PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Byron Bailey, The Australian, MCAS
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Old 15th Oct 2019, 23:58
  #66 (permalink)  
Sunfish
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
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I’m not qualified technically to discuss MCAS or cockpit procedures but I strongly object to the “badly trained brown skinned pilot” excuse shamefully advanced by Boeing’s friends in the New York Times and elsewhere.

My objection is based on the reverse of the “badly trained browns” theory. If anything, third world people (except the Vietnamese) accept the idea subliminally that Western (American) technology and training is superior to their own skills and as a result, trusted Boeing and the training system, manuals, etc. far more than westerners do. I suggest that as a result, the pilots in both Indonesia and Ethiopia are starting to try to resolve the problem from behind the eight ball in that the thought of a rogue system would have been furthest from their minds.

To put that another way, they did not perhaps have the healthy skepticism of automation that they should have - for cultural as well as political and marketing reasons. I believe one crew were still looking in the manual for a solution when they crashed. Their trust in Boeing was pathetic.
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