Originally Posted by
Stone69
I'm long retired and although I flew earlier models of the 737, I'm certainly not in the loop with this version. I have not had a chance to go through the full report. I read in one of the posts that the speed was 300+ kts and unless I've missed previous comments about this I'm surprised no one appears to have observed on this..... with a flight control problem the problems are greatly increased with so much speed and I would have thought they would have slowed to a more manageable speed. I know there was a lot going on and the numerous warnings going non-stop can be very distracting, but reduced IAS would have greatly reduced the control forces that they needed to use . I do understand that they were getting stall warnings and I would presume the stick shaker was active, but setting a thrust that would give a speed for arguments sake of 250 or so might have bought them more time and a better resolution to this might have been achieved....
That would be the logical thing to do. Recognizing that repeated uncommanded trim movements occurring in a regular pattern are indeed "continuous" would be another. Both actions would require logical thinking and what we used to call "flying by the seat of one's pants." Reading this thread it appears these concepts have died in favor of computers and checklists.
Is "it wasn't done because there's no checklist for it" a valid defense strategy? It appears Boeing's "Legal Eagles" are chomping at the bit to test that line in court with a long line of expert witnesses. First in that line will be the surviving Lion Air crew that took the appropriate action on the previous flight(s). The depositions would make compelling reading and something we are unlikely to ever see if the case even gets that far.
Once cockpit control is ceded to the realm of 1's and 0's, pilots become obsolete. Be careful what you wish (advocate) for.