“IF” Flightradar24 data is to be believed, this doesn’t sound like an MCAS issue. The aircraft got to 250kts by 600’ and 380kts by 800’ (heights above airfield).
This really only indicates a pitch control problem or a pilot problem. They didn’t have a thrust problem.
Now, MCAS is not active with flaps extended - Lion Air did not have an MCAS issue until they retracted flaps. We don’t know whether Ethiopian retracted the flaps, of course, but it certainly appears that they were not flying normally prior to 500’, and one would normally have flaps out at that point (unless one had a pilot problem).
So until FDR data is analysed, this accident initally appears unrelated to Lion Air.
The F24 data I refer to is published in the main thread on R&N.
The other thing of note that happened to Lion Air was nuisance stick shaker from rotation. But I can’t fathom that this flight profile could result from a simple AOA failure causing nuisance stick shaker - even with a below average pilot. And that nuisance stick shaker presumably was not just a MAX related issue - the NG presumably suffers the same nuisance stick shaker potential with a faulty AOA. How many nuisance stick shakers on rotate have we heard of in NG’s? I also note that the Captain was a new Captain, but he apparently had 8000 hours (don’t know what type).
So the grounding to me sounds like overkill.
Yes, I think Boeing should fix the MCAS AOA input redundancy in the MAX. Well-trained pilots should be able to deal with that issue, but in this day and age we simply need to accept that not all pilots globally are well-trained, and in this day and age a new aircraft should not exhibit such unnecessary lack of redundancy. The grounding, even if overkill, will hopefully get the wheels moving pretty quickly in both Boeing and the FAA for an improvement to MAX MCAS redundancy.
But just to consider Sunfish’s “politics” argument: I think I read somewhere that Boeing would have implemented a software fix to MCAS by now if it wasn’t for the US government shutdown crippling the FAA’s ability to certify Boeing’s proposed “fix”, which was in turn caused by internal US politics over who should pay for a wall to stop the Mexicans ruining their country. So we can blame the Mexicans for the recent crash in Africa, to which CASA has responded by simply jumping on a global bandwagon simply to screw the Fijians, all the while allowing the Indonesian low cost carriers to continue flying here. Wow, our regulator has balls. Got it.