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Comment by rocqua | Hacker News Reader

If this was indeed MCAS, it is my understanding they 'could have' stopped this by turning off power to the electronic stabilizer trim.

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Per the friendly article, "Pilots "repeatedly" followed procedures recommended by Boeing before the crash, according to the first official report into the disaster."

Exactly.

I find it embarrassing for the society as whole how many people these days comment on articles or posts by just reading the title.

I read the article, hence my reaction. Because to me, the claims of the article do not match my understanding of the procedures defined for dealing with a failing MCAS.

I'm interested to see what the report says about this. My understanding is that the procedure is "turn off electric trim and don't turn it back on". Not a procedure that you can follow "repeatedly".

But when the electric trim is completely shut down, manually restoring a sane trim position takes a very long time and time can be limited while close to the ground.

I think that what they would have needed was an intermediate mode, "disable the decisionmaking, but keep the power-assist". But that would only make the checklists even more complicated, at the cost of valuable time and more possibilities for user error.

Ah yes ofcourse. Just hit pause to stop time, mute the people screaming in the rear, get a cup of coffee, sit back and think out of the box.

Not saying that we could've expected this of the pilots, just doubting the claim 'could not stop nosedive'. Specifically stating that the claim

"The crew performed all the procedures repeatedly [that were] provided by the manufacturer but were not able to control the aircraft."

Does not match MCAS as it has been explained to me.

Maybe you're right, but were they trained to know about this?

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