Originally Posted by
rickair7777
Two crashes with the same MO in a few months is probably good cause for grounding. Since the second crew was aware of the issue, awareness was obviously not a sufficient fix to the problem. In the past sometimes it took more than two crashes because it was harder for the information to get out and elevate public awareness (which is sometimes necessary to get regulators to move out expeditiously).
Case study: Boeing 737 Rudder Servo. VERY, VERY similar history to MAX/MCAS (2x crashes, plus additional inflight control incidents). 737 was never grounded for that issue. Should it have been?
Reading the preliminary report for Ethiopian, you'll see that despite overspeeding and never moving the throttles back, and with the trim cutoff switches in the appropriate cut off position, when the CA asked the FO to trim manually, the FO did trim. But he manually trimmed it nose down. Fatal mistake. He then reported to the CA he tried to trim it, can't get the nose up "because it's not working." They then re-engaged the stab trim switches in their desperation, and sealed their fate.
The Lion Air is understandable, it was the first time. But Ethiopian really screwed the pooch. Both seats were green-on-green.