alt Hacker News> 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.
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I am with you, this is just BS. The whole point of 737Max what that experience with 737 was enough, with maybe some small adjustments. Now claiming that you need to be some kind of super-pilot to keep the 737Max in the air when the thing tries to kill you is total bullshit.
This is like Tesla claiming that all crashes due to autopilot failures are driver faults because they are not properly trained... it is supposed to be a car driveable with a regular car license! If you need extra train to drive it properly, be explicit.
Shear luck is mostly used when you hope the sheep you're shearing doesn't kick you in the face.