Originally Posted by
STBYRUD
In my humble opinion much too much is made out of the MCAS issue. All the fleet transition and training documents available from the manufacturer have included it. Anyhow, as Boeing have mentioned themselves, a malfunction with it is already covered by present procedures. It's operation is transparent to the crew, so in case of false MCAS activation due to unreliable AOA data we basically have a runaway stabilizer - and flipping the cutout switches mitigates the problem.
I think I might have to disagree a bit. How do you tell the difference between UAS and UAoA having just left the ground, especially if the AML has had UAS entries for the last couple of sectors? How would you diagnose a runaway stabiliser, given the
normal operation of MCAS would be intermittent trim inputs and the pilot trim controls are still effective?
Recall/memory checks need simple triggers and a short list of items as these will inevitably be needed/actioned in times of high workload and distraction. An large collection of disparate clues requiring Holmes-type deduction to end up with the right response is set up to fail, IMHO.