The stated justification for sending the boxes to Europe is to minimize the time zone difference between Ethiopia and the location where the data is being recovered. With this justification, sending the boxes to Australia makes no sense.

It's not an instability. It's a difference in control feel.

The new engines on the MAX have higher residual thrust at idle. They've also been mounted higher and farther forward. The result is that in steep turns, and high angles-of-attack, the control wheel forces in the pitch access are lighter than they would be on a 737 NG. The MCAS system adds a nose-down bias, in this situations, in order to produce a similar control feel across all models.

Boeing didn't initially include information on the MCAS system because it is invisible to us in the cockpit. We can't see it. We don't know when it is operating, and there's nothing we can do about it. There was already an applicable procedure to follow in case of invalid MCAS activation--the runaway stabilizer procedure. I know a lot more today about MCAS than I did prior to these accidents but that knowledge doesn't help me if I were ever faced with a similar situation. It's nice to know but what good does that do for me?

Or what is causing the trim response - is it a computer software malfunction, the software confused by bad inputs due to a hardware issue, or an actual mechanical failure or breakage?

The condition of the crash site is not helping matters, apparently there is widespread looting and theft, and the Ethiopian govt did not secure the site properly and is still not doing so.

The FDR will be able to tell us what the AOA sensors were reading (and feeding) to the flight control computer from takeoff to impact. That will be among the first places investigators look (assuming the data can be obtained) to begin to rule out the Lion Air scenario.

Crashes into poor, rural areas are susceptible to pilferage from the accident scene. I'm currently involved in a case where an aircraft plunged into the ground in a remote area of a relatively impoverished nation, and what little wreckage there was had been pretty well picked over by the time investigators got to it. Anecdotally, I heard investigators were out scouring scrapyards for a ~50 mile radius to see if people were attempting to sell aircraft parts they had found, and sure enough, some key pieces of wreckage were recovered this way. Getting to a crash scene and securing the site is priority #2 after rescue/firefighting operations, for many reasons.

The other, absolutely absurd thing that just came to mind is the same-day photo op of Ethiopian CEO Tewolde Gebremariam, in business-casual attire, picking through pieces of wreckage in the impact crater. Once it is clear that rescue is impossible (within the first, say, 3-4 seconds of surveying the site) and there's no further risk to lives and property, that scene has to become airtight. I can understand the PR interests of presenting the CEO as sympathetic and engaged in the investigative process, but that was ludicrous. Similarly, after the Lion Air crash, passenger belongings were simply dumped on tarps and friends/family were turned loose to sift through the piles for their loved ones' belongings. Pretty sickening.

For those reasons, and many more, I have tremendous faith in the reliability of the NTSB's processes in handling major crash investigation. There's nobody in the world better at what they do (and this is coming from someone who, to earn a living, actively looks for ways to criticize NTSB findings) so it is upsetting for me to see the integrity of the American investigative board and aviation regulator blithely called into question over partisan politics. We're better than that.

I agree. It's incredibly disheartening to see Chairman Sumwalt on TV, but he seems to be objective and incredibly experienced.

Where are they now?
 

Does anyone know where UA's Max fleet is now? Unless they ferried them away, I imagine there's a bunch in Hawaii.

Here you go:

Flightradar24 UA fleet.

I'm not about to click on all the frames, but you can if you are so inclined.

It shows the last few flights - just click on B39M, and all the 737-9 MAX frames pop up (suggest "open in new window/tab" unless you want to go to main UA page after each lookup).

The two MAXs in Hawaii are ferrying (empty) nonstop to IAH. The rest of the fleet will eventually be at SFO and IAH where UA has plenty of ramp space to park the fleet for the time being.

I couldn't tell if there's a separate thread to discuss this, but have folks generally been successful at changing their flight on a 737-9 MAX for a reservation that's 3+ months away without incurring any fees (assuming origin/destination and travel date remain the same)?

Surprised they'd burn all the extra fuel to get them to IAH versus parking them at SFO.

In the short term after the EA incident UA was allowing people to move to a different airframe without change fees. But now that the MAX 9 is grounded, any future flights that show it as a possible airframe shouldn't be considered gospel. Even if a MAX 9 was not shown, there is always the possibility of a future swap in.

Once the MAX series is cleared to fly again, I highly doubt UA/SW/AA is going to have an official policy allowing pax to switch for free out of fear of flying on the MAX series. Maybe an unofficial policy for a while if you call in and complain enough, but eventually the "fear factor" will pass.

Interestingly enough some of them were ferried to HOU instead of IAH. Any one know why? Not enough parking space at IAH?

Believe they do some maintenance work at HOU - not sure which models. My educated guess would be that UA management anticipates some sort of fix that would be performed there.

I know you're not speaking on behalf of the union or airline, but man I wish you were the union spokesman.