4 ms·

There were pilot crews that were able to successfully fend off MCAS's murderous tendencies, and there were pilot crews that were not. Ignoring this learning op

There were pilot crews that were able to successfully fend off MCAS's murderous tendencies, and there were pilot crews that were not. Ignoring this learning opportunity for better general pilot education would be a mistake. Pilots being better trained is always a good thing.

jfk13 7y ago
IIUC, those who did overcome the problem in the simulator lost around 8,000 feet of altitude in the process (despite presumably going into the simulator already knowing what they were going to be facing). It's not clear to me that the Ethiopian plane ever had enough altitude (above the ground) to allow for such a recovery.
- cjbprime 7y ago
  If I recall, it did stay at around 12k altitude for a stable period of flight where MCAS was being successfully neutralized. It's in the Ethiopian report. The airspeed was way above limit, though, which would make everything harder, including the manual retrimming.
  - bronson 7y ago
    Remember that they left an airport about 7000 feet up and headed over mountains. It's unlikely the plane was ever more than a few thousand feet above ground level. Page 26 in Ethiopia's report: https://fearoflanding.com/files/2019/04/Preliminary-Report-B737-800MAX-ET-AVJ.pdf https://fearoflanding.com/files/2019/04/Preliminary-Report-B...
    - cjbprime 7y ago
      Thanks, I'd forgotten the numbers. They aren't quite as bad as you say. The Ethiopian report shows their radar elevation around 14k feet before the descent, so it seems they made it to around 7k feet AGL for a few minutes. Not enough to be able to give up 8k feet during a recovery, I agree.