsky (he doesn't need an introduction - but for those who have never heard of him see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky). He made some remarkable statements during his keynote address at the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum in Bonn, Germany, 17 June 2013: “In the past, the United States has sometimes, kind of sardonically, been described as a one-party state: the business party with two factions called Democrats and Republicans. That’s no longer true. It’s still a one-party state, the business party. But it only has one faction. The faction is moderate Republicans, who are now called Democrats. There are virtually no moderate Republicans in what’s called the Republican Party and virtually no liberal Democrats in what’s called the Democratic [sic] Party. It’s basically a party of what would be moderate Republicans and similarly, Richard Nixon would be way at the left of the political spectrum today. Eisenhower would be in outer space.”
Now, today's blog may give you the impression I am US-basing. That's not the intention.
As a small token of appreciation, I include two movies. The first one has a big wow-factor for me. In my student days as engineer we were still drawing on paper when designing something. We also had some courses on computer drawing but they were rather rough. Elon Musk (the founder of Paypal and current CEO of Tesla and Space X) posted a movie where they design pieces of a rocket in 3D with hand gestures (!) and then print it in 3D. He speaks of a revolution and that is exactly what it is. (The more critical reader would say that Elon is a born South-African, so this is not an example of how great the US is, but Elon's businesses were started, nurtured and grown in the US, so see it as a tribute to the good-old American Dream).
The second movie is posted by NASA doing a crash test of a helicopter on August 28. The research is aimed at improving the survivability of helicopter occupants. A very and much needed, noble goal. I am particularly intrigued in this test as I worked in car industry for 12 years, mainly dealing with car safety and have witnessed a lot of car crash tests and in my current job, I am amongst others responsible for helicopter safety. So this really is an interesting combination of my two worlds! I would love to see the readings from those dummies. Especially the two dressed in white (as they only had lap belts!).
You probably guessed the song that has to go with it: Crash Test Dummies - Mmm Mmm Mmm
