Why Investigators Fear the Two Boeing 737s Crashed for Similar Reasons
Ok, so disclaimer: not a pilot. At all. But a comment someone made here in relation to the A380 being retired sprang to mind.<p>The question came up of why not drop from 4 engines to 2 (on the A380)? Someone answered that as soon as you change the engines you have to redesign the wing. As soon as you do that you have to redesign the fuselage. At that point you may as well just design a brand new plane.<p>So, my understanding of the 737 Max design is essentially that Boeing recycled the aging 737 design by putting more powerful engines on it. To make this work, they had to move the engines (and maybe the wings) forward? Is that right?<p>So the MCAS system seems, at least to me, designed to compensate for an engine, wing and frame configuration that was never designed for.<p>Add to that that Boeing _seems_ to have cut corners here and given what I think is called a common rating to the 737 Max (with existing 737 models) and not really educating pilots on what MCAS is, why its necessary, when it might kick in and how to override that if the plane is behaving incorrectly.<p>So, complete non-pilot and non-aeronautical engineer that I am, that seems... bad.<p>What&#x27;s more, Boeing&#x27;s reaction to the two crashes seems woefully tone deaf. Two crashes of new aircraft within 6 months of each other in perfect weather... caution would seem to dictate to ground them. I mean they grounded early 787s when they found an issue causing batteries to catch fire. What&#x27;s different now and then? That issue I don&#x27;t believe led to any total loss of the aircraft and those board, not even once let alone twice.<p>Add to that that the AOA sensor (from what I&#x27;ve read) doesn&#x27;t have any redundancy and it just seems like a bad time is inevitable.<p>Could Boeing really have cut corners in this way? If so, that seems woefully shortsighted.