Originally Posted by
boofhead
It is not important why the stab system failed. It could have been a myriad of things. All a pilot has to do is fly the airplane. It happens many times without a problem and we don't even hear about it. Engines fail and pilots do the right thing, they handle icing, mechanicals, recognize subtle incapacitation, low oil pressure, engine failures, prop runaways, incipient stalls, seat belts hanging out of the door, out of balance loading, bird strikes and more and don't decide to kill themselves and their passengers. That is what we expect and deserve from a professional pilot.
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If they fail, we have to be able to see that as not only a warning to build our airplanes better (add stall warning, anti ice equipment, better passenger restraint, fire bottles etc) but also recognize when pilot training has failed. And do better. But if we deny the pilot element and do nothing we better get ready for the body bag companies to increase their stock prices.
Boof;
1. The JT crew didn't have any advice on the matter.
2. The ET crew had limited guidance provided by the OEM in his all operators notices.
3. The OEM notice didm't reinforce the issue of loss of trim capability on selecting stab trim cutout.
4. The ET crew followed initially the guidance material, and then for reasons to be investigated elected to return the stab trim operation, which then went pear shaped.
One can assume that this crew was trying their best with the information and training they had, and for some reason elected to return the stab to normal operation. I suspect we are going to find that the stab being defeated by airloads on the B737 is substantially worse on the Max/NG than any other type, and that it could even be marginal within the existing out of trim standard which is a lower level of mis-trim than the MCAS can and did result in.
It has taken some months of discussions to indicate the problems of airloads on the mis-trimmed stabiliser, and Max experience of that condition comes down to a single deceased crew, ET302, and possibly the OEM's TPs over the last 3 months. The simulator is stated to not reflect the event correctly, which leaves the MCAB and flight test as the only place that it is likely to evaluate how severe the mis-trim air loads problem really is.
Something caused the guys to reset the cutouts... and I would suggest that it is a mathematical certainty that no one on this forum other than an OEM TP has actual experience with the Max8 mis-trim airloads, so comments on competency, not fighting etc would seem to be unwarranted.