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A comment on Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX Investigation Preliminary Report. Parent comment

Re:Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX Investigation Preliminary Report by robryan on Thursday April 04, 2019 @04:33PM (#19576808)
What about a single button to turn MCAS off and return to trim to a neutral position? Or a setting where the pilot is telling the system to ignore the sensor input.

Maybe a bit like a self driving car planes will eventually have a system where they can use visual markers as a check on what sensors are reporting.

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Re:Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX Investigation Preliminary Report by javagram on Thursday April 04, 2019 @05:01PM (#19577071)
Indeed there are many ways to design this better.

The 737 max was designed to not be any different to fly than previous 737s, so adding a button to disable this system was not allowed as I understand it.

As these two tragic accidents have made clear that specification was pretty wrongheaded...

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Re:Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX Investigation Preliminary Report by fgonzag on Thursday April 04, 2019 @05:28PM (#19577308)
Seriously, a MCAS indicator light (if MCAS is actively issuing commands), a big red button below it called "Disable MCAS" , and a MCAS disabled light (so pilots actually remember when it is disabled) should be more than enough to prevent this.

Besides adding the AoA disagree light AND having MCAS use a triple AoA sensor vote to determine the AoA angle.

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Re:Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX Investigation Preliminary Report by cjbprime on Thursday April 04, 2019 @07:23PM (#19578120)
I think they're not gonna do that because they'd lose the 737 type.
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Re:Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX Investigation Preliminary Report by chopin on Friday April 05, 2019 @03:29AM (#19580492)
Until they are forced to. I hope that the FAA doesn't get a say here and other agencies will retract the type rating.
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Re:Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX Investigation Preliminary Report by weaksauce on Thursday April 04, 2019 @04:37PM (#19576854)
That may be where they will go with this but it may require a new certification and training.
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