Originally Posted by
Captain Biggles 101
Posters berating flight crew reactions in the Max MCAS accidents really have literally no idea what they faced. Furthermore, I bet they have never flown the 737 NG/Max, and are current on modern complex jets. Armchair flight simmers need not interject and insult the abilities of those that perished.
The complexity of systems on modern EFIS jets, not only improves safety in some circumstances, but at times increases the complexity of failures to the point of being detrimental when such systems react to incorrect sensors. This was not a simple single failure necessitating manual flight and simple manual trim. Far far from, and how foolish of any professional pilot to consider this as such. This was a grace situation that enabled as little as 10 seconds to respond before entering an inevitable irrecoverable situation.
The crew were quite obviously fighting against many numerous simultaneous conflicting and confusing warnings and events. In brief, airspeed unreliable, altitude unreliable, stick shaker stall warning, master cautions, stabiliser trim motion and noise masked by stick shaker noise, aircraft out of trim, nose attitude dropping, and manual trim not working sufficiently. To say they would be slightly overloaded is an understatement.
These simultaneous events were untrained, not in the manual, and not foreseen. Before the pprune aviation gods berate these crews, just consider the reality of what these crews faced. You have no reason to comment berating these crews unless you have been in their exact situation, not forewarned, and have flown the 737 NG/Max.
The answer is to fix the systems, make them more reliable, train the crews properly in sims, insist on the very highest standards achievable, and for the industry to start to again support crew to maintain and practice manual flying skills as necessary in the right circumstances.
I’d agree with all of that. Of course it is normal that any thinking pilot would think “my God, what would I / could I have done?” And then gain knowledge and work out a plan.
This is the healthy reaction - doesn’t mean one has to instruct the world about the perceived or imagined failings of others.