From what I understand the whole reason this happened was that Boeing wanted the new efficient engines without having to call the plane a new model. So they were really asking pilots with no training on the new Max planes to react correctly to a situation that didn't exist on the old plane within 10 seconds. Surely this is basically admitting to being at fault?
Also, these airlines that bought the Max on the basis they wouldn't have to re-train the pilots are presumably having to foot the bill for this?
Private pilot here. You have it exactly right. The problem is not the ten-second reaction time. There are a lot of emergencies that require that kind of reaction time (engine failure, to cite the obvious example). The problem is ten-second reaction time to a new kind of emergency without special training for that emergency.
Agree´. I think the (german version) of the starfighter had a 2 second window for retracting the landing gear during lift-off otherwise the stall protection will crash the jet into the ground. Well there was a lot wrong with this model 296 crashed (during peace time training....)
The running joke at that time was that the fastest way to acquire a starfighter was to buy a plot of land and wait. That thing was nicknamed widowmaker for a reason.
I remember the value from a report on TV (who knows if it is correct). But then lift-off is not a too unexpected event, so better keep your hand close to that control.
I think something is very wrong if safety of any system is dependent on reacting to any failure within 10 seconds, without any error whatsoever.
I know pilots and piloting is on the extraordinary end of the spectrum but, isn't this stretching it a bit too much?