Originally Posted by
MechEngr
There's no evidence that it would have made any difference at all.
That's a sneaky way to reason. Of course, there is no evidence of that. How to accomplish that ?
Originally Posted by
MechEngr
The ET302 crew was too overwhelmed by a stall warning to cut the autothrottle and still worked hard, against the stall warning memory item checklist to enable the autopilot. An extra warning light on the dash when they weren't looking at the instruments to begin with would have been equally easily ignored.
Of course, the warning light would be overseen in the cacophony of alarms. The MCAS should simply have been working properly, instead of being a deathtrap. That would have bought the crew time to get their act together, diagnose and resolve without crashing.
Originally Posted by
MechEngr
It was literally what crew #1 and the captain of crew #2 did - applying manual trim when the trim loads became noticeable at a few pounds, prior to any prompting by the documentation that was delivered shortly after the FO of crew #2 didn't.
Yes, of course, though the simple fact that the FO of crew #2 didn't apply the <10s repeated trim input, does not imply, it is "normal" to assume, this is a crew failure. Such a repeated manual input, to avoid a catastrophe, is simply not something acceptable in the airline industry.
Originally Posted by
MechEngr
Trim cutout switches have been in place for several decades. Were pilots required to diagnose a wiring fault or an STS software failure prior to using the cutout switches back then?
Of course, the cut-out switches are there and were for a long time. Though, IF the failure diagnose does take more than a couple of seconds and the MCAS creates a runaway, the manual trim wheel no longer provides a trim solution and there is no other option, then to turn on the trim cut-out switches again. OF the crew(s) had known, they could only use the cut-out switches, until the aircraft was in trim and then turn-off again and use the manual trim wheel, they would have done, but this info was completely hidden by Boeing.
Originally Posted by
MechEngr
No one called for any heads to roll until the owner of the plane that crew #3 controlled claimed that crew #3 followed every step exactly as laid out in the emergency AD and demanded that following those instructions was not enough to avoid a crash. That claim turned out to be entirely untrue, but was only revealed a full year later with the preliminary report. It certainly seems to me that everyone operating the 737, and the MAX in particular, accepted the AD as sufficient until then.
Yeah, that was a wrong statement, though, it does not imply, the MCAS issues should have been acceptable.
Originally Posted by
MechEngr
Was there any testimony to Congress to the contrary?
I don't know, though it doesn't matter. The MCAS issues should not have been there to start with.
Originally Posted by
MechEngr
For decades, pilots weren't all rigorously trained to deal with unwanted trim system actuation, certainly not in conjunction with any other problem. For decades it was OK to issue false stall warnings and stick-shaker activation. MCAS merely exposed that there had been no safety net on those two fronts for a long time.
Yes, for decades it has been, wrongly, especially in the past 10 years, acceptable, that such a cacophony can raise, that the pilots lose the plot.
There are reasons, the 737MAX (and more or less the 737NG too) is considered a bridge too far, see the opinions on this board and the FAA/Congress attempts to limit the legally allowed, but practically unwanted inheritance of certified old-technology in "new generation" airplanes. That old (GUI) technology, which should have been abandoned long ago in "new" airplanes brought to the market. The result of this is, the deplorable state Boeing ended up in.
And, I wrote earlier about this, when you start/keep feeding/demanding new items to be learned by pilots, you need to accept, that things will be falling off the table, since it is becoming just "too much" to learn all these things (in the time available). Which in turn implies, the pilots need to get more current technology, taking care of more basic items, especially conflicting alarms, freeing up the pilots' brains for more high-level knowledge/capabilities. (Not saying, that basic flying skills should be sacrificed).
There are reasons, pilots try to engage the autopilot, when things go haywire: It relieves them from the low basic tasks to keep a desirable flight path.
Originally Posted by
MechEngr
What I am pointing out is that there are and have been systemic issues that extended far beyond Boeing and that sole focus on Boeing and MCAS is an incomplete lesson to learn.
Of course, though it is largely Boeing (and their $ oriented customers), who just ignore the need to move on to better technologies and "invest" in that, by accepting higher prices for the airplanes. And, a practical issue is, that certifying "new technology" is extremely difficult and expensive.