Originally Posted by
threemiles
MCAS is inhibited as long as the flaps are down. As the flaps are retracted (at 1000 AGL per SOP) MCAS starts to push the nose down for 5 secs, maybe twice or three times, before PF realizes whats going on .
Then per EAD trim cutout.
The plane gets faster quickly, control loads higher.
Someone would need to pull the yoke and reduce thrust, but both are trying to get the nose up with the trim wheel???
Really??.
I am not a pilot, but have read enough to think we are all seeing the same story now. Once they had passed 250kts at low altitude, they really had run out of options. This is despite what Boeing and the FAA confidently told us with the emergency AD in November. Nothing there about lowering speed or releasing the elevator, to reduce stabiliser loading under manual trim.
They also didn't have the option of putting flaps down (due to overspeed), which would have immediately inhibited MCAS. Enabling auto-pilot was equally impossible because of IAS disagree.
A reminder of the exact AD wording, which sounds so easy:
Initially, higher control forces may be needed to overcome any stabilizer nose down trim already applied. Electric stabilizer trim can beused to neutralize control column pitch forces before moving the STABTRIM CUTOUT switches to CUTOUT. Manual stabilizer trim can beused before and after the STAB TRIM CUTOUT switches are movedto CUTOUT.