Originally Posted by
mh370rip
Or maybe not. The WSJ article quoted above says that the Ethiopian pilots were aware of the Lion Air crash and did turn off the stab trim motors but couldn't get the nose up using the manual wheels.
During my 737 3-400 type rating training I clearly recall a demonstration in which stab trim was allowed to go beyond the point where manual trim could be operated due to control loads. Whether this was part of a stab trim runaway drill or an extension of demonstrating the trim system I no longer recall. The purpose was to enable awareness of the condition and practice the technique of (both pilots) hauling back on the yoke and then relaxing the pull while simultaneously clawing back a little manual trim using the wheel. This has to be repeated several times before the loads reduce enough to allow continuous trimming without unloading pull on the yoke.
If a pilot hadn't seen this simple but crucial demostration their recovery from a sufficiently runaway stab would be problematic, and in the Ethiopian case I expect their inordiantely high airspeed would have exacerbated the problem.
Little details like this can make a huge difference years later on the line, and if small details get dropped from the training manual...
Does any other 737 pilot recall doing/not doing this exercise? I'd imagined it to be a universally inuded part of the course but perhaps not. It would certainly be of great importance to now if it was included in the training all four accident pilots recieved.