That’s not a good record. Although I don’t want to judge too much. I still remember seeing the fresh tire marks on the taxiway in ATL after DAL put a widebody down on it around 6:00 AM.

I know the older 737s QRH has procedures for airspeed unreliable as a set of thrust settings in combination with a specific pitch attitude, as memory items.

Config flaps up: 4 degrees pitch up, and 75% N1
Config flaps extended: 10 degrees pitch up and 80% N1

Merely speculating but if airspeed unreliable came up again soon after take-off with flaps extended and memory item was selected, which would explain the sudden climb.

Fact that a Mayday wasn't immediately declared suggests that it was a known problem that they were trying to resolve - but what happened afterwards is anyone's guess?

To support the pitch and power idea. I currently instruct on a corporate a/c at a local DFW facility.

On the cold and cruddy sim day.....I let the crew begin the climb to 10,000 at around 230-240 kts. Give the PF a blocked pitot probe and watch the reaction. I would say 80+ percent of the crews initial reaction is idle thrust and increase vertical rate. From there, about 20% get a shaker or get extremely close to it. The loss of airspeed averages 80 kts through this event. Very few people’s initial reaction is to seek a pitch and power setting till you can get things figured out.
Many cross compare air speeds and still allow the plane to fly them while the airspeed plummets.
It’s eye opening to see the thought process, reactions and ideas to different crews.

This (similar numbers) became a memory item and a focus on CQ training at UA about 9 months ago...good stuff. Still ongoing.

But I was under the impression it was an FAA mandate, industry-wide. Obviously wouldn’t affect Lion Air....but I thought it might migrate from 121 to 135, or even Part 91 jet Ops.

This just boggles my Mind: " I would say 80+ percent of the crews initial reaction is idle thrust and increase vertical rate. "

This is what a 727 crew did about 30+ years ago and was a much discussed item in many a recurrent class.

The mind boggling part is this...In what alternate universe does an aircraft ( ANY aircraft ) climb with thrust at Idle AND continue to accelerate no less ???

Hard to fathom the total lack of airmanship, situational awareness, and common sense.

Now...Put me in a Sim and watch me do the exact same thing as the 80% mentioned above.

DOH!

Also had a FEEL DISAGREE message written up on the previous leg... those in combination would make for a very bad day (if the 737 is like the other Boeings I've flown more recently, it's been close to a decade since I've even sat in one).

The feel disagree is just a message telling you the pilot static systems are out of whack. It monitors the rudder feel system which in the grand scheme of things isn’t a huge deal at all.

Losing one or both pitot static systems in night or IMC, however, can be momentarily very disorienting. Depending on the level of automation and how dependent the pilots are on that automation, it can easily be deadly even in day VMC.

People are afraid to deviate from how they normally fly the plane, which is follow the FD and magenta line and stay out of the barber-pole.

My memory item #1 for unreliable AS or attitude is to fear for my life.

Once that's accomplished it then becomes easy to not worry about what ATC, FOQA, company or anybody else is going to think about what I'm doing. You need to fear death more than the barber-pole.

Also the attitude system on a modern jet generally KNOWS if it's jacked up and will give all kinds of warnings and flags. Absent that, start by trusting the AHRS. Pitot/Static might not even know that it's messed up.

Cows on the runway? Maybe cut them a little slack on that one; kinda hard to drag the field in a 737.

I may be over generalizing here, but I think the average flight crew globally would fare poorly if they find themselves rolled beyond 90 degrees bank and beyond 40 degrees in the vertical. Eg, Adam Air, Air Asia, Colgan, etc.

The human instinct to pull back is just far too strong and shown repeatedly in all these accidents. In the case of Adam Air, once the dive established and they broke out of the clouds and saw the ground, they just yanked it back while still in a bank. Ripped the elevators/horizontal stabilizer right off the plane. Had the training and mindset been there to first level the wings and then slowly pull back, maybe they would have lived.

Hopefully the FAA mandated Upset Recover course in all 121 airlines for 2019 will help flight crews.