A vehicle contains two engines, a main engine and backup. The engine component fails only if both engines fail. The probability that the main engine fail is 0.05, and the probability that the backup engine fails is 0.10. Assume that the main and backup engines function independently. What is the probability that the engine component fails?
Solution
The probability that the engines component fails probability that both engines fails. Therefore
P(engines component fails) = P(main engines fails and backup engines fails)
Since the engines function independently, we may use Equation (9):
P(main engines fails and backup engine fails) = P(main fails)P(backup fails)
= (0.10)(0.05)
= 0.005