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Comment by stopads | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand the distinction? Why is it important?

The distinction is important because if they could have forgone the MCAS and sacrificed the type rating, the story becomes about cutting small corners to pinch pennies. In actual fact, however, the MCAS was vital to the aircraft, which was rushed out to compete with Airbus - and so it becomes about cutting BIG corners, to save the company.

So you're arguing that we'd all be better off without MCAS? And that this whole thing is the fault of regulators?

If so, this line of thinking is utterly absurd.

I don't know where you got that from because it bears no relation whatsoever to what I was saying.

The point is you can't just take the MCAS out of a MAX and retrain pilots - it's a vital fix for handling characteristics that were unsafe to fly, full stop. Without the MCAS, it - quite rightly - wouldn't have been allowed to carry passengers at all. It's an important distinction with wide implications.

(However, it does strike me that an MCAS-like device, an automated trim to paper over the inability of the airframe to fly stably under all flight regimes, is a fundamentally unsafe device and should never have been allowed in the first place, let alone with such a poor sensor suite. The MAX is an irredeemably unsafe plane, a result of bolting new engines on an ancient airframe that was not designed for them, and the resultant pile of hacks.)

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