MCAS was designed to only activate in extreme flight conditions (e.g. AoA being abnormally high). The reason why they decided have MCAS activate even without au

MCAS was designed to only activate in extreme flight conditions (e.g. AoA being abnormally high). The reason why they decided have MCAS activate even without autopilot can probably be traced to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447.