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A comment on China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Max aircraft. Parent comment

Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by bouncycastle on Monday March 11, 2019 @03:47AM (#19357330)
Exactly, it's "shocking". I guess that's why the pilots reacted the way they did - they didn't expect the stall & it was probably shocking for them, especially if they weren't properly trained for it or thinking that a stall is impossible or takes "much more effort than this".

There's also been quite a few of these type of stalls documented in the past (eg. where the pitot tubes failed).

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Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by CydeWeys on Monday March 11, 2019 @09:18AM (#19358690)
This discussion is divorced from reality. These two fatal crashes were not caused by stalls. The first was for sure caused by MCAS incorrectly pitching the nose down and the second appears likely to share the same cause.
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Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by bouncycastle on Monday March 11, 2019 @05:59PM (#19363266)
Ok, I probably have no idea what I'm talking about. However, reading the early news reports, stories and comments, I don't think the journalists/commenters know either and some may be biased. Would be great to actually ask an experienced pilot who flies these things. The main thing I don't understand is, when a plane starts diving, first reaction would be to disable autopilot, and put the nose up, no?

Also, pilots should be prepared to experience faulty sensors as they could fail at any time, no matter what model aircraft they are flying, no?

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Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by CydeWeys on Tuesday March 12, 2019 @12:53AM (#19365507)
Yeah, you're missing a lot of background info on this topic. Start by reading here: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/03/world/asia/lion-air-plane...

MCAS is not autopilot, and is not affected by autopilot system status. Indeed it is only enabled when the autopilot is off. And typical things you'd do to override autopilot, like applying stick input, do not override MCAS. The pilots did literally what you suggested their first reaction would be, and it wasn't sufficient to prevent fatal crashes.

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