<story><title>Plane Tests Must Use Average Pilots, NTSB Says After 737 Max Crashes</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/plane-tests-must-use-average-pilots-ntsb-says-after-737-max-crashes-11569506401?mod=rsswn</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>treis</author><text>Their logic was that pilots are trained to deal with runaway trim, a MCAS failure is runaway trim, ergo pilots are trained to deal with a MCAS failure.  Obviously that logic turned out to be faulty but it&amp;#x27;s not like Boeing made some outlandish leap here.</text></item><item><author>elbrian</author><text>&amp;gt;  Boeing assumed that pilots could be relied upon to recover from a MCAS induced runaway trim. Practice has shown that they can&amp;#x27;t. Whether Boeing or the pilots is at fault is, from a safety perspective, irrelevant.&lt;p&gt;From a practical perspective, however, Boeing making universal assumptions about pilot capabilities in life-or-death situations, utilizing new equipment that they were not trained on, is anything but irrelevant.</text></item><item><author>treis</author><text>&amp;gt;Though I can’t help but wonder if this is a very subtle re-framing of the Max accidents to shift blame back towards pilots.&lt;p&gt;Blame is a loaded word.  Boeing assumed that pilots could be relied upon to recover from a MCAS induced runaway trim.  Practice has shown that they can&amp;#x27;t.  Whether Boeing or the pilots is at fault is, from a safety perspective, irrelevant. The bottom line is that an assumption was made, it was wrong, and a couple planes crashed.  Using average pilots instead of highly experienced test pilots is a sensible step to prevent a repeat.</text></item><item><author>dahart</author><text>This seems like a good thing, they should be testing with people who don’t know the answers. Though I can’t help but wonder if this is a very subtle re-framing of the Max accidents to shift blame back towards pilots. This approach of a regulatory agency recommending “average pilot” testing makes both the agency and Boeing look good, and tends to downplay the fact that Boeing intentionally avoided training the pilots, and that the system was only recoverable if you had some extremely specific knowledge. This wasn’t an issue of the quality of the pilots, this was an issue of the quality of the training, which we know was kept from all pilots to attempt to save time and money.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dahart</author><text>You&amp;#x27;re right. Boeing did not make an outlandish leap of logic, or any leap of logic at all in this context, because it was fully their &lt;i&gt;intent&lt;/i&gt; to get away with no training. They worked their butts off to minimize the training, to minimize even the very idea that training was needed, and to prevent the Max from having to be re-certified by the FAA.</text></comment>
<story><title>Plane Tests Must Use Average Pilots, NTSB Says After 737 Max Crashes</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/plane-tests-must-use-average-pilots-ntsb-says-after-737-max-crashes-11569506401?mod=rsswn</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>treis</author><text>Their logic was that pilots are trained to deal with runaway trim, a MCAS failure is runaway trim, ergo pilots are trained to deal with a MCAS failure.  Obviously that logic turned out to be faulty but it&amp;#x27;s not like Boeing made some outlandish leap here.</text></item><item><author>elbrian</author><text>&amp;gt;  Boeing assumed that pilots could be relied upon to recover from a MCAS induced runaway trim. Practice has shown that they can&amp;#x27;t. Whether Boeing or the pilots is at fault is, from a safety perspective, irrelevant.&lt;p&gt;From a practical perspective, however, Boeing making universal assumptions about pilot capabilities in life-or-death situations, utilizing new equipment that they were not trained on, is anything but irrelevant.</text></item><item><author>treis</author><text>&amp;gt;Though I can’t help but wonder if this is a very subtle re-framing of the Max accidents to shift blame back towards pilots.&lt;p&gt;Blame is a loaded word.  Boeing assumed that pilots could be relied upon to recover from a MCAS induced runaway trim.  Practice has shown that they can&amp;#x27;t.  Whether Boeing or the pilots is at fault is, from a safety perspective, irrelevant. The bottom line is that an assumption was made, it was wrong, and a couple planes crashed.  Using average pilots instead of highly experienced test pilots is a sensible step to prevent a repeat.</text></item><item><author>dahart</author><text>This seems like a good thing, they should be testing with people who don’t know the answers. Though I can’t help but wonder if this is a very subtle re-framing of the Max accidents to shift blame back towards pilots. This approach of a regulatory agency recommending “average pilot” testing makes both the agency and Boeing look good, and tends to downplay the fact that Boeing intentionally avoided training the pilots, and that the system was only recoverable if you had some extremely specific knowledge. This wasn’t an issue of the quality of the pilots, this was an issue of the quality of the training, which we know was kept from all pilots to attempt to save time and money.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>olliej</author><text>Boeing did though - they decided unintentional trim was the same as a flight system that was deliberately hidden from the pilots was just a “trim” issue.&lt;p&gt;They needed to &lt;i&gt;classify&lt;/i&gt; it as a ordinary trim problem because otherwise they would have needed to have testing for it, which would have meant acknowledging MCAS existed.&lt;p&gt;The evidence that it wasn’t just a normal trim issue is the second crash, which occurred when pilots already knew about the design fault. When it turned out that it wasn’t physically possible for a pilot to take the corrective actions.&lt;p&gt;Boeing is still trying to blame the pilots for their own decision to fraudulently sell an unsafe aircraft.</text></comment>