Comment Re:Boeing could have got away with it. (Score 1) 78
If the second crash hadn't happened, Boeing could have got away with it. If the Ethiopian pilots had the good luck not to have been at a high throttle level when MCAS triggered, or had recognized it as a trim system failure abnormally quickly, Boeing could have created and pushed out a software update a few months later and saved their shareholders a heap of money.
This would have allowed them to continue on as they had before, which is preferable in this journalist's eyes.
As it happened, Boeing pretty much has gotten away with it and we're likely going to require a 3rd fatal incident before anything will be done, I just hope it doesn't happen in a far off place so Boeing can try to blame the pilots again.
The thing about both crashes is that the pilots didn't know about MCAS, so it's unreasonable to assume they could compensate for it's malfunction. It's only after the fatal crashes that Boeing had to inform people. Ironically, the purpose of MCAS was to avoid Boeing having to have a separate type certification for the 737 MAX because it's a different enough plane to fly to require one, so MCAS was designed to make it feel like a 737-NG so 737-NG pilots didn't have to undergo additional training and get an additional type certification to fly a 737 MAX.