Originally Posted by
lederhosen
In fifteen years on the 737 I cannot remember using the stab trim cutout switches apart from in the sim and even then only very occasionally. If the pilot flying was confronted with a similar scenario to the Lion accident then the combination of startle, unfamiliarity with the aircraft and a very new co-pilot could plausibly lead to this kind of end result. The statements from Ethiopian about ‚senior captains‘ with a couple of months experience on the airplane and first officers with 200 hours are not terribly reassuring. There is no ‚single size fits all‘ solution to minimum experience levels for pairing new pilots. But it would be surprising if this did not play a role.
Ditto that. With more than two decades on the B737 I too have never had recourse to have to move the Stabiliser switches to CutOff. And total hours are not a measure of competence; e.g. thousands of hours poling about in a normally highly-reliable-where-nothing-ever-goes-wrong aeronautical chariot does not necessarily turn someone into a latter day Chuck Yeager,