Boeing and the FAA did a bang up job hiding the details of their unsafe system behind vague language such as this:
> Specifically, just before stall entry, and well below any normally encountered airspeed, control column pitch forces became lighter when they are required by certification rules to become heavier.
"[not] normally encountered" could mean, once every 10 flights. Maybe once every 1000 flights. 1 out of 10 scenarios for a given flight. Who knows? Certainly not the FAA, because they didn't collect or publish this data in their report. They used similarly vague language most likely provided by Boeing.
This report walks through the stall scenario with MCAS working, and it walks through an entirely different scenario with MCAS malfunctioning. It does not walk through the stall scenario with MCAS malfunctioning. Boeing and the FAA still have not released data on how often MCAS was operating (erroneously or otherwise) prior to grounding, and how safe it might be for pilots to operator aircraft with MCAS disabled.
It sounds like the pilot here is on the take. Such a glaring omission in the simulator is damning in my eyes, and I trust Boeing and the FAA less than I did after the crashes.
MCAS isn't an anti stall system. It's a regulatory compliance system. Specifically, it's to comply with a regulation requiring that the force on the stick increase with increasing angle of attack.
The situation that the regulation addresses should never occur on a fare carrying flight. It's at the edge of the flight envelope, and a pilot who deliberately flies at the edge of the envelope with fares in the back should be prosecuted.
That said, sometimes things break, or weather causes things to go wrong. This may result in inadvertently flying near the edge of the envelope.
To a rough approximation, 0 out of a 1000 flights will meet the requirements for MCAS to activate.
We do know exactly the conditions required for MCAS activation. And we do know those conditions should never be encountered during a fare carrying flight. Any pilot who deliberately puts their aircraft into conditions that result in MCAS activation should be prosecuted.
Pilots should never come close to stalling during fare carrying flight. Therefore the MCAS should never activate during routine flight.
We do not know the conditions, we know the conditions Boeing said, and we know that Boeing said it's rare. The data from flights before grounding could answer this question, but it's nowhere to be found in the report. It's not even discussed.
> Specifically, just before stall entry, and well below any normally encountered airspeed, control column pitch forces became lighter when they are required by certification rules to become heavier.
"[not] normally encountered" could mean, once every 10 flights. Maybe once every 1000 flights. 1 out of 10 scenarios for a given flight. Who knows? Certainly not the FAA, because they didn't collect or publish this data in their report. They used similarly vague language most likely provided by Boeing.
This report walks through the stall scenario with MCAS working, and it walks through an entirely different scenario with MCAS malfunctioning. It does not walk through the stall scenario with MCAS malfunctioning. Boeing and the FAA still have not released data on how often MCAS was operating (erroneously or otherwise) prior to grounding, and how safe it might be for pilots to operator aircraft with MCAS disabled.
It sounds like the pilot here is on the take. Such a glaring omission in the simulator is damning in my eyes, and I trust Boeing and the FAA less than I did after the crashes.