Originally Posted by JohnBurke

These weren't kids. They were aircraft. Opposite sides of the world. Different continents. Not at the end of the same street. Different companies.

The only two commonalities presently known are three: both were the same type aircraft; both involved a crash, and both are under investigation with the common link that we don't know what happened in either case.

If two prius crashed somewhere in the world, would you refuse to drive a prius? If two people choked on a hamburger somewhere in the world, would you refuse to eat a humburger? If two people on two different airlines on two different continents got sick from the same brand of inflight food, would you refuse to eat again? Straw and irrelevant, all, much like the mythical kid on the street, though that example is worst of all, as it implies and assumes too much of the irrelevant.

Many moons ago I had a job interview for a Cessna 207 in which the owner sat in the right seat and directed the trim run full nose up. Take off, fly a left pattern at 200, and land. Run trim full nose down. Takeoff, fly a right pattern at 200' and land. It's not the way I would conduct a screening flight, but I've seen weirder and worse. His view was that many pilots wouldn't think to keep the airplane slow and manageable, and wouldn't focus on flying the airplane; he could tell from the pilot's reaction and behavior, quite a bit about the makeup of that pilot.

While I don't advocate that practice, there are those who seem to feel that automation is there to fly the airplane for them, to do the dirty work of actually manipulating controls, and who all but advocate decision making to alerts, displays, annunciators, messages, etc. A trim which moves at a third of a degree/second isn't really an imminent threat unless one isn't flying the airplane. If one takes off, goes to automation, and waits until it runs far enough to disconnect the autopilot with a full deflection, then accelerates, the problem may become harder to handle than it needs to be; it's not like the warning signs aren't there, if one is flying the airplane and staying situationally aware. Even with automation engaged.

Presently we don't know what happened. Speculation is neither professional nor warranted. An investigation is underway. The FDR is in hand. It's prudent to wait to see what is revealed.