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Final report on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 in-flight exit door plug separation

(www.ntsb.gov:443)
165 points starkparker | 4 comments | 10 Jul 25 20:51 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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thomascountz ◴[10 Jul 25 21:46 UTC] No.44525985[source]▶
> We determined that the probable cause of this accident was the in-flight separation of the left MED plug due to Boeing’s failure to provide adequate training, guidance, and oversight necessary to ensure that manufacturing personnel could consistently and correctly comply with its parts removal process, which was intended to document and ensure that the securing bolts and hardware that were removed to facilitate rework during the manufacturing process were properly reinstalled.

A bit OT, but what a gorgeous whale of a sentence! As always, the literary prowess of NTSB writers does not disappoint.

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0rzech ◴[10 Jul 25 22:10 UTC] No.44526228[source]▶
At school (Polish class in Poland) we were always taught to prefer complex and compound sentences over simple ones, because it's more elegant and speaks well the speaker/writer.
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1. SilasX ◴[10 Jul 25 22:32 UTC] No.44526429[source]▶
Well that’s one source (of many) where the problem is coming from.
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2. 0rzech ◴[11 Jul 25 08:11 UTC] No.44529535[source]▶
What problem? To make sentences like the one from NTSB report quoted here? Well, personally I would've split it and I'm pretty sure my teacher would've asked me to do it too if I were the author. ;)
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3. SilasX ◴[11 Jul 25 13:36 UTC] No.44531983[source]▶
The problem of writing to look smart rather than communicate vital information.
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4. 0rzech ◴[12 Jul 25 01:03 UTC] No.44538388{3}[source]▶
This is not about "writing to look smart". It's about using elegant style and using the language to it's full potential. There were multiple attempts to strip Polish people of their mother tongue and identity throughout the history, so we were taught to treasure both and use language's full richness. It's also simply nicer to listen to or read richer forms. These are the reasons for why we were told it speaks well of the speaker/writer. Also, elegance does not contradict communicating vital information. It's a false dilemma.