re: 737max crashes in Ethiopia. Killing 157

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His name is Wally Magathan, and he has worked as an airline pilot, an Air Force pilot and C-5 Galaxy flight instructor, and an instructor in airline L-1011 flight-simulators. I know him through COPA, the organization of pilots and owners of Cirrus’s small single-engine airplanes.

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-Boeing’s design deficiency [JF note: having to add the MCAS, to offset the pitch-up problem] sets up the need for pilot training on how to overcome it.

-Boeing’s failure to highlight the change resulted in no specific MCAS pilot training.

Those two big mistakes, it now appears, likely caused two tragic major catastrophes. Shame on Boeing if the final analysis bears these points out.

The corrective action is simple and within the capabilities of any competent airline captain to execute. Certainly easier than dealing with an engine fire or loss of multiple hydraulic systems.

There is a broad spectrum of abilities in any group of pilots, and without an emphasis training, some of them will be unable to overcome the design deficiency, even if the emergency procedure is simple to carry out. All the lights and buzzers going off will freeze the less capable pilot who has not been trained to drill down to what is going on, and to flip the switch. Training has to be to the lowest level of ability, if you’re operating an airline with any significant number of pilots. They all can't be Sully Sullenbergers.

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To me, from the standpoint of an airline pilot, there was no need to ground the fleet. Just ground each and every 737MAX pilot until he or she has been trained on the MCAS.

After two accidents, require a week in the simulator—for overkill to make sure it penetrates even the dimmest bulbs. But nobody flies again until they have it. In effect that grounds the fleet, but only so long as the training takes. At the same time, regulatory bodies can require Boeing to eliminate the design deficiency so that the training on the MCAS need not be so intense, a process that could take months if not years.

But if I were speaking as a non-flying member of the public, and as a politician who must answer to them, I would say: ground the fleet now. As far as the public is concerned, the industry had its chance and blew it. I would have no confidence in the plane nor the industry until an explanation is found and the design changed. Nor would I buy a ticket on such a plane.

Once the public pressure became too great, the grounding of the fleet was inevitable—but not because the plane is unsafe when flown by a properly trained crew. Boeing will pay a price for this, if the final analysis holds these accidents would not have occurred in a 737 model that had no MCAS.

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