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>But that's exactly what's disingenuous about the GP's claim. Many disasters do indeed involve a sequence of mistakes of different sorts but that's not really t

>But that's exactly what's disingenuous about the GP's claim. Many disasters do indeed involve a sequence of mistakes of different sorts but that's not really the case here. The situation with 737 max was one terribly system and the pilot's complete inability to stop this - inability that could have been anticipated and which was the product of the original bad design. MCAS is a badly designed system, but many other stabiliser control failures could cause the aircraft to rapidly lose altitude. The solution is the same in all cases - flip the cutoff switches to disconnect automatic stab control and trim the stabiliser manually using the wheel on the center console. The flight crews in both MCAS-related disasters showed serious failures in airmanship and a lack of understanding of the fundamentals of flight. They were taken by surprise by MCAS, but they should have been more than capable of swiftly handling that situation; their inability to do so is symptomatic of broader failings in the training and culture of pilots in many emerging markets. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/16/world/asia/lion-air-crash-cockpit.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/16/world/asia/li... https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/magazine/boeing-737-max-crashes.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/magazine/boeing-737-max-c...

mlyle 7y ago
> MCAS is a badly designed system, but many other stabiliser control failures could cause the aircraft to rapidly lose altitude. The solution is the same in all cases - flip the cutoff switches to disconnect automatic stab control and trim the stabiliser manually using the wheel on the center console. ET302 tried this-- maybe slightly late, but MCAS is weird/sneaky. Still, it's hard to fault their response at this point. They were unable to budge the trim wheel because of overspeed. They were barely climbing at Vmo. This left them in a difficult position. Ideal response would be to reduce power (prevent overspeed), keep climbing at Vmo. During this, try to turn trim wheel. If necessary, once they had sufficient altitude, they could aerodynamically unload and trim. Instead they, for some reason, decided to turn the stabilator trim system back on (whoops 1), and then used it an insufficient amount to get trim to a reasonable place (whoops 2), and then left it on for MCAS to trigger again (whoops 3).

mlyle 7y ago

> MCAS is a badly designed system, but many other stabiliser control failures could cause the aircraft to rapidly lose altitude. The solution is the same in all cases - flip the cutoff switches to disconnect automatic stab control and trim the stabiliser manually using the wheel on the center console. ET302 tried this-- maybe slightly late, but MCAS is weird/sneaky. Still, it's hard to fault their response at this point. They were unable to budge the trim wheel because of overspeed. They were barely climbing at Vmo. This left them in a difficult position. Ideal response would be to reduce power (prevent overspeed), keep climbing at Vmo. During this, try to turn trim wheel. If necessary, once they had sufficient altitude, they could aerodynamically unload and trim. Instead they, for some reason, decided to turn the stabilator trim system back on (whoops 1), and then used it an insufficient amount to get trim to a reasonable place (whoops 2), and then left it on for MCAS to trigger again (whoops 3).