Originally Posted by
fly18725
You are trying to get a simple, black and white answer to a very complicated situation.
The airplane would not have been certified without MCAS or a similar system, so hypothesizing removal or disabling is irrelevant. It is clear that MCAS 2.0 would have prevented the accidents. What is also clear is that different decisions by the pilots and maintenance could have prevented the accidents. Boeing needs to fix the plane and there needs to be better training, which is a shared responsibility.
It really isn't complicated at all though. The MCAS system was very deeply flawed from the beginning.
The aircraft would have easily been certified without it, it just would have taken long and required additional pilot training. Boeing was caught with its pants down having lacked innovation in the narrow body aircraft market since the early 1980s (with an aircraft they discontinued in 2005) and decided it needed to cut some corners to play catch-up really quickly. They're now paying the price for that impulsivity and lack of innovation.
Originally Posted by
jsloan
I haven't gone through every 737 incident. I'd be surprised if none were due to a runaway stabilizer, but I'll take your word for it.
As for them "operating 737NG aircraft for years," ET has one fatal accident attributed to pilot error (the Ethiopian officials disagree), and LionAir had one non-fatal accident (as well as a non-fatal accident of a Classic). And while LionAir has over 130 737s, Ethiopian has only 30.
Yes, but none fatal and none even remotely similar to the two very similar MAX crashes.