Originally Posted by
LowObservable
I am amazed at the continued "any real airman could have handled this... obvious trim runaway... follow the procedures" drumbeat from people who identify as US- or Euro-based pilots. (I say "identify" because at least one such got outed as a sim player.)
People! So far we know of only three occurrences of the basic failure (AoA sensor is bad from the start of roll, falsely high reading, high enough for stall warning, and it's the one driving MCAS today). Two resulted in total loss. The third was saved by a jumpseat rider who had attention to spare and a better view of the trim wheels. That is stark evidence that this failure sequence is dangerous in the extreme.
Moreover, airlines all over the world have, in recent years, contributed to the industry's excellent safety record. Not too many signs that (not to put too fine a point on it) the ethnicity of the pilots or management is a big deal.
Okay, as one of the posters who has been highly critical of the airmanship displayed by the accident pilots, would you please show me where I said anything denigrating about their ethnicity or nationality? Poor airmanship is poor airmanship regardless of race, creed, gender, citizenship, favorite football squad, or whatnot. And if it makes you feel any better, I believe the problem lies more in the training and airline culture in which they were raised than any individual shortcomings.
As a side note, I have invested a fair amount of personal time researching issues related to these accidents to include sifting through available aviation safety and accident databases. There have been plenty of other cases of commercial airline instrument failures leading to unexpected system responses and confusion among the crew.
You just don’t hear about them because these events had a successful conclusion.
The notable exception was AF447 - loss of airspeed, confusing alerts, systems reacting in ways the pilot flying wasn’t expecting, improper crew response, followed by a hull loss and major loss of life. This was another clear example of the pilots’ failure to revert to basics and fly the aircraft. Their ethnicity or employment at a major European carrier granted them no special protection from a failure of airmanship.