Originally Posted by
LeadSled
Lookleft,If your statement above is the case, every civil jet aircraft Boeing has ever built is fatally flawed; Why would I say that ---- because the MCAS system is a stability aid, these in one form or another, have been on every aircraft since the B707. Yaw dampers are another example of a stability aid --- in early days pilots in bulk did not trust yaw dampers --- unless they could disconnect them, like early B707.
False equivalence. Did any of these preceding Boeing aircraft suffer a series of fatal accidents in a very short space of time due to the failure of these 'stability aids'? Stability aids is a broad term that does not make the various forms contained within that umbrella equitable.
The fact remains, as was demonstrated by Lion Air Bali to Djakarta, an MCAS malfunction in the hands of an adequately trained crew (actioning the un-commanded stab trim checklist --- whatever its current B737 QRH name) does not/should not result in the loss of the aircraft.
"Does not?" I know of 346 people who would probably disagree with that statement if they were able. Regulators worldwide also appear to share this view, which is why the max is currently located in the only safe operating environment that exists for it.
By the Sullenberger yardstick, the Vickers VC-10 should never have been certified --- if you know something about its natural aerodynamic characteristics. Likewise probably the MD-11.
So because aircraft with potentially fatal handling characteristics were certified 50 years ago or more, then we should simply accept this in the modern era and sign off on the same now? Do you not remember that after a series of identical accidents during landing that the software for the flight control system was modified by Boeing? I thought we were trying to improve air safety over time, not use the template of past failure to ensure we repeat it.
Personally I think it smacks of arrogance to dismiss as negligent the efforts of these crew as who died fighting an aircraft actively trying to murder them. That an excellent crew in the past saved a similar situation does not obviate the aircraft of blame in this incident, lest you also believe that Sullys successful handling of a double engine failure at 3000 in the middle of a dense city means all future crew who fail to deliver the same result should be considered incompetent.
These crew did not suffer a simple MCAS failure in isolation. They had to deal with all manner of unreliable speed indications, a non stop stick shaker and the fact MCAS is masked within these failures, and does not behave like a 'vanilla' stab trim runaway. Not to mention of course they were never told about MCAS, trained on its failure modes or had an opportunity to witness this failure, one that was clearly inevitable given the stupidity of Boeing's design to include a single data input. Further, given the speed at which it operates (with everything else going on), you can disconnect the trim switches and no longer have that spurious input, yet in a very short space of time it wont make a difference as the forces required to rectify the out of trim situation are too significant to overcome anyway, as the Ethiopian crew found out.
Boeing needs to build a plane that can be safely operated by all crew, not just the Ace of the Base such as yourself.