Originally Posted by
GordonR_Cape
I'm not a pilot, but also not clueless (having both an engineering and programming background), and having read all 4000 plus posts in this thread. My questions have not been about how to fly a B737, but how the MAX and MCAS actually work, with stuck high AOA data. No pilot on this forum has actually experienced this, either in person or in the simulator. I (and others) do not accept as verbatim truth, the system descriptions provided by such pilots, however experienced. The same applies even more to Boeing, who were evasive about the existence of MCAS, provided limited documentation, and have much to gain by shifting blame, and good (legal) reasons for not disclosing more details.
Only an independent engineering verification (not paper documents and diagrams) of the details of systems involved in the crashes, and of the proposed revisions to MCAS, will provide all the answers. My viewpoint has nothing to do with blame, just looking for the truth, which may take some time (years?). In the meantime any assertion that the pilots should have done X, can be countered by an assertion that perhaps the software or hardware did not allow that to happen. The same is true of any crash investigation, where both complex systems and human factors were involved.
There are two issues at hand here: One issue is everything surrounding MCAS which you are interested in. Another issue is, if these accidents were preventable by carrying out the required Boeing procedures or by applying basic flying skills respectively, despite MCAS activating.