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Comment by Nacdor | Hacker News Reader

Given the option, would anyone choose to book a trip on one of these new Boeing aircraft rather than anything else? I know I wouldn't, my family wouldn't, and none of the friends or co-workers I've discussed this with would.

Something tells me airlines are going to be making it even more difficult to determine which aircraft you'll be flying on when you book a ticket. As far as I know they're not required to tell you, nor are they required to use the aircraft listed at the time of booking (they can swap it at the last minute if they want).

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Even though this model has big design flaws and a relatively bad safety record, the absolute level of risk is still pretty low. I knowingly expose myself to larger risks in my day-to-day life. So I won’t lose any sleep over booking a flight on this type of plane.

This is not a good argument.

You can control this level of risk. Taking on any unnecessary risk when you don't have to is not a wise choice.

Obviously you'd choose the safer plane if it's equally convenient. But if the absolute risk is low and there's no other plane at the same time, or the alternatives cost 2x as much, it's reasonable to be willing to fly on a more dangerous plane.

But the alternatives are of similar price range.

Depends on the route

> safer airplane

Every airplane is slightly different in its risks. Sort of like every car is also slightly different.

The MAX has been so thoroughly gone over, it's likely the safest airliner in the sky.

> The MAX has been so thoroughly gone over, it's likely the safest airliner in the sky.

That's quite a jump of logic.

I would be very hesitant to get on a MAX, but we take unnecessary risks all the time. Getting in a car, having a beer, etc. are all activities that carry risk. Ultimately it's "will the hassle of avoiding the MAX be worth the benefit of not getting on one?" and for a lot (probably the vast majority) of people the answer is no.

Of course we take risks, but every rational human being does so in accordance to receiving some perceived value, reward, or return out of it. As it stands right now, there is literally no reason to take a MAX flight, unless you just absolutely had to get somewhere and it was the only flight available to you (unlikely).

One potential case I could see is the price of MAX flights drop low enough so that price conscious consumers decide the risk is now warranted. But that hasn't happened yet. Thus, no reason to take the unnecessary risk at this time. Future factors may change this equation.

How are you getting to the airport? However the method, it's far more likely to injure you than flying on a 737 MAX.

> However the method, it's far more likely to injure you than flying on a 737 MAX.

That depends. If you take a bus to go to the airport and it takes you an hour to get there, then your flight also lasts an hour (for simplicity's sake), you are almost 3 times more likely(on average) to die during the flight than you are during the bus ride [0]. In terms of number of journeys by plane and bus, for the same number of journeys you are 27 times more likely to die in a plane accident.

People repeat the "plane is the safest way to travel" mantra, but it's only true in terms of nr. of km traveled.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety

Deaths per billion:

                  |Journeys | Hours | KM

               Bus|  4.3    | 11.1  | 0.4

               Air|  117    | 30.8  | 0.05

That's really interesting. Per KM, air is way safer than bus, but per journey it's roughly the same degree in the other direction.

I'm having a hard time saying which one is safer from that data. However, both are very, very safe.

I would like to see "Air" replaced by "737 Max" though.

Huh? That's interesting!

Don't tell me that when people tout the safety of air transport they're using deaths per billions of km rather than per (billions of) journeys. Journeys is the important metric, surely!

The median bus journeys is probably about 20 minutes long since intercity journeys are probably dwarfed in number by city busses, so I'm not sure per journey is the best metric here. Per hour or per KM seems better, or possible take a weighted average of all three.

This is a great argument that I'd never heard before. Never knew about the per-hour statistics either.

All that being said, it sounds like one can "control the level of risk" by taking a bus instead of driving/Uber/Lyft/taxi to the airport, but choosing to do the latter is an example of "taking on any unnecessary risk when you don't have to [which] is not a wise choice". And yet it is a completely reasonable thing to do.

Measuring the risk of travel in terms of hours seems largely pointless, unless I'm missing something. It equates an hour bus ride with an hour plane ride, which are not interchangeable, so it makes sense that the associated risks are also not interchangeable.

You could account for the additional time it takes to go on a bus to adjust for the longer duration of risk, but at that point it seems like you're just approximating for risk per km.

I think it makes a lot more sense to look at risk per time, because it's basically the same thing as risk per trip, and that's what I really care about.

If you tell me I can fly to Mars in a few days on a brachistochrone torchship and it's safer per mile than any other mode of transport, you may be right, and a few days cooped up in a cramped cabin might be a small price to pay for such an exotic vacation destination, but that risk calculus is really very misleading. The distance involved is so vast that per mile it could be an absurdly low figure by any terrestrial standard while still carrying an absurdly high (by the same standards) risk of death during the trip.

In other words, if the odds are e.g. 1 in 10 that the trip will kill me, I don't give a shit how low the risk per mile is.

This seems like a mode of comparison that's disconnected from actual utility. The distance comparison lets me consider a scenario like "I live in Washington, DC. I want to go to New York. I can choose to either get there by plane or car, and I want to know which is safer." This seems like a real, sensible thing to contemplate.

The time comparison is "I live in Washington, DC and want to go... to wherever it is that happens to be an hour away from me by whatever mode of transport I happen to be using (so, either New York or someplace outside of Baltimore) and I want to know which is safer"... but I can't for the life of me fathom why the second is a tradeoff anyone would actually be forced to consider. People generally travel with the objective of getting from some specific place to some other specific place.

Most people do, in fact, have specific travel time expectations for specific kinds of trips. Going away for a long weekend? Probably you're thinking 1-5 hours, whether you're driving or flying. A week or two? Maybe 5-10 hours. Going to the store? 5-15 minutes. Physical distance doesn't matter at all, because it's abstracted away by the transportation technology. All we care about is cost (time and money), availability of destinations, and risk; and since distance doesn't matter, it really can't be risk per distance that we care about.

In practice, no mode of transportation anywhere near as risky per time or per trip as my Mars example is ever going to become mainstream. The point of it is to demonstrate how absurd risk per distance is as a way of getting at a practical and meaningful assessment of travel risk, and we have to go outside of existing mainstream transportation options to see that absurdity because all the existing options must be extremely low risk by any measure or they wouldn't exist. The majority of consumers won't tolerate 1 in 10, 1 in 100, or even 1 in 1000 odds of death per trip.

I think there are actually two modes of deciding this, and the two different calculations make sense for each mode.

Sometimes you need to be in a specific city - say, a work trip, or public event, or life event etc. Then, the question you want to ask is "which vehicle will take me there in the safest manner", and plane will likely win (assuming large distance).

Other times, you are deciding on a vacation destination. Here you often have a more-or-less fixed time budget, but a flexible destination, and the question can become "what is the safest trip I can take that will last between, say, 5-10h?" ( I could get to NY by plane, or to Vienna by train, or to the Golden Sands by car in roughly that time). In this case, trains and other mass transports besides planes may well win out in safety.

This assumes that people decide the destination before deciding the mode of transport. In my experience this isn't true, specifically with the 737 MAX. I had a 4-night trip booked with my family to Seattle from San Francisco on a 737 MAX and cancelled it when all that shit went down. Rather than driving that weekend to Seattle we drove to Yosemite because I wasn't going to drive 12 hours to Seattle. In terms of total travel time (time to drive to airport, check in, and fly) the travel time was about the same to Yosemite as to Seattle but the mileage was obviously much less.

People travel to places because it is tractable to get there in a reasonable amount of time.

In the 17th century, I would walk to my local knife sharpener. In the 21st century, I can take a train to Soho to visit a superior specialist.

Both trips take a few hours via two different modes of transport. The fact that one covers more distance is immaterial. They are comparable by the fact they can both be completed in an afternoon.

(Ironically, our modern era provides a third option: cycle to the local specialist. Cycling with a bag full of knives — even blunt ones — is way too risky.)

> In other words, if the odds are e.g. 1 in 10 that the trip will kill me, I don't give a shit how low the risk per mile is.

The average distance to mars is about 225 million km, so that would be one accident about every 2,2 billion km or 0.45 deaths per km, which is a bit deadlier than buses and 9 times as deadly as planes. Gives some perspective on how save planes actually are.

You might want to check your figures- 1 death/2.2e9 km is 4.5e-10 deaths per km. The 0.45/km figure is way out, for that to be the case there would need to be roughly 1.1billion deaths per 2.2 billion km.

Yes, this was in deaths per billion km - sorry, should've specified.

This approach really only makes sense if you're traveling for fun. If you need to get to a particular place then risk per time is absolutely not the same as risk per trip, because the distance you need to travel is fixed.

If you need to go somewhere with a realistic choice between e.g. driving and flying (which seems quite rare), risk per distance is fine for choosing one or the other via risk per trip. But the implication of it being a realistic choice is that the travel times are comparable, meaning risk per time will also be comparable, and risk per time has the benefit of not producing absurd answers for edge cases like my Mars example.

Every new world-shrinking transportation innovation has changed the distribution of things in the world and increased the distance society expects us to travel on various kinds of "required" trips. That's because time and money are more important than distance in deciding whether a trip is worth it.

If you're taking trip, you can reduce your likelihood of death by either choosing your transportation to and from the airports or choosing your airplane for the flight itself. Given how bad the crash rate of 737 MAX was, it would be prudent to focus on choice of airplane, rather than choice of grand transportation.

The correct comparison isn't "airplane vs. bus" it's "A320 instead of 737 MAX vs. bus instead of car".

> Measuring the risk of travel in terms of hours seems largely pointless, unless I'm missing something.

Again, it depends on what you're trying to measure. If you're trying to quantify the risk of dying by accident at a certain hour, what activity you are doing in that hour is highly relevant.

If you are trying to quantify the risk of dying by accident while going from A to B, then it's not (that) relevant.

> If you're trying to quantify the risk of dying by accident at a certain hour, what activity you are doing in that hour is highly relevant.

and this is an irrelevant measure, because by that logic, most people sleep for about 8hrs a day, so the chance they die in their sleep is high!?

You measure risk _only_ against what it rewards you. Otherwise, why take the risk at all? Therefore, measuring the risk of air-travel has to be accompanied by a comparison to bus-travel (or rail and/or boat), and measurement should be by distance travelled.

Other than that one time JetBlue ran a shuttle flight from one end of LA to the other for a publicity stunt, it don’t think this comparison makes sense. An hour bus ride isn’t a substitute for an hour plane ride.

He was responding to the claim that "you're more likely to die on your way to the airport".

Thank you. I thought it was self evident. I've amended my post to make it clearer.

Another way to think about it would be: you have (roughly) the same chance of dying in a 3 hour flight as in an 9 hour bus ride.

I don't think it makes any sense for a person engaging in one risky activity to feel obligated to engage in a second one.

Do you also think it's wrong if someone wants to eat a healthy dinner after having an unhealthy breakfast and lunch?

Only in America, where a car is often your only option to get to the airport.

I would absolutely love to see a log of food you've eaten over the past few weeks.

I may be in the minority, but I don't really crave Boeing 737 MAX rides...

The parent also wasn't arguing they always make wise choices, just that the grandparent's choice was unwise, which you haven't proved to be false.

Nutrition epidemiology is a largely failed endeavor, so there's not much to be learned from someone's diet unless they're eating lots of trans fats or refined sugar on a regular basis.

The average American is eating about 5 pounds of HFCS weekly, since fat in processed food has been replaced with corn syrup, which is subsidized by the US govt.

That is why nobody is fat in fotos from the 1960's, but most people are obese in fotos today.

Coincidentally, this affects air crew. The standard airman is supposed to weigh 170 pounds (next time you're at the airport, note how thin the pilots in uniform look.) If you weigh much more, you will be examined further before medical license issuance, including clinical sleep apnea testing.

In addition, some pilots have faced medical review (ie. grounding) after drinking large caffeinated drinks (2L Coke or Mountain Dew, or a Slurpee) that caused cardiac events (erratic heartbeat, etc.) The FAA requires an explanation when a pilot stands down from a flight, so this is a serious matter - it's hard to prove why you were sick yesterday but ready to fly today.

So you can basically lose your career over a Red Bull if it makes you cancel a flight.

Source: commercially-rated airplane pilot.

> The average American is eating about 5 pounds of HFCS weekly

Wow, that's over 6000 kcals per week, or nearly half of the required energy intake for a person of average height and healthy weight.

It's wrong. Americans consume less than 1 pound per week per capita. Still a lot, but much less than claimed above.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/328893/per-capita-consum...

I can't see any calculations by which a typical diet over a few weeks is riskier than a 737 MAX. Have you built such a risk model?

If it was only over a few weeks probably not, but I’m pretty sure that your past few weeks diet is representative of your average diet during the last ten years, and that could be riskier than a 737 max flight.

You have completely changed the premise of the argument now. Yes lifestyle changes have a bigger effect than a single plane ride. This calculus changes immediately if you make 1000 plane rides on a MAX. A typical diet over a few weeks is definitely safer than a MAX ride.

It is a good argument because you can control other risks, like commuting or whatever.

Sure it’s a good argument. Just because you have a choice doesn’t mean you should always choose the lower risk option no matter what.

For example, you might have the choice between driving to work (1 in 1M chance of death) or take a bus (1 in 10M chance of death).

If you can save 1hr on your commute, then choosing the higher risk option makes sense.

Same thing if you need to take a flight and the option is fly on a 737 Max for an hour (no the flights available) or take a 5 hr train ride.

Yours is not a good argument. You can't assess this type of risk, let alone control it.

Even if you are an aeronautical engineer, you won't convince me that you can assess these risks, because teams of aeronautical engineers designed this plane and did it overall very safely like they did the planes that came before it, and I'd have no reason to believe your claims. None of them assessed this level of risk as risky, they were willing to fly in it, and the only thing that seems absurd is you thinking you know better.

There are flaws of varying severity in every large scale human endeavor, kinks get worked out, this one is stochastically late in the game.

In terms of controlling this risk, that is exactly what "we" are doing, that's what this article is about, removing an identified risk from this plane's design. There is no reason to think that the plane now has bad juu-juu, that's superstition.

Air travel is incredibly safe, this plane is too.

> Even if you are an aeronautical engineer, you won't convince me that you can assess these risks, because teams of aeronautical > engineers designed this plane and did it overall very safely like they did the planes that came before it, and I'd have no > reason to believe your claims.

That feels really really naive and an unfair judgement to make. I don't need to be an aeronautical engineer to know about other market force at play, and a repeated lack of ownership of the issue by Boeing: incentive for Boeing to not go out of business, airlines to get a return on the airlines they bought, etc. They reek of dishonesty on this matter.

As a traveler I would absolutely bucket that airplane model into the "Something is fundamentally wrong" and distrust.

No, these crashes, as well as the decisions that led up to them are evidence that the design process of the aircraft was flawed. This increases the probability that there might be other design flaws in the aircraft that will surface once it re-enters service. That's not bad juu-juu, it's just proper Bayesian statistics.

Note that the problems aren't specific to the 737 MAX either; I know commercial / cargo pilots who were worried by the 787 design process and would have been terrified to fly the plane in its first several years. They believe it was simply good luck that the 787 didn't experience any bigger issue than battery problems. Likewise, many pilots are worried that the 777X could have potential safety problems and want to avoid flying it.

> because teams of aeronautical engineers designed this plane and did it overall very safely

346 people and their relatives, which crashed, burned and died in two of those brand new planes within 6 month and their relatives probably beg to differ.

The history of this plane and the facts that came out after those accidents do not sound like a "very safe" design process.

Read Dominic Gates' reporting (for which he got a Pulitzer) to inform yourself about some of the nastier aspects of the design of this plane.

> has big design flaws and a relatively bad safety record

understatement...

Yeah 2 out of 387 hull losses over 2 years is a pretty awful record. I will stick to not 737 MAX thanks.

Airliners agree with you and are changing the name of the aircraft to get away from the bad reputation this plane has.

With the airline industry going through an unprecedented recession I don't think we will see a lot of new 737s being delivered thankfully.

Nobody has changed the name of the aircraft. The 8200 that Ryanair is to be flying is the 737-8 MAX 200 that Ryanair wanted.

My understanding is that the crashes were due to properly functioning (but awkward and confusing) MCAS systems. I have to imagine that any pilot flying a 737 MAX is going to have a very solid understanding of how that system works and how to tell if it's malfunctioning and avoid the same situation.

Also, it was 2 crashes in 500,000 flights. It seems a little misleading to just compare it to hull losses.

> properly functioning (but awkward and confusing) MCAS systems

It had almost unlimited pitch authority, used only one (potentially faulty) AOA indicator to decide to activate, and could activate repeatedly unless purposefully deactivated. Even the way in which it was certified was extremely suspect. I'm curious as to how you think that is "properly functioning". Its initial implementation was straight up dangerous, as should be plainly obvious by the 346 deaths it caused. (https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/faile...)

In the cases of the Ethiopian crash, they _were_ aware of the "proper" procedure to deactivate the MCAS:

> But on the Ethiopian Airlines flight, the pilots appear to have recognized the errant MCAS problem and flipped the cutoff switches as described in the checklist. But then it appears that the pilots were unable to move the manual wheel, likely because the forces on the tail made it physically challenging to turn.

> The bottom of Boeing’s runaway stabilizer checklist seems to acknowledge the possibility of this physically challenging scenario. It suggests that the pilots can first use the electric trim to neutralize those potential forces before hitting the cutout switches.

> After failing to manually control the stabilizer, the Ethiopian Airlines pilots appear to have flipped the cutoff switches back on, which awakened the MCAS system. It soon sent the plane diving to Earth.

(https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boein...)

They let their airspeed get too high, so they were unable to manually trim because of the physical forces involved. But making this mistake during this phase of flight this is somewhat understandable, as they encountered the problem just one minute after takeoff (which is a pretty critical / task heavy phase of flight) and were still very close to the ground. Chelsea Sullenberger (the guy who ditched into the Hudson) commented that "Even knowing what was going to happen, I could see how crews would have run out of time and altitude before they could have solved the problems." (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-20/fight-for...)

> Also, it was 2 crashes in 500,000 flights. It seems a little misleading to just compare it to hull losses.

If we're talking about the relative safety of different aircraft, no it's not. Compared to, say, the Airbus A320neo (which has had 0 hull losses over ~1300 aircraft over 10 years), it's terrible. It's a far less safe plane.

Nitpicking: the A320NEO first test fly was in September 2014, and the first commercial delivery was in 2016, so it has not been flying for 10 years.

About the 737 MAX: I calculated a while ago that it is, or rather was, about two orders of magnitude less safe than other airliners. Terrible indeed.

The EA pilots were given an Emergency Airworthiness Directive which gave a two step process for recovering from MCAS malfunction:

1. use the electric trim switches to drive the trim to normal

2. cut off the trim system with the console cutoff switches.

That's it. As simple as that. And it is NOT what the EA pilots did (they cut off the trim first).

Here are the exact directions:

"Initially, higher control forces may be needed to overcome any stabilizer nose down trim already applied. Electric stabilizer trim can be used to neutralize control column pitch forces before moving the STAB TRIM CUTOUT switches to CUTOUT. Manual stabilizer trim can be used before and after the STAB TRIM CUTOUT switches are moved to CUTOUT."

https://theaircurrent.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/B737-MA...

Why they didn't read, remember, or follow the EAD instructions is anybody's guess, as I've never heard of any investigation into that aspect.

Thanks for giving the link to the document. Looking at the context, the sentence you quoted is more a built-in disclaimer than a procedure that the pilots were supposed to learn to apply in only a few seconds they would have before the airplane crashes to the ground for overriding pilot close to the ground.

After all the changes, it's at the end, and uses the weaseling "may be needed" and "can be used". We saw that not doing very specific sequence in a few seconds makes the plane non steerable.

Edit: Answering: "The LA pilots worked the problem for 5 minutes, the EA 2 minutes. Quite a bit more than seconds." They "worked the problem" during that time by actively attempting to prevent the plane to crash. It's surely not that they simply had that much time to think about what to do next. Also, during most of that time of "minutes", if I remember correctly, the plane was most of the time actively turning to the ground, overriding their attempts to force it flying in the safe direction and doing that repeatedly. I really don't see that for these two accidents it can be said that it was "a pilot error" and I don't see any institution claiming that publicly anymore, even if some would really, really like to be able to do that and would immediately do, if it were possible. "Two simple steps"? Well "may be needed" and "can be used" is surely not even "after X happens do P and then do Q, if not exactly done in that sequence and at that point, the plane will surely crash." Nobody had the training to fight against the program that every time they straightened the plane up turned it back to the ground, making the manual trim impossible to be applied.

The LA pilots worked the problem for 5 minutes, the EA 2 minutes. Quite a bit more than seconds.

Frankly, I'm baffled by the EA pilots. If I was a MAX pilot, and I received an EMERGENCY AIRWORTHINESS DIRECTIVE about how to not crash like LA pilots, it's my job to read, understand, and remember those instructions. And not just my job, it'd save my own life, too. It's not like it's complicated, either. Two simple steps.

After all, what would you do?

A crash is not due to one cause. Multiple things have to fail for this to be a problem. Blaming pilots is way too simplistic. The design of those warnings were highly confusing and overwhelming. Saying "oh, just have better pilots" it NOT good enough. It should be as per the Swiss cheese theory where multiple things should fail before there's a problem. Further, not hide things like MCAS, downplay the need for additional training, refuse additional training when requested, change MCAS without notifying FAA, pressure people into being quick over safe, design MCAS to rely on a sensor, have a critical system (MCAS) rely on one sensor despite this not being allowed (critical systems MUST have multiple sensor inputs), etc.

But yeah, it was the pilots not reading a message.

Looking back, MCAS was not a good idea. But whatever led up to MCAS might have given the 737 MAX also some other bad changes. At the moment we don't know, maybe in future it'll be "obviously aside from MCAS the 737 MAX should also have a fix for X".

> it was the pilots not reading a message.

It was that the message (see the whole, the link was quoted) definitely wasn't clear. It has multiple weasel words and it is far from a clear and actionable sequence checklist for the exact condition in which two planes were put due to the MCAS. Only with the hindsight of knowing how two accidents developed and the independent pilots trying to reconstruct on the simulators these events it can be claimed that that formulation described something usable. Just with the pilots "reading it" at that time and even having it in front of them at the moment of the accident, without any special training for that situation (where the plane multiple times "undoes" the actions of the pilot, orienting the plane toward ground as the plane is still flying low) it's still improbable that the accident wouldn't happen.

Note: It's Boeing who insisted that the training for MCAS is not needed.

It's written in airplane jargon, of course, but it's plenty clear.

> It's Boeing who insisted that the training for MCAS is not needed.

It's not completely unreasonable to expect the pilots to be able to handle runaway trim, especially given an EMERGENCY AIRWORTHINESS DIRECTIVE reiterating how to do it. Runaway trim is a critical problem, which is why the electric trim switches are there as well as the cutoff switches, all in easy reach. Dealing with this is supposed to be a "memory item", meaning something the pilots must know.

But clearly in hindsight, dealing with runaway trim must be specifically and better trained for.

> special training

The thing about runaway trim is it turns on when it's not supposed to. That's why the electric trim overrides are there and the cutoff switches. Those are there for all Boeing jets since electric trim was installed going back to at least 1960 and probably much earlier.

When I worked on the stabilizer trim system on the 757, I worked mostly on the gearbox, but was peripherally involved with the electrical system for it. The cutoff switches were there for "when demons possess the control system and try to drive you into the ground."

> The cutoff switches were there for "when demons possess the control system and try to drive you into the ground."

For the second crash it wasn't about "hit the switch" at any moment you will when you notice the problem. It was: "unless you are lucky to hit the switch in a very special moment, you won't be able to regain the control of the plane at all." Not in the message, not trained, and even some pilots learned that only later in the reconstruction of the crash on the simulator.

The EAD was quite clear. Trim back to normal with the electric trim switches, then shut off the trim.

There is nothing confusing about that. There is no "very special moment". There is no "you won't be able to regain control at all".

The proof of what I say is in the first LA incident (the one that didn't crash). The pilots trimmed back to normal a couple times with the electric trim switches, then hit the cutoff switches, and landed safely without incident.

In the second LA incident, they trimmed back to normal 25 times, never thought to cut off the trim system, and crashed on the 26th time.

> The EAD was quite clear. Trim back to normal with the electric trim switches, then shut off the trim.

I don't see that wording anywhere in EAD. Only the quoted weasel worded sentence. It's your interpretation post-crashes and their analysis that they were supposed to do exactly that in exactly that order. Or do you have some other quote? The mental model the pilots were trained to was "if the electric doesn't work, switch it off, trim manually." The MCAS changed that to: 1) electric will work, but MCAS "invisible ghost" will pause to confuse you that the controls work and only then undo whatever you managed to do. 2) There's only one position in which turning off the switch was safe, under their circumstances -- switching to manual trim outside of the "normal" was a practical death sentence, also nowhere written.

So, as far as I see, not only your "clear" sequence was nowhere written that clear, the mental model that the pilots had to have changed completely, but without training, and the safe procedure to escape was figured out only after looking at the logs of two crashes.

That it is "clear" to somebody sitting in the armchair with the crash logs and having all the time in the world to think about it after all that happened doesn't mean that those who survived had such clearness, just that they had luck.

Um, I worked on the 757 stab trim design for 3 years. I'm not an armchair quarterback here. An EAD is not a document where you look for loopholes, parse linguistics, and debate angels dancing on pinheads. Take the straightforward meaning, add it to the information a pilot already knows, and it makes perfect sense.

P.S. your version of what the words mean is solely your invention. I've shown this text to many people, and none have come close to your creative version. This includes pilots.

> A crash is not due to one cause. Multiple things have to fail for this to be a problem.

You're entirely correct.

> Blaming pilots is way too simplistic.

Also correct, but in my opinion the pilots were one of the multiple causes of the accidents, based on the published accounts of their actions. Ignoring Emergency Airworthiness Directives is inexcusable. Ignoring EADs is a problem that should be dealt with as part of the corrective actions required by the FAA.

Recall that immediately prior to the LA crash, the previous flight crew on the same airplane had the same problem, dealt with it, and landed safely. (That was also before the EAD was issued.)

Let me put it another way - would you want to get on an airplane with a crew that didn't pay attention to Emergency Airworthiness Directives? I wouldn't.

And yes, Boeing must fix the MCAS system. I'm not excusing Boeing's role in the accidents.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T5xhHzZjPQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5P8CkVckmA

These are some links to youtube sims of the two events. It seems that the Lion Air pilot at least who of course did not know about the top secret MCAS system was trying to fight MCAS directly with electric trim and at first was successful but for some reason did not hit the cutout switches after getting back to level flight. So the Lion Air pilot used electric trim correctly but failed to use the cutoff switches and the Ethiopian pilot used the cutoff switches correctly but failed to use the electric trim long enough. Maybe the Ethiopian pilots were aware of the Lion Air flight fighting MCAS with electric trim and losing and just went directly to the runaway trim stab procedure too soon. For whatever reason both flights were also going too fast and made no attempt to slow airspeed.

My understanding is the EA crew had also initially successfully restored trim with the electric trim switches.

The LA flight prior to the LA crash flight did restore trim with the electric switches and then cut it off, and landed safely.

https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/61203/what-is-t...

That article I think summarizes the state of the pilot error arguments back when people were still discussing this online. Two methods of disabling an out of control MCAS were mentioned but only one would actually work with a faulty AoA sensor: lowering the flaps. I wonder why Boeing did not mention just lowering the flaps to disable MCAS in an emergency situation. Could that also have saved the flights?

This is actually the first I've heard anyone mention the simple method of using the electric trim to fight MCAS until reaching a neutral trim and only then hitting CUTOFF, but would this still work if you were already at max trim and heading nose down toward the water? This method seems to depend on the electric trim being fast enough to fight MCAS to a neutral or near neutral trim even from a maxed trim stab position. Is it fast enough to do that?

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethiopia-airplane-procedu...

>“It appears the flight crew reactivated electric trim,” former Boeing engineer Peter Lemme said. “But they only made a very small nose up adjustment - I would have expected them to immediately and without stopping move the stabilizer back into trim. The last MCAS command comes 5 seconds after their last manual trim command.”

This does appear very strange to me. Why let go of the electric trim before getting to neutral or even a bit nose up? Did they think the trim could only be used in small increments or something? Were they so focused on the mystery of what was causing the trim adjustments that they didn't think to just jam down the electric trim switch until trim neutralized?

https://projects.seattletimes.com/2019/boeing-737-max-12-pro...

Here is another good article that summarizes what happened. Seems to me that there are essentially 3 ways the flights could have been saved although I'm less sure about your method of just electric trimming to neutral and then hitting CUTOFF because the electric trim adjustment would have to be fast enough to overcome the MCAS counter-adjustments. Surely electric trim would not have been designed for such a race.

And also that seems like such an obvious thing to do even if you haven't read the airworthiness directive you cite. Something is messing with the trim. There is a button that adjusts trim ffs. Why not try to just hold it down? Even a child might think of that simple solution. But these pilots didn't? Some of them were even experienced.

The other two methods are lowering the flaps which seems to have worked well for them even if it was by accident or slowing down the plane and then hitting the CUTOFF switches and hoping you can spin the trim wheels fast enough. Probably the Ethiopian pilots were unaware of the airworthiness directive and reverted back to the standard runaway trim procedure without realizing their high speed would make the wheels more or less impossible to turn. I am not a pilot so I am not clear on how easy it is to slow down a plane that is already in the nose down position. Gravity is a harsh mistress.

> This is actually the first I've heard anyone mention the simple method of using the electric trim to fight MCAS until reaching a neutral trim and only then hitting CUTOFF, but would this still work if you were already at max trim and heading nose down toward the water?

Yes, and it did indeed work. The pilots, though, did not cut off the stab trim.

> This method seems to depend on the electric trim being fast enough to fight MCAS to a neutral or near neutral trim even from a maxed trim stab position. Is it fast enough to do that?

Yes, and it doesn't "fight" MCAS. It overrides it electrically in hardware (not software).

> I'm less sure about your method of just electric trimming to neutral and then hitting CUTOFF because the electric trim adjustment would have to be fast enough to overcome the MCAS counter-adjustments. Surely electric trim would not have been designed for such a race.

I'm sure about it. The electric trim moves just as fast as the MCAS would, because the trim is electrically ON or OFF. There's no speed control on it. It's not a race, either. The electric trim switches are between the MCAS and the motors, they override it.

Furthermore, in the LA flight before the LA crash flight, the same problem happened. The pilots restored trim and hit the cutoff switches, and landed safely. The mystery to me was why that airplane was allowed to take off again before being repaired.

> And also that seems like such an obvious thing to do even if you haven't read the airworthiness directive you cite. Something is messing with the trim. There is a button that adjusts trim ffs. Why not try to just hold it down? Even a child might think of that simple solution. But these pilots didn't? Some of them were even experienced.

Exactly, and that's what the pilots did in the first non-crashing incident.

> Probably the Ethiopian pilots were unaware of the airworthiness directive

Yup, and that was a contributing factor to the crash.

Hull losses is a reasonable way to reason about relative risk of dying from spending your time on the plane. E.g. if you lived on one of the aircraft, you would have had a ~0.5% chance of dying during that time period. That's pretty terrible.

Assuming the average flight is 1 hour long, that’s a 0.5% chance of dying in 28.5 years of flight time. 0.995^138 is approximately 50%, so the expected amount of time you’d need to spend onboard to have even odds chance of dying due to hull loss is about 4000 years.

There are a lot of factors this analysis doesn’t take into account, particularly the difference in airframe fault rate over time: A new plane will have different reliability figures than a 4000-year old one.

If we are talking about flights and not hulls, then you should include every incident report by every pilot on any issues - it wasn't only times MCAS acted up .

I think the difference is that this is a (potentially) higher level of risk for a generic product. You can avoid it by simply avoiding the plane, which will be trivial for some consumers.

Can anyone locate statistics on the total numbers of passengers, or passenger-miles that have happened on a 737 MAX? It would make it possible to run a bunch of estimated risk calculations instead of taking a handwavy intuition-based approach.

You will have to quantify your argument

Given the amount of additional scrutiny these models are getting I wouldn’t be surprised if in the long run of their lifetime they have a better safety record.

Do we know or is a reason to believe that FAA checked anything else then the MCAS and the systems related in the crashes? The MAX has probably many differences because is larger so all the new stuff should be put under the microscope since you can't trust the previous tests, measurements or decisions, Boeing guys were proud on how they mind tricked the FAA guys so FAA should now re=review everything then you can be 100% this airplane was scrutinized.

If this already happen and I missed it please link me to it.

> Do we know or is a reason to believe that FAA checked anything else then the MCAS and the systems related in the crashes?

Yes. The FAA's proposal also involves physically re-routing some cables, which is (as far as I can tell) completely non-MCAS-related.

That seems to be related to a rule that FAA added after some other incident but the MAX was not forced to follow this new rule, it is not an issue that was discovered when scrutinizing the MAX.

What I have read indicated that it was a violation that was missed:

> During the original design and certification of Boeing’s 737 MAX, company engineers didn’t notice that the electrical wiring doesn’t meet federal aviation regulations for safe wire separation. And the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) failed to detect Boeing’s miss.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/faa-f...

Boeing did try making the argument that since their 737-NG planes were produced prior to that rule, and they're safe, that the MAX shouldn't either. But it was part of the regulations when the MAX was designed.

The European equivalent of the FAA, the EASA are double checking all of the FAAs working here.

The FAA are highly motivated to get everything correct this time in order to repair their reputation (which was tarnished by their original MAX approval). It would be highly embarrassing for if the EASA find anything the FAA missed.

I think FAA's reputation was more tarnished during in the grounding than the original approval, and their failure to investigate thoroughly after the first crash, the delayed the grounding for two days and doing it only after many other regulators did and put pressure on them was really damaging.

Similarly Boeing actively blaming pilot error after the first crash and ignoring reports from the field is the real issue to me rather than poor design itself.

Every new version of any commercial aircraft is long line of decisions cutting corners, 737's airframe were designed in 1960's for smaller older engines requiring the newer larger engines to placed in the more complex higher position- maintaining the airframe was cheaper than building a brand new model. Keeping the same performance made training/ type certification cheaper etc for airlines. For the most part such decisions do work, developing brand new airplane models is extremely risky financially.

It is plausible that risks were not understood well during design and developement, but their failure to act after the first crash is criminal negligence to me and they deserve all they are getting .

There's every reason to believe EASA are being strong armed by U.S. State Department. This is an administration that thoroughly believes in bribery, extortion, and retribution. I have no more confidence in EASA than FAA.

Curious the FAA comes out with their position before any final crash reports by either country. NTSB usually also reports on accidents involving U.S. made aircraft, and that too isn't released yet.

The EASA made some noises about requiring 3 AoA sensors (which all Airbus aircraft have) as opposed the the MAX's current 2 (most newer Boeing aircraft also have 3). There was also some talk about replacing the 3rd hardware AoA sensor with a virtual sensor (maybe an infrared horizon sensor based AoA indicator which would be much easier to add to the aircraft).

I found the article I read about the 3rd AoA sensor.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/europ...

I've been wondering about that, too. By the time they're allowed to fly, these might be the most heavily vetted and tested airliners in history.

Or the only airliner properly vetted

This has happened with other planes before, like the DC-10.

They didn’t try to fix the DC-10’s design problem (outward-opening doors causing explosive decompression) with a software fix. Also, the aircraft never regained the trust of the flying public, relegating it to freighter duty. That doesn’t seem like a desirable outcome for Boeing or the MAX’s buyers.

For sure, the horses have already left the barn as far as reputation is concerned. But even freighter duty is infinitely better than what they currently -- over-sized paperweights.

Although I'm sure low-cost carriers or developing nations will gladly fly them at the right price.

It may have been turn out different if the pandemic had not happened.

The way international market is today, 737 MAX is probably making money more now on the tarmac for the airlines than their other aircraft. Boeing is going to be forced to pay the airlines for this grounding pandemic or not.

Global travel is also going to be weak next few years, even if vaccine becomes available next few months , the economy will take a lot longer to recover and it will be a while for the current capacity even without MAX to be used, not to mention all the new orders being delivered.

Of course it will depend on each airline, their financial health, leasing agreement and demand, and of course Boeing settlement terms etc

Or the De Havilland Comet ... arguably killed off the nascent UK jet aviation sector until we joined Airbus.

There was the BAC One-Eleven, which BAC sold a modest number of.

It would depend on the airline. Southwest Airlines, definitely. Some third world airline where their pilots come through pilot mills and take the controls at less than 500 hours? No way. But that is true with any airplane, not just the Max. Statistically Southwest Airlines should have had a crash, yet it was Ethiopian and Lion Air that did. Given the maintenance and pilots history of Lion Air, a crash wasn’t unexpected. Is it a coincidence that no European, American, or Canadian 737s crashed despite flying an order of magnitude more flights in the airplane? There was a recent report that said that a large number (hundreds) of Pakistani airline pilots didn’t have legitimate licenses. That kind of thing is more scary than the 737 Max.

The copilot on the Ethiopian airlines crash had just 200 hours of experience. On a US airline, the minimum is 1500 hours. The cause of the malfunction is certainly worthy of discussion, but both the Lion Air and Ethiopian crashes could have been prevented with better pilot actions.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/21/ethiopian...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/maintenance-lapse-identified-as...

Talking to actual pilots that operate internationally and it’s pretty clear that there are some scary operations going on.

Southwest Airlines requires at least 1000 hours of turbine time as a minimum, along with an ATP rating. At Ethiopian, you could get hired with zero hours of turbine time. That’s the real scandal that these airlines put kids in the right seat of a big airliner with less experience than required to get your single engine commercial license in the US.

Southwest and other airlines got lucky.

Lion Air pilots were aware of the issue, and did the follow the checklist, however their airspeed was too fast and physical resistance when cutoff switch was triggered was too high they were forced to switch it back on, and MCAS went kicked back in and they didn't have time. I am not sure how much Southwest 's pilot or anyone not trained in this specific scenario could have done much better.

Sullenberger the pilot who landed on the Hudson in his testimony pretty much said the same thing after spending time on the simulators with this scenario. It is easy for crews to run out of time solving this issue, the U.S. simulator training did not include the scenario in the real world it is just as likely for a U.S. pilot to have crashed.

> Lion Air and Ethiopian crashes could have been prevented with better pilot actions.

Boeing tried to say it was the pilots for a long time. I don't want to fly on a plane whereby you need to be an exceptional pilot to not crash the plane.

Further, Lion Air requested additional pilot training. Boeing mocked them for it: https://fortune.com/2020/01/14/boeing-lion-air-extra-737-max...

2 planes crashed really quickly after they were new.

> it’s pretty clear that there are some scary operations going on.

Two really new planes crashing is only due to pilot error?

Lion Air's request for additional training was eminently worthy of mockery from what I could tell - it would've been a lot of hassle, and so brief and cursory to be basically useless if their pilots already knew how to fly a standard 733 and completely inadequate if they didn't.

Ethiopian is one of the safest airlines in the world, far more so than some tinpot US airline backed by the FAA which covered up Boeing flaws for commercial purposes and still refused to ground the max until every other country had.

As a pilot, I intend never to fly on a 737 Max.

The only thing that might change my mind is putting the plane on its own type certificate solely for this plane.

>Something tells me airlines are going to be making it even more difficult to determine which aircraft you'll be flying on when you book a ticket.

Something tells me their competitors (who aren't flying 737 Max) are going to advertise that they don't and the ones who are refusing to tell you what plane you're flying on are going to lose a ton of business.

Delta is already a dominant player, making a move like you've stated will just cement their position.

> Delta is already a dominant player

Slightly off-topic, but...

They get additional bonus points from me for stringent enforcement of mask wearing policy.

If you don't wear a mask you don't board the plane. If you take it off during taxiing or during the flight and refuse to wear it they kick you off the plane and ban you from flying with them.

If I would have to fly any US carrier I would chose theme whenever possible.

Edited to add: They kick you off while still on the ground.

> Edited to add: They kick you off while still on the ground.

This clarification brought a smile to my face.

The DC10 had a phenomenal safety record after the initial crashes. There is a tremendous amount of incentive to ensure the MAX doesn't crash within the first 5 years after being recertified. I would definitely take a MAX when it becomes available again.

It will take a phenomenal safety record to call the MAX safe. But we are still on day 0 of that record.

Didn’t an email link with Boeing employees basically saying the exact same thing? “I’d never let my family fly on one” or something?

Looks like it: https://www.businessinsider.com/boeing-employees-wouldnt-let...

> 8 months before the first 737 Max crash, 2 Boeing employees talked about how they wouldn't let their families fly on the plane

There is a funny anecdote, likely apocryphal, but still worth retelling because of the implied wisdom:

When talking about the soon to be released Chinese passenger jet one of the principals of the company was overheard saying that he would never allow his family to board one of these aircraft, that's how bad they were.

Some party bigwig overheard this and addressed the man: "I know 100% certain that this is going to be one of the best aircraft ever made in China. Because you and all your extended family will be on board the maiden flight."

Hmmmm.

"This had better be the best thing ever, because since I heard that you expressed technical reservations you may be powerless to do anything about, and I have power over you, out of spite I'm going to put your entire family on a plane against your wishes, possibly regardless of your realistic capability to influence the outcome."

There is no implied wisdom there besides "best not be the family of a principal in China who made the mistake of being too open with his opinion in front of the wrong people"; even if you were going for the old adage of the Greek architects and bridge builders being expected to "stand beneath their bridges" with their family when they were tested.

You really lose the evocative power when you insert an authoritarian power with demonstrable disregard for human life into the equation. You lose the message in the quagmire of unsavory politics with a Western audience. Furthermore, you run the risk of unintended wisdom extraction, such as that sometimes, no matter how hard you want something to be good, you just can't marshal the people/knowledge/manpower to get it done well with what you have, within the time slotted. The capacity to recognize when this is the case is the entire reason for existence of the field of engineering in the first place, yet is also one of the least appreciated or safe aspects to actually express when you start making the outcome of an engineering project a matter of political import.other Other unintended nuggets of wisdom retractable from that parable includes "keep your Mouth in check around high-ranking Party members/Politburo/Das Kommisar."

Sometimes it's better to just be direct about it. My two cents anyway. Again though, I've been around enough tainted engineering projects to recognize the perversity in the gesture. If I were that Party member, I'd be pushing my principal on why they felt way and what problems needed to be overcome without resorting to abusing my position to instill fear. After all, I would have no interest in losing my best and brightest, if the real problem was subcontractors not meeting QC targets, and no one being willing to call it out or escalate which is all that happens when you start throwing weight around as originally expressed.

what it does however is it realigns the incentives of the C*O from meeting target deadlines to meeting target safety, especially in a culture where people are too afraid to speak up their concerns.

The interesting thing is that this didn't have anything to do with the quality of the plane at all - they were working on the simulator, and their messages were about how they wouldn't trust their family on planes trained using that simulator. As far as I know, the simulator in question was never used since the whole point of the whole mess was to ensure pilots trained on the existing 737 were allowed to fly the Max without any extra simulator training.

Actually, the entire point was to not release an accurate simulator, because to do so would invalidate the original marketing assertion that MAX was substantially different to fly, and would provide a trivially accessible platform from which to discover the flaws of MAX's implementation.

Largely the same as your point, but takes into account that Boeing's success was being predicated on no one looking at the MAX too hard for too long.

I would imagine with a company of the size of Boeing you could find a larger group of folks that wouldn't allow their families to fly in any airplane.

Sure but there’s a big difference between not wanting someone in your family to have surgery and not wanting them to go to a specific surgeon.

What would you imagine the percentage is at companies whose primary business is producing airplanes?

I think he means we simply never heard about the employees that said the same thing about other planes because they didn't crash. These were highlighted after the fact.

I wouldn't either and none of my friends & family would. In fact, I don't see how the they can even take the chance of flying this plane without a complete structural redesign. Another crash and they are finished for good. This spells doom for boeing.

If some airlines tried to hide or change the type of aircraft you have booked, then you can be sure there will be others that won't (and make it a selling point).

Boeing owns enough of the US legislature through bribery or in-district employment to never, ever, ever have to worry about bankruptcy or any other adverse market impact.

Will they be allowed to teeter on the edge of insolvency? Sure. Fall over? Not when taxpayer money is free and infinite.

It may not be straightforward bankruptcy.

A new buyer could take them private as part of bankruptcy to reduce the liabilities because of current company, while retaining the employees keeping government happy, or they could be broken up into different companies, defence division could split / bought by another defence contractor perhaps, there are many options in these conditions which does not immediately impact politician concerns.

Simple, people will just choose airlines that don't have too many max aircraft

Even the non-MAX 737s have had issues recently.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/airline-news/2020/07/2...

Planes don't typically sit on the ground for several months without being used so this is a little more forgivable.

I disagree, plane being out of service for a while should be a tested risk factor and is entirely within the realm of possibility pre-COVID.

I agree, but I'm still going to avoid flying for awhile! (And I was up to 21 flights by March.)

The MAX is also known as the 737-8200. Now that the product recognition is working against it, I think we will see the forgettable name a lot more.

At least in the US you can typically cancel a flight for free within the first 24 hours if it is booked more than seven days out, if that helps.

You are right that the airline can change the type of plane like that but it is uncommon. A much more common way to end up on a different type of plane than was booked is weather cancellation. (Personally, I don't like most of the regional jets, but by the end of the day of waiting for a 1 hour flight, I'll take anything.)

The 737-8200 is the 737-8 MAX 200 that Ryanair requested before all of this happened. Its a special ultra high capacity 737 MAX 8 with two more overwing exits and some knee unfriendly seat pitch.

> would anyone choose to book a trip on one of these new Boeing aircraft rather than anything else?

To me getting to/from the airplane (any model) is usually of significantly more concern[0] than flying itself, so the only reason I would actively choose a specific airplane is if I get to fly in a new or interesting model. So there, you have a definite yes from me.

[0] Traffic accidents, possibility of losing possessions, issues at immigration, untrustworthy taxi drivers, etc.

> would anyone choose to book a trip on one of these new Boeing aircraft rather than anything else?

I would - and I'm a former Boeing flight controls engineer, so my opinion is not limited to whatever I read from journalists who get about 75% of things wrong whenever they write about aviation.

> Given the option, would anyone choose to book a trip on one of these new Boeing aircraft rather than anything else? I know I wouldn't, my family wouldn't, and none of the friends or co-workers I've discussed this with would.

You wouldn't, but the thing is - you don't get the option.

Your airline won't tell you which plane you'll be flying until boarding time. You then have the option of cancelling your flight without a refund, or flying.

Most airlines only use one manufacturer for this size class; it’ll be 737-XXXs, or a32Xs, but rarely both. So just choose an appropriate airline. Not always an option, of course, but on the biggest routes it generally is.

Many airlines use both Airbus and Boeing within the same size class. American, United, and Delta all operate both 737s and A320-class planes.

JetBlue is only A320/321.

If flying long haul with a big carrier, Expert Flyer is pretty accurate, barring a late substitution if there's a fault with the original plane.

Watch them rename it the Boeing American Patriot

It depends on who’s flying it. No argument the aircraft design was faulty and Boeing is fully responsible for that, and even worse covering it up. However Lion Air pretty regularly crashes non-MAX 737s and the first officer on Ethiopian was extremely inexperienced and wouldn’t have been let anywhere near the front of a commercial airliner in the US. Your choice of airline will have a much bigger impact on risk than your choice of aircraft.

Your 'However' subreptitiously implies that there are mitigating factors that _diminish_ Boeing's murderous lack of duty of care.

This is factually incorrect for Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, where 157 people died.

Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 was extensively analysed and no pilot fault was found (irrespective of a junior 1st officer). [0]

That crew absolutely did their job and died trying to save 157 souls. I appreciate that it was probably not your intention but you should take stock and think about this before (even if subsconsciously) 'However'ing Boeing.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Airlines_Flight_302#...

I would. I get it that Boeing messed up the first time, but this was always a failure that was preventable with proper pilot instruction and awareness. Even if they didn't fix the software I couldn't imagine a 737MAX pilot not being aware of this.

People still drive Tesla's using autopilot and they drive head on into barriers on the highway or under trailers and decapitate people.

This is a failure because Boeing cut corners through their design process because they prioritized the following over safety: 1) Bringing it into the market as soon as possible so they had an answer for the neo 2) Ensuring that it flew similar to other 737s so that airlines would pick them instead of the Airbus due to not requiring pilot training.

The MCAS/AoA issue is the most easily manifested issue that led to 2 crashes. There’s almost certainly other issues that may also exist with this plane that we don’t know about yet because they’re slightly less likely than the MCAS issue. And it’s possible that some of those other issues may also lead to fatalities.

The fundamental problem with the 737Max wasn’t the MCAS or the AOA sensors but the design process which greatly devalued safety. I’m not sure how possible it is to make up for that with after the fact testing.

> preventable with proper pilot instruction and awareness

More pilot training? The training that was sold to everyone not to be needed? https://fortune.com/2020/01/14/boeing-lion-air-extra-737-max...

It's not the crazy rush to have a new airplane asap? Plus avoiding scrutiny by hiding what MCAS did? Plus hiding scrutiny by having it rely on only one sensor? Plus not assessing MCAS as a new critical system, meaning it should have 2 or 3 sensors as input, plus a new type rating? It wasn't all of that and more.. just some pilot instruction and awareness?

You have more confidence in the plane than the people who designed and built it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/09/business/boeing-737-messa...

While Boeing totally screwed the pooch on this one, and I won't be choosing to fly on one if I can, the public having more confidence in a system than its creators/domain experts isn't exactly uncommon. Would you trust your medical record privacy to Windows XP running AVG?

To my knowledge, we don't actually know that. None of the emails I've seen refer to anyone's title or name. For all I know it's a janitor who heard rumors around a water cooler.

That's a ridiculous statement. The "Would you put your family on a MAX simulator trained aircraft?" quote comes from page 103 of this PDF [1] and is in the context of a technical discussion of the aircraft's design by people who clearly understand the internals.

[1] https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/6653-internal-boeing...

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