Originally Posted by
MD80767 Driver
As I'm sure the Lion Air and Ethiopian pilots did ! None of them wanted to die. None of them gave up until hitting the ground. So, what is your point ??
Is it also your position that the engineers did everything they could do? The MAX program managers? Boeing? The regulators? The airlines and their training departments? Did all these people simply meet expectations? Do we just sit idly by and say, “That’s okay, I’m sure you did your best” ?!
The responsibility for these accidents should be shared broadly, but the pilots are almost always the first ones to the scene of the accident. Sometimes we cannot simply accept a certain level of training and skills because we passed the minimum standards of a training department whose primary allegiance is to an organization that wants to keep the metal moving at a minimum cost.
The point is to learn not only from our mistakes, but also the mistakes of others. No, I don’t think anyone intended for hundreds of people to die, but die they did. Every specialty that touched these accidents ought to be doing a lot of soul searching and asking themselves how they could have done better.
As far as the flight crew, no one was expecting them to come up with some innovative split-s, half-barrel roll maneuver to save this aircraft. All that was required of the flying pilot was to recognize the immediate problem, execute the first steps of what should have been a well-known procedure, keep his thumb near the yoke trim switch, and simply trim the stab as necessary. Turn off the magic, pitch 10 degrees, power to 80% and trim. That's it! This is not test pilot territory.
Have our expectations of what constitutes basic airmanship skills for a commercial airline pilot fallen so low?