Mentour Pilot: Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 (crash caused by Boeing/MCAS) [video]

This video shines a bit more light on Ethiopian 302.

Notably, Mentour Pilot finds that:

1. Boeing refused to answer poignant instructor questions about MCAS prior to the crash, leaving the crew in the dark. This was despite MCAS having already caused a crash (Lionair.) The investigation found that the crash could likely have been avoided if Boeing simply answered these questions.

2. Boeing refused to train pilots on the new plane, even when airlines explicitly requested this, in order to save costs and promote brand image of the 737 MAX as a "drop-in" replacement

3. It was essentially impossible to recover the plane once MCAS activated trim, due to MCAS trim being much faster and aggressive than manual trim

4. Boeing's proposed runaway stabilizer cutoff procedure did not actually solve the problem, as aerodynamic forces would make recovery impossible if MCAS had trimmed the plane too much.

5. It was physically impossible to manually recover from such a high trim due to aerodynamic forces.

Some key takeaways:

- This crash was undeniably caused by poor corporate culture resulting in red-tape around educating pilots, and cost-cutting measures leading to half-backed solutions.

- These were software errors that could have been solved by competent software engineering. Notably: allowing one faulty AOA sensor to crash the whole plane. Keen viewers will spot countless add'l places where software could have been added to systemically mitigate failure modes like this.

- The captain was a prodigy, and these pilots did everything right. They followed Boeing's recommended procedures for MCAS faults. This was irrecoverable.

- The FAA had delegated too much responsibility+power to Boeing, and missed the risks associated with MCAS by allowing Boeing to essentially perform the safety reviews.

Boeing's CEO and executive board faced zero criminal consequences. In fact, the CEO Dennis Muilenburg found a new job, backed to the tune of $240M: https://newrepublic.com/article/161412/dennis-muilenburg-boe...