Originally Posted by
Takwis
I'll try again, Tomaski, as right above me is a perfect example of what I am talking about. You detail the steps of the Airspeed Unreliable checklist as being "an important aid in dealing with this malfunction". Ian W says that "if followed", the Runaway Stab Trim checklist "would have prevented the Ethiopian crash". For a while, there were two factions of pilots (call them what you wish), with one group advocating one checklist, and the other group arguing for the other checklist. At times, Boeing spokesmen said that one was the solution, and at other times, to include the AD, insisting that the other was the one to follow. My point is that if a crowd of pilots and engineers sitting at their computers cannot make up their mind which was the proper checklist to use...if Boeing vacillated over time between the two as more facts were brought up, how can anyone expect even a well trained crew to make the "right" decision, hundreds of feet above the ground in an aircraft marginally in control?
I'll remind you here that your question was about the Airspeed Unreliable procedure, which I answered specifically.
Beyond that, here is absolutely no requirement to make an either/or choice regarding which checklists to execute. However, there sometimes is a need to
prioritize multiple checklists. Remove MCAS from the equation entirely, and this crew probably still had at least six different non-normal procedures to run through just because of the AOA malfunction. As I have said before, there is no fundamental natural law that prohibits the existence of multiple malfunctions. This is yet another training failure we see across airlines. Nowadays during training, malfunctions are presented one at a time and run to some kind of conclusion. Then the next, and then the next as the training events are checked off. Reality is not always so kind.
Pretty much everything I said about crews not being trained to execute the Airspeed Unreliable procedure applies to Runaway Stab Trim. Honestly, how many times have you seen this in your training? Again, its one of those "memory procedures." One would think that crews would see these on a routine basis.
So the full answer is, IF the accident crews had regularly been trained in Airspeed Unreliable procedures (particularly during takeoff) AND IF they had been regularly trained in Runaway Stab Trim, I think it is a good bet the outcome would have been different. But they weren't and here we are.