@The Voice In the Wilderness
The FAA claimed that they did not have the resources to evaluate and test the plane. And with rising workload and falling funding that would be true.

Since the answer is never to actually provide funding needed for any government regulator to perform it's job, the solution is to outsource the job to private enterprise.

What could possibly go wrong? We all like tax cuts amiright?

Neither feature was mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration.

Why not? It's more on the FAA's door than Boeing's. I'm not making excuses for Boeing, but when the watchdog is asleep ...

@Shahryar @Shahryar
He claimed he couldn't see a 6'3" 250 pound man walking with a cane in the middle of a crosswalk because it was "dark and raining". It was after dawn and witnesses at the restaurant he was walking to for breakfast say there was a light drizzle. I think he was looking at a cell phone or GPS. No ticket. No charges. Who needs an 81 year old white man in Chicago anyway, huh?

EDIT: For anyone who cares, he's still alive but in intensive care with a breathing tube and liquid feeding tube. I'm hoping he will make it. Very worried that he's been on a continuous Fentanyl drip that they just switched to Vicodin. My daughter, a CNA, tells me that's a good sign that they switched. He's my wife's brother. after their older sister died in January, I told him he shouldn't live alone. If he hadn't lent me $4,000 at passbook rate in 1970 for a down payment I probably wouldn't have a house today. He ca live with us as long as one of us is alive and after that our daughter will probably take Uncle Bob in. Ironic that he survived three tours in Vietnam and might get it crossing the street in Chicago.

Like those "self-driving" cars that run over and kill people...Common sense says it's the responsibility of the company that makes them. And common sense says the people who made the decision not to upgrade (and the people who ok'd defective software) should be charged with 346 counts of manslaughter.

@snoopydawg just before the second crash, it was known.

At the end of the day, it sounds like the MAX is a jerry-rigged design anyway, and Boeing has been trying to use software patches to compensate for serious design flaws. The aircraft should have been re-designed completely, but instead they slapped over-powered engines on an old design to avoid the expense of having to certify a new aircraft.

Hopping up your old Ford Pinto doesn't make nearly as much sense as simply designing a new car.

overrides the auto control and pilots after they take it off it. How this could be acceptable can only be explained by corporations desires to make profits regardless of whether people are safe.

Boeing’s optional safety features, in part, could have helped the pilots detect any erroneous readings. One of the optional upgrades, the angle of attack indicator, displays the readings of the two sensors. The other, called a disagree light, is activated if those sensors are at odds with one another.

Boeing will soon update the MCAS software, and will also make the disagree light standard on all new 737 Max planes, according to a person familiar with the changes, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they have not been made public. Boeing started moving on the software fix and the equipment change before the crash in the Ethiopia.

The angle of attack indicator will remain an option that airlines can buy. Neither feature was mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration

. All 737 Max jets have been grounded.

“They’re critical, and cost almost nothing for the airlines to install,” said Bjorn Fehrm, an analyst at the aviation consultancy Leeham. “Boeing charges for them because it can. But they’re vital for safety.”

I'm wondering why no whistleblowers came forward after the first crash or even before. When was the system installed on the planes? Anyone know?

Boeing should be sued so hard that it collapses them. Anyone care to bet that Boeing knew damn well what happened after the first crash and yet stay silent about it?