$200 million here, $200 million there

Maybe Joe will pay it off just like college loans. Just tax the rich some more.

 

Not just the rich either.

 

I hate that Boeing ended up taking on all the blame for this. This is a political and business mess.

Anyone that thinks that the FAA is the great bastion of knowledge with the "best and the brightest" has not worked with them.

Lion Air had problems with the aircraft on the prior day's flight. A captain riding the 3rd seat correctly told the crew how to address the issue. The maintenance staff did an R&R box swap on the aircraft without actually chasing the issue. Lion Air has really substandard pilot training and recurrent train programs and their maintenance might be said to be underwhelming. But Boeing can't really come out and say all that since they are a large customer.

Ethiopia hits a flock of birds and then the pilots forget to monitor how their airspeed keeps increasing. Be careful about saying bad things about their pilots and operations.

The politicians all jump on board that Boeing has to be some horrible company and that the FAA is fundamentally wonderful. The European EASA gets to finally falsely claim their fake moral superiority (forgetting their own long list of issues). The Chinese get to have some digs into the US for their own political reasons.

 

While I can't disagree with your view on the FAA, I do think it is a bit unfair to throw the LionAir and Ethiopian crews under the bus. I know someone who used to fly with the Ethiopian captain, and he said he was an excellent aviator. I'm not sure that a US crew would have responded better, at least in the latter case.

 

Boeing = deep pockets. Same outcome as any suit against a wealthy western corporation. But, no question, they bungled it.

Had a pilot friend. Ex Navy Viet Nam era pilot. Bit of an adventurer. Spent the rest of his career all over the world flying airliners, mostly cargo. Heard so many frightening stories of 3rd world pilots. Cured me from riding airplanes in a good many places in the world. He spent a year flying with a lot of Russians. Was very complementary of them. Said it was good we never had shooting a war.

 

Wasn't his copilots actions the reason for the loss?

 

The expectation was that the pilots were to handle the situation the same as for a runaway trim occurrence. The day before flight by Lion Air had the captain on the jump seat recognize that and get the pilots to act accordingly.

In the Ethiopian case, the pilots could not exert enough force on the control stick. The reason is that they had left the engines at the high power settings from takeoff so the aerodynamic load on the control surfaces were too high to counteract.

 

It's been a while since I have looked at those accidents. However, as I recall the Lion Air accident was as you relate, so the crew could have done better.

In the case of Ethiopian, everything went sideways so quickly that sure, Chuck Yeager might have figured it out, but most normal pilots, including US pilots, would not have. I believe that was shown in a simulator.

 

its already been paid for. Didn’t the feds buy coprate bonds for unlimited amounts at near zero interest during the pandemics and max situation

that free money is still
Out there
We all get to pay with inflation