@737 Diver:
The issue here, having just gone through the last 7 pages of this thread, remains a multi party setting up of this crew (as I see it).
1. Boeing and various companies were chasing a dollar/profit objective, and the AoA miscompare "alert" was apparently optional equipment.
2. A primary flight control is moved by an aircraft sub system with no pilot in put, but (as has been discussed at length) a number of ways of disabling it.
3. Training on this subsystem: of questionable quality. Doubly so due to wide variation between air line companies in how much (in terms of time and money) they invest in their crews, not just for the upgrade to Max but in general.
4. Crew training(??) / inexperience becoming an international norm.
5. Over-reliance on automation becoming an international norm.
6. Arriving at your points
in your latest post, (none of which seem unreasonable to me, but I don't fly 737) the above mentioned factors suggest that unless you are in a company who values crew competence, and puts money / time / resources toward that core value, your crews are open to being set up - not only for the startle factor increasing a challenge, but incomplete systems knowledge (
and practice with it) getting in the way of timely and correct decision making when dealing with a systems malfunction. Years ago when I was running sim training the ability to do some "free play" at the end of a session to test where a crew got oversaturated with systems malfunctions/emergencies was good training, and a lot of crews really appreciated them.
Meme/clue for the non pilots in the audience here: when a malfunction turns into an emergency (or a fatal crash) to simply blame the pilots is to overlook that layers of human endeavor and responsibility that got them to that point.
7. (Pax Britannica made some interesting points previous but I lost my train of thought). The cockpit gradient in a given cockpit does not develop in isolation from cockpit / corporate culture, which is also informed by larger cultural issues regarding authority. It is unclear how that played out for ET to me, and is one of those hard to quantify factors.
8. A company (be it ET, Lion, or perhaps if things had played out differently, United or American?) has a powerful financial motive to move the blame indicator arrow to point ONLY at the manufacturer. (And the single point of failure issue that looks to be a root causal factor gives them fair grist for that mill). Some of this is cultural, some of this is purely financial due to how litigation works.
9. In the time between Lion Air and ET: what training, what systems training, and what crew training with related malfunctions did this crew have? What are the effects of negative training, and how do those play out in a cockpit?
10. Recency and upset training was mentioned above. I'll offer an idea here: any malfunction that is related to the movement of primary flight controls is subject to a recency factor (as seen in the AF 447 accident).
Were they, the crew in ET, set up?
At least in part, I offer that the answer is yes. The system that set them up all of the world's airline companies are a part of, and are core players in. So too are regulators, and nations.
I can't disagree with the general point that
the pitch and power chorus are making (this singing group is once again on stage was they were for most of the AF 447 discussion on PPRuNe) . Power plus attitude equals performance.
But are people really being trained that way anymore?
Are their behaviors being incentivized to ground their operation of aircraft with that fundamental principle foremost?
If not, why not?
The corporations who make their money in this business (be it manufacturing, operating, or training people to operate the equipment) need to answer that question. So who is holding them all to account?
Aside: I do not believe that there is now an
international standard of what a professional pilot is - I have seen some appeal to that thought - no matter how badly I wish that were true.
There may once have been such a standard. (But hey, all that is now needed is a concierge, eh? Tech is magic! (/sarcasm off))
There's a lot of lip service paid to it, though, and professional pilots (those who are the real deal) are rightly dismayed to see the profession that learned hard lessons over the course of a century, under attack. The two dead men (and their passengers) from ET are casualties in a war that seems to be going on between price and professionalism, and the use of automation to replace human function.