The news this morning are stuffed with the latest B-737-800 prelimanary report. It is stated by the concerned country regulator that the crew did everything they could have done to save the flight.
The media is always at minimum knowledge when it comes to aviation. I am always sceptical on their scientific goodwill. Great job for politics however. They want a magic bullet that will explain all complex issues in a short 15 seconds segment.
Wrong!
It is clearly evident that Boeing messed up big time on the MCAS issue. There are no excuses here.
What lacks in this “report” is what happenned with the manual trim? Surely there is flight data on the issue? My colleagues, I am certain did all what they tought they could do to save the flight. They applied Boeing’s procedure to the letter which included cutting off the power to the trimeable horizontal stabiliser. No success followed so they even re-engaged the dubious MCAS.
I am going again on a limb here for the senseless loss of my colleagues and their trusting passengers. The investigators have got to tell us what happenned to the manual flying and manual trim requirements. Does MCAS jam the manual trim function?
2 scenarios might emerge that need to be adressed, very quickly. If the manual trim function becomes inoperable because of MCAS: fix it. The other pressing issue that might emerge is: if we forgot to use manual trims on aircraft make us practice and train basic flight manoeuvres. Handflying proficiency is not written in any manuals because such items are planely obvious as having two wings attached to the aircraft prior departure. No such item exist in an MEL.
On another note
I am working on a new project that requires flight training. Explaining my less frequent postings thank you for you patience!
I fly a very basic Piper Cherokee and don’t have any automatic pilot that flyes the plane for me. My first impression with the 737 Max8 would have been to disengage the MCAS that was over riding the pilot. I took the MAX8 on january 2019 from LAX to YUL. Very confortable plane.
Thanks for your articles.
Hello Jean,
Merci pour votre commentaire. You are perfectly right. But indeed the MCAS does put the trim completely nose down when activated. One would have to trim the aircraft manually to recover. The issue eventually will revolve over hand flying. The 737 is a superb airplane. A rugged polyvalent aircraft.
Meilleures salutations, best regards.
Marc