Originally Posted by
Ace McKool
Thanks for the link. That is an EXCELLENT read.
Summary
The pilots (crew) mismanaged engine thrust and airspeed.
Excessive airspeed rendered manual trim ineffective.
The crew deviated from the emergency procedure.
Crew experience and competency a major contributing factor.
CONCLUSION
Examining both accidents separately provides valuable insights—it’s easy to understand how these unrelated airlines and crew may have responded in similar ways—but the overall conclusion in our previous article, “Boeing’s Grounding: Catastrophic Crashes, and Questions About Boeing’s Liability And 737 MAX Aircraft Viability,” still stands—the major contributing factor to these accidents was pilot error.
After a more comprehensive analysis of each of the two accidents, especially Lion Air Flight 610, we are persuaded more than ever that the case for pilot error—as well as inadequate training—are the dominant contributing factors in both accidents, not the only ones but the most serious factors.
The LA 610 accident is somewhat excusable since the pilots were not privy to MCAS and its challenges. Even so, there were surprising pilot practices and judgment shortfalls as well as concerns with appropriate MAX training. The Ethiopian accident, however, is more confounding since it was verified by the airline that the pilots were trained in accordance with Boeing (and FAA) recommendations. Perhaps the company’s training verification should be scrutinized.
As we have highlighted, the ET 302 pilots did follow the runaway trim procedure, at least initially. However, questions remain as to why the pilots mismanaged the airspeed and deviated from company and Boeing procedures. These actions led to an unrecoverable dive resulting in the loss of crew and passengers. We believe that the final accident report will (or should) reflect this finding.