Originally Posted by
Takwis
You know that MCAS only works with the flaps up...they most certainly did not. With everything else going on, I doubt they ever made the connection.
"Hey look! Some system that we don't know exists quits doing some function that we don't understand when we put the flaps down! At least for the moment. Wish that stick shaker would quit, though."
Obviously the crew couldn't have been aware of MCAS. It's more the ability to make the high-level observation "hey, the plane is misbehaving, but it is misbehaving WORSE when the flaps are retracted" kind of thing that might have led them to do things differently. That in turn would require some outside the box thinking that may have been strongly discouraged within their training and operational culture. As I said, we don't currently know what led the crew to extend the flaps and retract them again. Perhaps we will know more when the final is released.