Originally Posted by
mryan75
I'm a real pilot, too. The one thing that really stands out to me in the prelim is that they didn't reduce power. I just took a nice big bite of humble pie regarding the first officer, so I'm not going to sling any more mud, but one could reasonably have assumed they would have done so, wouldn't you say? While trying to fight a nose-down situation? Unusual attitude recovery 101.
I've been suggesting that speed was a factor in not being able to trim up, which is probably true. However a careful look at the FDR shows that everything was stable for several minutes, provided no speed/thrust or trim changes were made. The aircraft certainly could not land safely in that configuration.
The high speed alone was not the direct cause of the crash, though it may have severely limited their options. In theory speed could have been reduced gradually, though it is not known what effect the reduction of engine thrust would have on pitch.
IMO the combination of speed, and the final MCAS activation of nose down trim was fatal. Conversely, MCAS activation at low speed earlier in the flight was recoverable, because they could trim up manually. The fault-tree is complex...
Edit:
pilotmike If I remove the word slight will that make you happy?
Edit: In retrospect I stand by my statement for muiltiple reasons:
1. Pilots are not the only people who know about aerodynamics.
2. The discussion is around flight close to VMO, at which speed the aerodynamic forces far outweigh the pitch moment of the engine thrust.
3. Most discussion of engine pitch up moment is close to VMC, in which case the aerodynamic forces are proportionately small.
4. Most discussion of underslung engines centers around TOGA thrust, which could not be further from this flight regime.
Nobody has come up with any hard numbers, so these factors may remain an unknown.
Edit: Similar mention of speed/thrust from
justthisonce