Originally Posted by
Fortissimo
I think it would be somewhat unlikely for liability to be attributed to Ethiopian Airlines for failing to doubt the safety of a brand new aircraft from a major manufacturer that had been certified as safe by the regulator. To my mind, operators buying aircraft are entited to rely on the assurances of a competent authority that design and manufacture complies fully with the standards that have been laid down. This is the fundamental principle behind the certification process - the standards are there to ensure safety, and purchasers should therefore be confident that the equipment satisfies their duty of care to pax and crew in this regard.
QUOTE] If, on the other hand, by “operator” you mean the particular pilots involved, well, in my opinion, pilots have a personal obligation to maintain a standard on top of that required by their employer and their regulator.
A laudable view but hard to achieve in practice. Regardless of the operation (fixed wing, rotary, commercial, non-commercial etc) there will be those who achieve and maintain a higher standard than that required simply because they are gifted as pilots, whereas others will have to work much harder. That said, I agree with the point about money/investment - it is next to impossible for pilots to voluntarily improve skills when the tools do the job are unavailable because of policies on hand-flying v automation and the absence of resources for non-jeopardy sims.[/QUOTE]
The good news for aviation safety is that these two accidents have shown a bright lite on aircraft design and certification. The liability question can be answered at this point. Regardless of how poor the skills ,training or supervision of the crews might be proven to be, the aircraft design led directly to the accidents. The fact that a well trained crew on Monday morning, could possibly have recovered the aircraft successfully, will not be relevant in shifting the major liability.
As far as the future of the 737 Max, hopefully Boeing will be required to do enough recertification to prove that no automated system can put the aircraft in an unrecoverable configuration, in other words, that the manual stab trim wheel can reasonably be used even at high speed, high g load and high elevator forces. Also they will need to find a simple way of allowing the crew to quickly analyse compounding failures.
in reviewing the performance of the crew, it cannot be over emphasized how disorienting multiple failure manifestations can be. If a crew does not fight an aggressive mental battle, fixation occurs quickly. For example, real stick shaker is rarely encountered. When it is, you are usually aware that you are approaching a limit anyway, perhaps slowing and near a flap extension speed and you hit some turbulence that gives you a momentary stick shaker. This is not alarming. But if you do not have a clue why you have a stick shaker, it is very distracting. In olden times the only way to get rid of it was to find the CB. Then you add other stall warning lights and sounds, if there is no way to rapidly get rid of erroneous warnings they take a toll on your mental state. A Navy flight instructor once told me that the first step in any emergency procedure was, "wind the clock." I don't think he was serious but the point is to maintain initiative. First due no harm. Do common sense things. Silence unneeded sound and get rid of warnings. Then confirm situational awareness. Altitude, terrain, speed, attitude, power setting, configuration, standby instruments. Make appropriate corrections, if not stable, get stable. This process, for an experienced pilot takes seconds.