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fransje26today at 11:08 AM1 replyview on HN

> they paid extra for the redundant AOA sensor.

There was no redundancy AOA sensor option for MCAS.

All the planes were built with two AOA sensors, with the original MCAS implementation only using data from 1 sensor.


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hshdhdhj4444today at 11:09 AM

Correct. And you could pay for the MCAS to use both sensors which all US airlines did.

Edit: I was misremembering. Both sensors were enabled on all planes and MCAS only used one at a time on all planes.

What was disabled, unless paid for, was software which displayed to the pilots that the 2 sensors were disagreeing, which would immediately have alerted them to what may have been wrong.

> According to Bjorn Fehrm, Aeronautical and Economic Analyst at Leeham News and Analysis, "A major contributor to the ultimate loss of JT610 is the missing AoA DISAGREE display on the pilots' displays."[109] > The software depended on the presence of the visual indicator software, a paid option that was not selected by most airlines.[110] For example, Air Canada, American Airlines and Westjet had purchased the disagree alert, while Air Canada and American Airlines also purchased, in addition, the AoA value indicator, and Lion Air had neither.[111][112] Boeing had determined that the defect was not critical to aircraft safety or operation, and an internal safety review board (SRB) corroborated Boeing's prior assessment and its initial plan to update the aircraft in 2020. Boeing did not disclose the defect to the FAA until November 2018, in the wake of the Lion Air crash.[113][114][115][116] Consequently, Southwest had informed pilots that its entire fleet of MAX 8 aircraft will receive the optional upgrades.[117][118] In March 2019, after the second accident of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, a Boeing representative told Inc. magazine, "Customers have been informed that AoA Disagree alert will become a standard feature on the 737 MAX. It can be retrofitted on previously delivered airplanes."[119]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuvering_Characteristics_Au...

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