Originally Posted by
Bend alot
Can you please direct me to the information made available that states that pulling back on the control column no longer activates the electric trim switches (as it does in every other B737 model) located at the base of the column.
I recall a vague explanation of MCAS and a waffle of an AD that casually said carry out a run away trim if some of these things happens under some of these condition, oh and you might want to use the manual electric trim to get into trim first before hitting the cut out switches.
It is pretty clear Boeing and the FAA were trying thier best to play down the MCAS MAX issues after the first crash, even after the second. Recently it seems the FAA have woken up, but Boeing are still very much in denial of the problems leading up to MCAS and post 2 fatal crashes.
It seems nothing has changed at Boeing.
The trim cutout switches in the control column are a red herring. The Lion Air preliminary report gave the exact steps that were taken to save the plane and the exact steps that crashed the same plane the next day. I also looked at the FCOM page that was sent to Ethiopian Airlines explaining the system, information posted by a pilot in Ethiopian Air employ.
In addition - depending on those column cutouts in the event of trim runaway is not a smart thing to do. Whatever causes trim runaway is unlikely to read the manual of how things are supposed to work, so if there is a short circuit or other wiring failure, those switches are useless and there had better be a plan B to use the instant plan A fails.