Adlerdriver

It's not unrecoverable if you apply the appropriate procedures. All MCAS in its current form has done is greatly increase the potential for a runaway stabilizer event. The previous crew flying the accident aircraft for Lion (with the help of the jump seater) handled the problem and landed. You're vastly exaggerating the threat a malfunction really poses either out of ignorance or some other agenda. Airbus fan?

flydrive

Is an engine out scenario automatically considered a loss of control because the yoke and rudder are not in a neutral position and the wings aren't level?


Look at the actual flight path, specifically the altitude. They don't begin to lose altitude (they are even slightly climbing) until they move the cut-out switches back to on.

MySaabStory

The Boeing CEO disagrees with you. But maybe you know more.

dera

Yeah, almost every one. Cactus 1549 could've landed on a runway if they "handled it properly".

But since we are humans, we are not perfect. And the whole premise of aviation certification standards are, that planes should not have failure modes that require skills that only the top 1% of pilots have.

It's easy to sit here and say how you would just "fly the airplane" and "control the airspeed" etc, when you're not in the hot seat as multiple conflicting messages and warnings are presented to you at the same time, with insufficient training to understand the system logic that might cause all of them.
A great example of a difficult situation handled well would be QF32 - but they had 4 very experienced pilots, and the whole crew said it would've been a very difficult scenario if they didn't have the manpower they had on the flight deck. And that was an engine failure, something we all practice all the time.

Did the pilots do something that eventually caused the crash? Yes they sure did.
Did Boeing put them in a position where they never should've been in the first place? Yes, absolutely.

I'd say this is a 70% Boeing 30% Pilots split.

stabapch

The threat of this malfunction does pose a critical risk, demonstrated by two identical instances already. You must be gods gift to aviation for bashing dead pilots, despite the aircraft manufacturer going public saying their “safety” system is flawed and poses high risk. After that Lion Air incident, then crash, multiple pilots coming out on an anonymous FAA board saying the aircraft is unsafe and United admitting their pilots share the same opinion, how come it took a second deadly crash for this thing to finally be grounded? Sounds like Boeing has an agenda of their own, not me bud.

Adlerdriver

I must have missed the CEO saying an MCAS failure was unrecoverable. Do you have a link to that?

dera

Oh come on. Look at the yoke vs. pitch curves. Theres a long (5+ second) delay between the response, and continuous up and down oscillation. Clearly the plane wasn't fully under control.
Is that how you fly your V1 cuts?

Adlerdriver

Oh, you’ve heard of me?
Sorry, they don’t get a pass on this just because it was a varsity day. Allowing oneself and all their pax to be killed unnecessarily doesn’t magically remove responsibility for the outcome.

aviatorhi

I wonder if leaving the thrust at the takeoff thrust setting and accelerating above VMO with a flight control malfunction had anything to do with that? If it was me I probably would've tried not doing that.

dera

Let's hope you never have to prove that you could do it.