> As a matter of fact, the same issue did occur to US-based-airlines, and the pilots did catch it.

There was an optional 'AOA disagree' system that an airline could buy that could help pilots know when the MCAS was going crazy. US airlines, perhaps having more money, may have bought those (helping pilots with situational awareness), but airlines in developing countries (with presumably less money) may not have gotten them.

See perhaps §6.4 about Boeing giving that functionality to everyone:

* https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/2022-08/737_RTS_Summ...

Can you share a link?

I’m pretty sure no American airline had the same situation that the airlines with the crash had because they paid extra for the redundant AOA sensor.

The MCAS issue was a major issue, but the ultimate fundamental flaw was Boeing not including a redundant sensor (which is the one that was malfunctioning in the crashes) in the base package as they should have.

The inexplicably considered redundancy in this part an optional extra, and as far as I’m aware there were no US airlines that hadn’t taken the optional extra package.

I'm sure that a flaw in the plane can be handled more gracefully by the more skilled set of pilots however that's not the point really. Their point was that the flaw in the plane wasn't a big deal and the loss of life and equipment wasn't Boeing's fault, which wasn't true.

> That does not however answer the question of whether they just got lucky, or were more skilled, though there are some indications that it may have been skill.

What a load of bullcrap. Full stop.

The crews of the two crashed 737Max were also well trained, skilled professionals.

That the US-based crews decided to re-engage the auto-pilot, and with that action, by sheer luck, managed to bypass the fatal MCAS issues, shows you exactly what it was: sheer luck.

These pilots reacted to a system malfunction of a system they hardly knew existed (thanks to Boeing's lies), that changed the aircraft subsystems behaviour in fundamental, undocumented ways compared to the previous generation of 737s, and that they were therefore not trained to handle. So skill differences did not enter the equation, luck did.

The choice was between doing the manual procedures they were trained to do to try to regain control, and the hail mary approach of re-engaging the autopilot wtith the hope the problem went away. With no time to do both. The crashed crews chose option 1, the US crews option 2.

Most likely just luck. These days US pilots can’t keep their planes separate from their helicopters so we're not exactly sending our best up there.

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