Originally Posted by
Lake1952
Small aircraft pilot for 35+ years, land and sea. To all those on this board who say when confronted with unreliable airspeed indications, "fly the aircraft" or 'Pitch and power".... doesn't the fact that the automatic trim functions triggered by the MCAS software require Herculean back preesure on the yoke change the equation for you even a little? And the fact that at certain airspeeds, it is difficult or nearly impossible to manually trim the aircraft to reduce or remove the need for massive back pressure?
You’ve probably heard the old saw about the kid who killed his parents and then requested mercy before the court because he was an orphan. The Ethiopian situation is kind of like that.
Because of a lack of application of basic airmanship skills, the aircraft entered a flight regime where basic flying skills were no longer sufficient to save the ship. Some people keep looking at the condition of the aircraft at the five minute mark and declare it was no longer flyable without seriously considering what happened in the previous 4 minutes and 59 seconds.