I agree. So you’re the pilot of a Lion Air airplane that has no knowledge of the existence of of MCAS on your machine and an AoA disagree light comes on (IF they had it?). That’s going to get the crew focused on AoA, not the trim system necessarily. Irrelevant. In that accident, I fault the prior crew for not being more overt in communicating the problem and what they did to fix it and the accident crew for not recognizing a trim issue and turning the trim system off.
IF there had been a warning lamp saying, “MCAS Activated,” at least the crew would have known that something was triggering it on along with an apparent trim runaway. Without that warning and knowledge of the existence of MCAS by the Lion Air crew … they were doomed on takeoff.
Less obvious with the second crew who had been apprised of the existence of MCAS and what it would do IF it activated was why they reactivated the trim system. Only when I read that they couldn’t manhandle the airplane and likely reactivated trim to help did it make sense. I guess no one knew about the yo yo maneuver?
In the end … Boeing and the cozy delegation of ODA authority by the FAA are to blame. All I’ve read to date is that the Director of Engineering had been replaced. I would think 346 people would want a more heavy handed response IF they were alive? Lotsa lip flapping and no heads have yet fallen.