I flew the same route just a few weeks ago too. I wouldn't call ET "fly casual," the FAs were even more concerned about PAX following regulation than UA FAs, if that's possible!

Actually, correlation does *imply* causation, it just does not guarantee it.....

no, correlation is just a goodness of fit statistic or how variables move together in a covariate matrix. it is the test of the null hypothesis where causation is determined.

I was already hesitant based on the Lion Air incident and subsequent reports about how Boeing evaded FAA safety restrictions with the new aircraft flight control systems.

​​​​​​​Like Boeing fixed (covered up) the rudder issues in the 90s?

I personally mentally suppressed incident 1, but will not set foot on another MAX until we get more details about incident 2.

Any airline crash, anywhere in the world, will make me stop and rethink. It's harrowing, and in all reality, we're in the hands of two pilots. Thankfully, UA (like most US majors) has a wonderful group up front on every flight -- I may not agree with them on everything, (and might find their frequent bathroom trips annoying ;) ) but I'm okay putting my life in their hands.

As far as the MAX series goes, I have no issue stepping on one to work, pass ride, or even putting my family and friends on one. It's a wonderful airplane.

For those who are interested in more details about how Boeing evaded FAA regulations which would have otherwise required retraining of pilots on its flight control systems (which will automatically push the aircraft's nose down in certain circumstances), there is an excellent NYT article: After a Lion Air 737 Max Crashed in October Questions About the Plane rose

It's a classic story of profits over safety and the risks of a captive regulator.

You'll note that I'm not speculating as to the cause of the ET crash at all. I litigate airplane crashes for a living and of course am careful to avoid postulating causal theories while the wreckage is still smoldering.

The initial post to which I responded implies some similarity to the Lion Air accident. It's way too early to conclude anything about causation in the ET crash, although the fact that it is another 7M8 is a disturbing coincidence.

At this point, the Lion Air appears to have some relationship to the improper management of the MCAS nose-down command, which functions to trim the stabilizer in order to control pitch in a narrowly-defined scenario where an airplane is approaching a stall. It's not an inherently unsafe design; to the contrary, the reason the system is in place is to provide flight envelope protection when the aircraft is being flown into a marginal situation (high AOA, higher stall speed due to clean configuration, steep bank, manual control). We don't even know whether the ET 7M8 was configured and flown such that the MCAS protection is available.

There is some FR24 data available showing some irregular variability in vertical speed in the minutes before the crash, which resembles the JT610 profile, but that data is not verified and is difficult to interpret in a vacuum.

So, the bottom line is I'm not calling for the grounding of the airplane at this point, nor I am changing my travel plans to avoid the MAX at all costs.

thanks for specifically clarifying your post.
That said, in the interest of full disclosure and any potential parallels to max etc. the JT610 crash also has a troubling maintenance issue and documentation with the AOA sensor which the previous crew/flight struggled with/reported, then put back in service. The aircraft was declared not airworthy in the preliminary report IIRC which potentially puts the trim cutout arguments moot (how is a flying officer supposed to respond to a aircraft not maintained in an airworthy state?).

Is AA/UA/WN going to dispatch a frame with a known faulty AOA sensor from the previous flight without a certification flight?

That is fair, and of course there are procedures to recover from irregular occurrences, e.g., runaway elevator trim (even if occasioned by instrumentation failure) that may not have been followed in the JT610 case... time will tell.

In discussions with people following the ET crash, my general theme has been to discourage a rush to judgment ("ground the MAX" or "I'm not getting on one until they figure it out") and let the process - a very good, effective one at that - play out.

In your opinion, has that very good and effective process played out in the investigation of and remediation efforts from the Lion Air crash?