[Rockin Robbins]

I have a lot of friends who are pilots. Some of them are commercial pilots. They agree with blancolirio, that the news media has invented their own story and run with it when critical lessons need to be learned.

Some of our commercial pilots, especially third world commercial pilots, are flying by the book, so far as they can remember it, and lack the actual stick and rudder skills that save airplanes when things go wrong. If a book of rules was all you need, then planes would fly automatically. They have pilots because we realize that no book of procedures can anticipate every eventuality.

A pilot with actual "fly by the seat of your pants" stick and rudder skills has an instrument scan that is second nature. He knows proper power settings for level cruise, best rate of climb, best angle of climb, descent and rapid descent. He knows the proper airspeeds, throttle settings, likely trim settings for each, not by looking them up in a book, he knows them as well as his name.

When he's in a plane with throttles set at 94% for climb, and it's traveling over maximum operating speed, he knows instinctively to reduce throttle. The Ethiopian pilot left his throttle at 94%, never touching the throttle through 10 minutes of level or descending flight. He took his plane, which at that altitude should never go above about 340 knots all the way up to 500 and made absolutely no throttle corrections for TEN MINUTES.

That's pilot error in all caps, italicized, underlined and bolded. In 64 point type even. No low time pilot of a Cessna 172 would do such a thing and not lose his flying license.

How pathetic is our so-called "news media" for representing the words of Ethiopian Airlines, powerfully motivated to exculpate itself (how in hades were these pilots even CERTIFIED? Boeing does not certify pilots of Ethiopian Airlines.) and its pilots, whose actions reflect on the Airline. The pilots "repeatedly followed procedures recommended by Boeing before the crash." Whose words are those? They certainly do not reflect the words of the Preliminary Accident Report! It clearly says that the co-pilot recommended, the pilot agreed and the elevator trim cutout switch was turned off per memory procedures for elevator trim overrun. It clearly says that while turned off MCAS commanded a number of units of down trim, which couldn't be executed because the trim cutout switch was off. It clearly says the cutout switch was turned back on, against trim overrun instructions in the 737 manual since 1967. It clearly says the pilot then used the trim switch on his yoke to trim up. It clearly says that MCAS, having been erroneously turned back on by the pilot, then gave full down trim at 500 knots, immediately crashing the aircraft. It clearly says that what happened was pure pilot error.

Again, it is as if a terrorist had seized control of the plane and dived it to crash everyone. But the crew overpowered him and recovered control of the airplane. Then they decided that the terrorist could handle the situation better than they could and voluntarily put him back at the controls. Now they want to blame the terrorist. Bullschnitzel. The pilot crashed the plane.

Don't forget that Airbus had a situation where the plane was so automatic that pilots could not reduce throttle. It would not respond to yoke movement, trim controls, the pilots were completely locked out of interfering with a crashing airplane and it killed lots more than 150 people. But Airbus is European. Boeing is American. I smell anti-Americanism in this mix as well.

Mistakes are equal opportunity oppressors. They respect no nationality, corporate identity, economic system or culture. They sneak in everywhere, regardless of measures taken to avoid them. This situation has nothing to do with the United States, Boeing, or even Ethiopian Airlines. Mistakes were made. They need to be identified and remedied. There is nothing to be gained by punishment or retribution here. All that does is make the ones who made the mistake clam up. Openness, unprejudiced and fact-based evaluation of the events is the only proper course to ensure that similar situations don't happen again.