Boeing to Temporarily Shut Down 737 Max Production

[stlstdg]

11. Lion Air and Ethiopian have operated 737s (prior to the MAX) for years

Lion Air doesn't have the greatest reputation for safety, but Ethiopian is a highly respected
carrier. Both have operated B737s for years, prior to the MAX and the MCAS.

System redundancy, designing an aircraft so that the failure of one system cannot cause
catastrophic flight envelope issues, has been baked into the cake of airliner design for decades;
it's the holy grail--or it was until the MAX.

It's unthinkable and unconscionable that Boeing would permit a single angle of attack vane to
determine whether MCAS would intervene and "correct" the plane's angle of pitch. Even more
unthinkable and unconscionable that it didn't even inform pilots of the existence if the system.
Mind boggling.

To say (and I know you were just citing a quote) that the engineers ignoring a basic principle of safe
airline design is not a factor in this, but their "overvaluing the pilots' response" is, sounds like lawyerly,
media relations department gobbledygook.

There were no such problems with the previous versions of the 737s (ones without the MCAS system),
that both airlines have operated for a long time.

Boeing's upper management cut corners, neglected basic due diligence, and dismissed previously communicated
concerns by their own engineers, and by pilots, in the interest of profit, and rushing out something to compete
with Airbus. The consequence was that they killed over 300 people.

I'm an airline and airliner geek, and Boeing has been an icon in the industry forever. But it's about time a gigantic
corporation reaped the consequences of its greed. I feel very sorry for the people, who had nothing to do with what
happened, who are likely to lose their jobs. The galling, disgusting thing is that the people who were truly at fault, who
made the decisions that led to this tragedy, will likely walk away scot free, with golden parachutes, of course.