Originally Posted by
baseball
Sully isn't wrong.
I guess you could trash his event/outcome. Or, you could look at it from a risk-management point of view.
The latest version of the 737 was certified by the FAA with a system on it that no one knew about. It's been stretched and "maxxed out" about as much as anyone can to an airplane and still issue a "common type rating."
The FAA approach to certification is at real issue. The 73 had it's issues with certification in the early days. UA 585, East wind 517, USAir 427 all had rudder reversals that were due to a poorly designed and improperly certified rudder PCU.
Why do we have so many insane versions of the guppy?
No reason to make this airplane. Boeing should have designed a fresh approach to the 757. The 737 has reached it's design limitations. Adding MCAS to the airplane because they had to move the bigger engines was not the answer. A new airplane was.
If Boeing doesn't re-design the MCAS system and/or the FAA doesn't re-certify it, there's no avoiding some serious training. Everyone that touches a guppy will want to know all they can.
What they 2 crews did and did not do is actually of little importance at this point. The ghost system that they didn't know was there killed them. The FAA has blood on it's hands. Never should have certified it. The FAA has to certify it for the entire world, not just western trained pilots.
If the entire world that flies the 737 doesn't accept the fix, and if pilots haven't trained on it, and if they haven't demonstrated successful recoveries in various types of weather it's not going to have the trust of professional pilots nor the public at large.
Although “system” is part of the acronym, MCAS is not really a system. It’s a computer program that adjusts the flight control logic of the existing system. It’s already been “fixed” from what I understand. Now it just needs to be approved and implemented (tested, etc.). I can’t tell a lot of difference flying the MAX vs a 737-800NG honestly except for the displays. It’s just a little nicer. Running the Stab Runaway checklist should have solved the problem. Leaving the thrust levers at full thrust does not help, however.
At SWA, we were told about MCAS and how to deal with it after the Indonesia crash, btw (before Ethiopian). Was the crew of the second crash really dealing with a “ghost system”, or were they improperly trained?
I guess any additional sim training that comes from this will give us plenty of practice in running the Stab Runaway, watching our speed and turning the trim wheel....
I do agree with you though that they have pushed the 73 about as far as they can/should.