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There's speculation that the crash was caused or contributed to by the MCAS system, which is new on the MAX 8. At this point it is just speculation.

Here's a good answer from Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/azzp0r/ethiopian_...

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So much speculation is going on. The angry mob has already concluded that the MCAS must be the cause. Greedy Boeing was too cheap to redesign the plane and made a cheap software hack to fix it. Sneaky computers are overriding the decisions of the poor helpless pilots. The FAA is too incompetent to certify aircraft, etc etc.

Based on what I read, the truth is a lot more complicated. The MCAS doesn't work the way most people seem to think it does. Maybe it is a factor in the crashes. We don't know that yet.

We don't know much, if anything, about the Ethiopian crash; but we do know that in the case of Lion air, MCAS was a major factor.

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