Sully's letter to the editor of the New York Times Magazine (re: Boeing 737 MAX)

As one of the few pilots who have lived to tell about being in the left seat of an airliner when things went horribly wrong, with seconds to react, I know a thing or two about overcoming an unimagined crisis. I am also one of the few who have flown a Boeing 737 MAX Level D full motion simulator, replicating both accident flights multiple times. I know firsthand the challenges the pilots on the doomed accident flights faced, and how wrong it is to blame them for not being able to compensate for such a pernicious and deadly design. These emergencies did not present as a classic runaway stabilizer problem, but initially as ambiguous unreliable airspeed and altitude situations, masking MCAS.

15 Likes

Like sully himself when his aircraft lost both engines, it took himself a bit of time to realise what had actually happened and then to act on it. For him it was a dual engine failure but for the 737 max pilots, it was something they had never heard was a thing before. And even after being taught how to switch it off, which the Ethiopian pilots did, it still failed to respond to manual controls.

This is why I will always say it is wrong to blame the pilot in these types of situations when it is clearly the manufacturer for designing an aircraft made to nose dive.

5 Likes

Proof that you should never listen to the media, folks…

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.