Originally Posted by
HighWind
There is a difference..
VW knew they were breaking the law..
Boeing knew that the B737 is not state of the art, but there is no evidence that Boeing knew that the design was dangerous.
However:
On page 15 of
https://www.easa.europa.eu/sites/def...20ISS%2010.pdf
It seems like FAA/Boeing have delivered evidence to EASA to confirm that the manual trim wheel is usable in ‘certain corners of the envelope’, in situations where the trim forces are too high for the electrical trim.
The question is if Boeing knew that the manual trim forces were too high for an average pilot..
I think this is a slight misunderstanding.
The information provided was that in some corners of the envelope trim input may be needed which is not accessible by electric trim, because it is past the column cutout switches. It was argued, that it could be achieved by manual trim though and "additional crew procedures and training material will clearly explain to pilots the situations where use of the trim wheel may be needed".
Now if it turns out that exactly in the situations mentioned "gear up/flaps up, aft center of gravity, near Vmo/Mmo corner" manual trim is not possible that would make Boeings statment significanty false.