> [Chesley] Sullenberger says he recently experienced scenarios similar to those facing the pilots of the doomed Ethiopian and Lion Air jetliners in a simulator and says he understands the difficulties they had trying to maintain control of the planes. "Even knowing what was going to happen, I could see how crews could have run out of time and altitude before they could have solved the problems," he said.

https://qz.com/1576597/off-duty-pilot-saved-lion-airs-737-ma...

The fact that the same plane kept repeatedly trying to plow itself into the ground after takeoff really underscores the basic premise that the 737 Max is a bad aircraft, and should have never been certified.

American Exceptionalism is a dangerous myth. They didn't crash because they were Indian/Indonesian. What happened to these guys is that they faced a situation that tested the limits of human abilities, and it's the reason a whole domain of engineering called Human Factors exists.

I am saying, in general, if you are going to get on a plane today, you are much more likely to be killed because of human error than any other reason. Humans are good at fixing, mitigating, and recognizing mechanical issues. Other planes in the past have had mechanical issues and later returned to service with a good safety record. Human error is really what you should be worried about, both statistically, and in terms of mitigation difficulty.

Sure, but the issue with the 737 MAX in particular is that the aircraft is unsafe from a design perspective, so I find your arguments that US aircrews are less likely to make a mistake to be both nonsensical and irrelevant (from a 737 MAX perspective).

The 737 MAX is flawed in a way that was not only concealed from the operators, but in a way that causes a failure mode that is not easily avoided or averted because of Human Factors, even by an aircrew that "knows their shit".

Your faith in the MAX 8 flown by US operators is unfounded.

This is negated by the fact that the pilots on the flight before the Indonesian crash were able to save their aircraft because they recognized the symptoms of runaway trim quickly.

https://qz.com/1576597/off-duty-pilot-saved-lion-airs-737-ma...

They don't need to be American, I merely listed it as an example of a place where people who fly planes can be reasonably expected to have a high level of competency. (In contrast to situations like PIA 8303)

Most engineering problems also include elements of human interaction -- once again, the DC10 cargo door issue is a good example. One would expect that even if MCAS is re-engineered to work correctly, a pilot would still need to understand the operation of the system. Part of the problem is that Boeing tried to sell it as if it was of little to no importance to understand.

Yes, pilot error is the most common cause of aircraft incidents. But poor aircraft design is additive to that risk. If you genuinely believe that the Max 8 is a bad airplane, as I do, then you're accepting the risk of the pilots making a mistake plus the risk of bad aircraft design killing you.

With that in mind, I would still choose to fly a regular 737, even if I already trust the pilots to "know their shit", since adding risk for no gain is a silly thing to do.

I wouldn't get off a MAX8 operated by Quantas and instead board an A320 operated by PIA