Originally Posted by
RetiredTooEarly
In great VMC conditions - as reported - even the very worst of pilots should surely be able to maintain some semblance of the old Straight and Level.
Seems inconceivable to me that even if this Max had the same airspeed/attitude problems as the last one that crashed, the pilots couldn't have controlled it.
I don’t agree at all.
If the f/o was flying, he only had 200 hours. After flaps up, the stick shaker goes off, which is mighty disconcerning, and MCAS bungs in a load of trim. The captain cannot see why the trim is trimming, and the low-hours f/o has no clue (seen that many times). The captian thinks he has an airspeed problem and is stalling, and tells the f/o to lower the nose - which the f/o does rather easily, because he is holding a load of back pressure. MCAS then bungs in another load of trim, and the f/o is now really struggling with the controls - never having felt an aircraft behave like this (at this stage, you need about 30 kg of force to hold the aircraft level).
The captain is still convinced the airspeed is wrong and they may be stalling (stick shaker still going), and shouts “I have control”, but does not realise so much pitch force is necessary, so the aircraft instantly pitches forward into a steep dive. Captain is mighty startled by this - is this pitch down the result of a stall? He has forgotten all about the previous trim episodes, and just hauls back on the stick. But MCAS now gives another load of forward trim, which makes the aircraft completely unflyable (60 kg of force necessary on the stick). And here comes terra firma....
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