8303
Re: Mech Engr...
As noted the letter pertains in no way to the problems created by the pilots operating PIA 8303 into Karachi. I suppose we could spend many posts parsing the U.S. working papers presented at the ICAO 40th Triennial Assembly last fall in the aftermath of two 737 MAX crashes, insofar as part - part - of the fundamental errors Boeing committed tie together with the larger more general problems involving over-reliance on cockpit automation or lack of proper training (and related requirements) to assure airmanship stays required and relevant even amidst wide-spread automation - or both over-reliance and insufficient training.
But Ewbanks isn't directing the attention of members of the international aviation safety community (or read it as, infrastructure or ecosystem if you prefer) to that larger context. Yet I think he is pointing back at the fundamental error of taking the old venerable 737 airframe and goosing it up into something it was not really suited to be. A tough feat to pull off, even for Boeing in its prime. But the deception, the overt gaming of the system of certification proofs which may very well lead to civil and even criminal liabilities, is not hard to discern as the letter-writer's most basic concern.
Maybe I should have stuck with my aspiration in kidhood of studying aeronautical engineering and then handing down, to a younger generation, slide rules as tokens of the art as well as science involved, as they were handed down to me as a child. But I picked up the drag chain of the law instead, so you'll have to ask Ewbanks directly what his answer to your question should be. (Howard Cosell, a non-practicing lawyer besides sports broadcaster, used the phrase, 'drag chain of the law'.)