There's a minimum equipment list (MEL) so that people don't just wing it with inoperative equipment. Airlines must follow their MELs. It's the same when I fly GA aeroplanes.
Well, and as we've found the hard way, when someone decides to commit a felony by smoking in the bathroom, we want them to safely dispose of it, not throw it in the trash and start a fire.
Those ashtrays have saved so many flights from trashcan fires. Yes, especially since smoking is forbidden......
I've just been on a flight with a trashcan cigarette butt incident. Not nice to have to rely on a fire extinguisher and prayer when you're over the middle of the North Atlantic.
Amazing. Goes to show how complexity can arise (as in biological systems) without a direct fitness improvement…in this case seems like a decrease in fitness of the airplane to have to wait for a new ashtray
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There's a minimum equipment list (MEL) so that people don't just wing it with inoperative equipment. Airlines must follow their MELs. It's the same when I fly GA aeroplanes.
I've just been on a flight with a trashcan cigarette butt incident. Not nice to have to rely on a fire extinguisher and prayer when you're over the middle of the North Atlantic.
I did weight and balance for passenger planes manually on worksheets. I was eight. (My dad, an airline city manager, enjoyed trolling the pilots.)