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Comment by robbiep | Hacker News Reader

You’re missing the point of why MCAS was implemented in the first place - for type certification & to avoid retraining.

Essentially it was an emulation layer to make what is effectively a new plane behave like an old plane. And now 300+ people are dead.

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That is what it looks like. In some sense, you are not “contrlling” a 737MAX, you are flying a virtual machine emulating the 737 previous gen, whose host is a new generation.

Quite the feat, Boeing.

Calling it an emulation layer is more than slightly disingenuous. MCAS just sits and watches until a specific set of circumstances occur. Only then does it try to trim the nose down. Did they implement it well, no. Is that an "emulation layer", no.

You nailed it. I'd bet my last dollar that there were engineers at Boeing who objected (possibly not loudly enough) to the idea.

They were going to lose customers to Airbus, who had a longer range plane. The solution was to retrofit larger engines on the 737. But they were too large and collided with the ground. They moved the engines to the front of the wing for ground clearance. This made the plane unstable and tend to tilt upwards, so they came up with MCAS to work around the instability.

The plane is not airworthy.

BA dropped the ball - single sensor, and business shortcut to improve margins.

They are liable for the deaths. The real question now is what is a human life worth to a corporation? (i.e. payout).

Next Steps: + BA should be heavily fined. +scrutinize ties and lobbying with FAA. + Fire head of FAA, and teams involved in approving MCAS.

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