> To handle a longer fuselage and more passengers, Boeing added larger, more powerful engines, but that required it to reposition them to maintain ground clearance. As a result, the 737 can pitch up under certain circumstances. Software, known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, was added to counteract that tendency.

https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-fi-boeing-max-de...

I'd call that a change in aerodynamic or flight characteristics as compared to earlier 737s rather than a structural flaw. That might seem a picky, semantic difference, but I think that, especially with aircraft, precision language is appropriate. The aircraft is not structurally flawed or at least no structural flaws have been revealed yet. It is perhaps a design flaw but, were there no earlier 737s to which it can be compared, it'd probably just be a flight characteristic.

It's a design flaw, because they're hacking an old design to have larger engines it was never designed for. If they did a clean-sheet new design, they'd never design it this way.

The airframe should be retired and they should make a new one. To push this, the FAA and other certifying bodies should treat the plane as an all-new plane with no commonality with previous 737 planes, requiring all new training for pilots and a complete, new certification process for the plane, just as if it had been a clean-sheet new design.