It would be amusing if the US government gives them money though. European alleged subsidy of Airbus is the latest accusation of Trump and one of the causes of the US-EU trade war.
Murdering 350 civilians with lies and negligence for profit and "shareholder value" just might suffice.
They put a plane into the air that flies itself automatically into the ground after all, with no opportunity for the pilots to save the plane. You can't fuck up more.
> It would be amusing if the US government gives them money though.
The US is already giving them money, indirectly. The EU is just also giving Airbus money. That's the core of the issue of Trumps position and why the conflict can't be easily solved.
Though Boeing has significant contribution, if you read the report on the Ethiopian Air 737-Max crash, I think it's easy to see several places where there was ample opportunity for the pilots to save the plane, particularly in light of the LionAir crash. Even in the LionAir case, a prior LionAir crew did save the airplane on an earlier flight by following the manufacturer provided checklist.
Boeing made a serious design error here. However, it's not nearly as serious as the quoted sentence, IMO.
Besides, did the pilots have opportunity to read and implement the new checklist?
The existing checklist was unchanged from other 737s and the required actions were all "memory items" (items which must be recalled and implemented by the crew from memory, prior to referencing and completing the written checklist in the QRH). Any 737 crewmember would have had to have demonstrated those checklist items, from memory, prior to receiving their type-rating to fly the jet. Runaway trim is a "no joke" event in nearly any type and is a memory item in any type I'm familiar with.
The Ethiopian Air crew seemed to correctly diagnose the issue, got the aircraft somewhat under control and then, in an attempt to fix the trim issue, undid the corrective checklist item, ran the trim aircraft-nose-up using the thumb switch (so far, excellent!!) and then, inexplicably, left the stab trim power enabled without commanding further aircraft-nose-up. So, they diagnosed the issue, initially did all the right things, then undid them [with good reason], then failed to re-do them.
(I agree that Boeing still wears a lot of blame here. It's just not the case that the crews were helpless and unaware passengers.)
I have seen some suggestions that this was also the reason for not having MCAS compare the two AofA sources to detect a fault, as the fault would have to be reported, and the documentation of that indicator would reveal the existence of MCAS.
Nevertheless, the provided checklist did work as evidenced by Lion Air 043.
It is quite possible that it would have been an adequate checklist when backed up with sufficient training that emphasized the differences between MCAS-induced trim runaway and that which might have been experienced in other variants. Simulator practice of manually trimming might help as well, though there is some doubt whether current simulators can adequately model the difficulties that may be experienced.
Also, that "checklist", and he existence of MCAS, was not even commonly known until after Lion Air went down.
The secrecy behind this is largely attributed to Boeing trying to keep MCAS from intense scrutiny by the FAA, based on whistleblower testimony reported in the 60 Minutes Expose.
https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DaO7_indbfME&ved=2ahUKEwiPp...
That means it was dumb luck (a third person being there) and not due to following procedures if those procedures are nearly impossible to follow, or require superhuman strength.
The excessive force on the trim required in the Ethiopian Air case was a consequence of the crew leaving the engines at high power, the trim having run farther nose down, and the elevator being held nose up, resulting in loading the horizontal stabilizer thus making the trim difficult to move. (Though I'm critical of their decision to restore and leave power to the trim system without commanding aircraft-nose-up after correctly diagnosing runaway trim, I don't really fault them for leaving excessive power in. That's a reasonable response to the initial indications and by the later time they realized it was a trim issue, they were pretty well loaded up struggling with the airplane that was well out of trim, so undoing their thrust command [which would typically result in a descent that they didn't want/couldn't afford] probably isn't reasonable to expect.)
From an armchair perspective a checklist for AoA sensor failure would have been required for the flight to end safely (maybe with "cutoff stab trim" on the list).