> Lowering flaps or not raising them in the first place solves it since flaps disengage MCAS.
But the pilots weren't told that and didn't know it. Nobody was trained or informed that "lower flaps" was a proper response to "trim system malfunction", and I don't see why it would be an obvious thing to come up with on your own.
> they allowed a plane to take off with a system required for airworthiness to not be fixed
Did Lion Air know the AoA sensor was required for airworthiness? Nobody outside Boeing knew MCAS existed at the time.
Not too precise. Lowering flaps or not raising them in the first place solves it since flaps disengage MCAS. And on the Lion Air flight, the AOA sensor was already squawked prior to the flight but the incompetent Lion Air maintenance process ignored it despite that sensor being on the MEL for that airplane. Lion Air allowed a legally un-airworthy aircraft to depart. Boeing owns some of the blame, but the pilot-factories of third world airlines deserve a lot of the blame as well. In Lion Air’s case, their maintenance failures deserve 100% of the blame because they allowed a plane to take off with a system required for airworthiness to not be fixed.
If a plane requires a widget to be legally airworthy and maintenance and the pilot in command knowingly allowed the plane in the air without that functioning widget, anything that happens as a result afterwards is the fault of the maintenance and pilot in command. That the widget was required; that’s on Boeing. That the widget failed, that’s also on Boeing; that the plane was allowed to fly by that airline — that’s on the airline.