Originally Posted by
slf4life
Hello folks,
Fully agree crews should know their stuff - period, But I don't want well trained snake charmers on the flight deck if it wakes up, I want the 'snake' off the plane. Forgive the invocation of Capt Sully as though he's the final arbiter of all things aviation, but when he recreates the accidents in a Level D Max sim and describes the system as 'pernicious' and 'deadly' in it's initial state, and that focusing on the pilots was wrong, I pay attention. He did of course also emphasize that proper training, maintenance etc is critical as well.
Somewhere on the pro side there was comment about half of air crews responding improperly to some recent test scenarios, don't remember the details. But ultimately resolving the issue anyway. Not good enough of course, but if it means lives are saved, I much prefer the tool, however improperly used, not compound the issue. I'm not convinced either crash would have occurred if the accident crews had been able to focus on the issues arising without a subsystem actively affecting vertical control in that way.
I'd fly the Max once I see concrete evidence MCAS 2 or whatever, is incapable of ever responding as it's predecessor did.
It doesn't help when the crews can be flying different variants of B737 from one day to the next, the regular type rating is B737-300-onwards but I think I recall that the FAA even allow the -200 to be flown also, I think UK CAA dictate no more than two variants but even then the crew could be flying a -700 yesterday and a Max8 today and when the excrement may hit the fan the first thing the crew may need to recognise are the differences between the two variants, a similar scenario was blamed for the British Midland -400 incident.
I don't have too much time for "I told you so" whistle blowers, these are often disgruntled ex employees, but what did come out is that the persons responsible were instructed to play down the significance of differences of the Max to the NG, if the regulating authority decide that the differences are too significant then a full new type certification may be ordered and those not only cost money but are an inconvenience to the manufacturer.