METO Guido

It was an accident. The second in months attributable to the same design flaw. A flaw unique to this type variant. It will be reengineered, tested and returned to service. What can be picked apart from the crew's last moments will be chewed on mercilessly until attention shifts to something fresher. It's not possible to overstate the importance of BA quickly finding all the right moves to put the house straight. In this business, no father is too big to fail.

AirBear

Boeing is too big to fail. US Government would bail them out, they're too important to our exports and to our Armed Forces. Major Defense Contractor. Same for the Europeans and Airbus.

Firefighter

I don’t know about that, PG&E is living proof that a company with close relation to the government will not fail.

rickair7777

Yes BA is way to big to fail. It would have to be a very long, slow decline with all critical functions (including it's contribution to the export economy) dwindling to nothing.

Excargodog

It would also require a viable domestic competitor in the airline transport building business. Because just like the EU will keep Airbus going even if it makes horrible business decisions (Airbus 380, A400M) the US will keep some viable US competitor going.

rickair7777

I would hope so, that we would not just abdicate commercial aircraft to South America, Europe, and Asia.

METO Guido

The US government. What could possibly go wrong?

“As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.”

Excargodog

Lots, but remember the main airliner competition right now is the EU. As the dude at the survival school said, if you and a friend encounter a bear in the woods it is not, strictly speaking, necessary for you to outrun the bear. But you damn sure better be able to outrun your friend.

JohnBurke

The captain side indication was inaccurate, but airspeed was available on board, and in the event of no airspeed, every aircraft has a pitch and power schedule that begins with memory items and contains a list of power settings and pitch attitudes, along with aircraft configurations against a schedule of aircraft weight, to establish the correct airspeed for a particular phase of flight.

There was no excuse to accelerate out of the certification envelope and it's airmanship 101 to know that trim is for a particular airspeed, power setting, and configuration. If the aircraft is out of trim, particularly with a runaway trim, accelerating to a higher speed will create greater control forces (unless by dumb luck one accelerates to match airspeed to the newly trimmed state).

By allowing airspeed to increase, the nature of the out of trim condition was made worse. Much, much worse. Unlike a Cessna with a small tab to provide pitch trim, the 737 moves the entire horizontal stabilizer. An increase in speed will make the out of trim condition worse, and make the aircraft harder to fly; an increase to the maximum design speed will make it considerably worse and accelerating beyond the operating limits of the airplane (a place one should go under no circumstance) made it impossible. This was entirely within the control of the crew.

Mesabah

Sounds like Boeing is trying to pin the criminal charges on their test pilots, what a shame.