During my recurrent a couple weeks ago, i had a fairly interesting checkpilot. He contributed some very valid points to the NTSB during their examinations but never testified officialy. The first sentence when he entered the room was "have you ever heard about the rudder problem of the 737?" - yes sir i did. He went on and explained why he doesn't believe it. First accident with United, he said that the 732 was flying at 140 kts. with Flaps 5. However, the crew thought they had set Flaps 15. Then they entered a 30deg bank and here it happened. From his point of view, they stalled the aircraft and initiated a wrong recovery.
The second accident with USAir, he believes that wake turbulence presented a strong factor. Again, a wrong recovery technique was used.
He presented his points in a very believable way and focused his attention on wrong recovery techniques for aircraft upsets. However, i truly respect this gentlemen and his explanations due to the fact that he was an active 737 testpilot and he had done things with this plane i don't even dream about; he had been asked by the NTSB to testify his findings and explanations, and he provided us with some terrific insights and unusual attitude recovery training never seen before.
His last sentence was quite memorable: "... the only problem the 737 has, are the pilots flying it".
Cheers, x5