Come along good Sir; the 3rd AoA and differences Sim and some line training is nickel and dime.. the inertia of the type is maintained. What is more apparent is the hubristic approach to the continued stretching and tweaking of the MAX8 & MAX10 They just drank too much of their KoolAid

Like BP Gulf of Mexico, they just kept milking and milking, with poorer and poorer management and design teams until the back broke. Simple ****e management

I ask myself the question

Can the B737 max be flown safely with the proposed fixes ?

If so

It's still a competitive aircraft in a fleet mix

So what is left to talk about other than a systemic fix in the certification validation?

and I might add a validated requirement to ensure training of the pilots who intend to fly it

I see a lot of people assume that all that needs to be done is for Boeing to implement the software changes or some other "quick fix". But it's actually is a bit more complicated than that. And part of the complication is in your first question. Can MAX be flown safely with the proposed fixes? The answer to that question is, according to whom? Proven by what procedure? FAA will need to see proof that the changes actually fix the problem. And since much of the certification process was "delegated" to Boeing, FAA may be forced to repeat a lot of those tests.

Second problem is the FBI involvement and DoT inquiry into the certification process. Those two are no longer concerned about the MCAS, they want to know how it got approved. If the investigation finds that rules and procedures were broken, they may simply revoke the type certification. The investigation of both the cause of the crash and possible criminal wrongdoings may take years, and until it's over, the Damoclean sword of type certificate revocation will be hanging over every airline that uses the MAX. Will they take that risk?

And the third and most important problem is the way the certification information and data was transferred to other agencies involved, namely, EASA and Transport Canada. They have been humiliated by this whole affair because they trusted FAA to give them true and accurate information to rubber-stamp the certification of MAX. Will they be willing (or allowed) to trust the FAA again and rubber-stamp the approval of whatever software changes Boeing suggests? Or will they demand complete re-certification of the type? And if that happens, will they recognize the "grandfathered" approvals? Mind you, we haven't heard much from CASA who, by the way, was one of the first authorities to ground the type. And that organization is very well-known for its "conservative" approach to aviation safety. Correct me if I'm wrong, but they don't even recognize ETOPS ratings.

In my humble opinion, anyone who expects "a simple software fix" is set to be very disappointed.

Convincing the commercial and flying customers that you are correct.

And the worst thing for Boeing is, this might (will?) not be limited to the 737. I'm quite sure EASA, CASA and others might ask much more detailed questions for example when it comes to certifying the 777X. I do not expect them to follow FAA blindly any time soon again.

I'd think the airlines are desperate to get the MAX back in the air. They've got the reputational damage from cancelling flights, the sky high costs from leasing in adhoc aircraft to cover the routes they are flying, and they are run by beancounters these days then just want the pennies rolling into the coffers, safety be damned. And in Europe we're coming into the super busy summer season when they make the money to get them through next winter.

G

I think even the greediest airlines (who said Ry:mad:air!?) realize that reputational damage will be much worse if their planes start falling out of the sky. And they can't be too desperate - the number of planes in the fleet is relatively low and the percentage is even lower. And of course there are lots of used 737NGs waiting in the desert to be deployed for this emergency. I think in this particular case airlines, maybe for the first time in this century, are actually interested in full investigation and finding the root cause. I may be wrong of course.

A "simple software fix" with a side order of "it was pilot error" might have worked after Lion Air, if ET is confirmed as same or similar cause then I think you are right - that option is dead in the water now.

There is another issue to add to your list though:

If(f) ET showed similar AOA failure (e.g. constant offset reading) then it is likely that the cause of that will need to be found and resolved. If(f) it is a common wiring fault or ADC fault (i.e. its hardware) then we may be looking at fleet-wide testing and repairs before the MAX flies again.

On March 27, 2019, the Wall Street Journal cited Rick Ludtke, a former Boeing engineer, that midlevel managers told their staff members Boeing had committed to paying Southwest Airlines -- which has ordered 280 MAX aircraft -- $1 million per plane if the 737 MAX ended up requiring pilots to spend more time training on simulators. The engineer said, they had never, ever seen commitments like that before.
(google Rick Ludtke, not allowed to post links)
Motive to keep MCAS under the carpet? 280 mio off the profit is no pocket change, not even for Boeing...

Well, its not exactly the same in EASA, but I'm not sure it's better. Applicants for type design approval pay for the agency's certification work. I have no details on how the charges are established, but its not trivial. EASA has far fewer certification engineers than the FAA, though.

Rick Ludtke, a former Boeing engineer who worked on designing the interfaces on the MAX’s flight deck, said managers mandated that any differences from the previous 737 had to be small enough that they wouldn’t trigger the need for pilots to undergo new simulator training.
That left the team working on an old architecture and layers of different design philosophies that had piled on over the years, all to serve an international pilot community that was increasingly expecting automation.
“It’s become such a kludge, that we started to speculate and wonder whether it was safe to do the MAX,” Ludtke said.
Ludtke didn’t work directly on the MCAS, but he worked with those who did. He said that if the group had built the MCAS in a way that would depend on two sensors, and would shut the system off if one fails, he thinks the company would have needed to install an alert in the cockpit to make the pilots aware that the safety system was off.And if that happens, Ludtke said, the pilots would potentially need training on the new alert and the underlying system. That could mean simulator time, which was off the table.
“The decision path they made with MCAS is probably the wrong one,” Ludtke said. “It shows how the airplane is a bridge too far.”
seattle times: a-lack-of-redundancies-on-737-max-system-has-baffled-even-those-who-worked-on-the-jet