“But two of the three developing-world crews who were tested failed. Recall that the day before Lion Air 610 plunged into the Java Sea in October 2018, pilots who had flown the same airplane the day before encountered the same abnormal and, thanks in part to a knowledgeable jump seater, resolved it. They reported the malfunction and maintenance techs failed to diagnose it correctly and thus failed to fix it, setting up the accident scenario.”
As I remember, the Lion Air Maintenance crew removed the failed or suspect AOA with a replacement AOA that was overhauled incorrectly by an American, FL based company. A bad AOA was replaced by a certified but equally bad AOA. It would be interesting to find out who might have built or overhauled the first failed Lion Air AOA as well as who might have built or overhauled the AOA installed on the Ethiopian MAX. I would hope the 400 grounded Max’s have those AOA manufacturers checked as well. To me, how do you fail to diagnose a system you don’t know is there?
As pointed out, the MCAS response with intermittent not a trim runaway that defines itself by getting worse in a very progressive but predictable way. Maybe it has happened, but I am not aware of a runaway trim system going full nose up then reversing itself going full nose down. Nor have a ever heard of a trim system being intermittent one way but responding to pilot inputs going the opposite way, yet going the other direction again or stopping depending on flap position, airspeed, or attitude. Once again, I can hear the choir singing, “if I were there, I would…”. But none of us were there in either crash aircraft. Plus, as the blog points out, no one in either maintenance nor the crash crew knew there was a thing called MCAS on board. For that matter, until the crashes, no MAX buyers knew it was on board.
Would I fly on MAX today? NO. Maybe sometime in the future after a few thousand more souls have already been used as paying guinea pigs including American pilots.
I can hear Bullwinkle asking Rocky “wanna see me pull a rabbit outta my hat?” After which Rocky says “Again?” Followed with Bullwinkle’s confident reply, “this time fer sure!” Boeing seems to be the new Bullwinkle saying this time fer sure.
Besides, Covid-19 needs requires the US to pull another rabbit out of its hat. I would like to know a verifiable solution to Covid before getting on any airliner. So far, all I am hearing is…this time fer sure. MAX is the least of my worries.