Regulators Discover New 737 MAX Autopilot Problem

@Martin J.S. - "Boeing..Wake Up. Its a civilian airliner, not a Russian Knight." Just because computer software is used to control an airliner, do pilots, therefore, have to fly it like a fighter?

I accept that computer software is necessary to prevent a Eurofighter Typhoon dropping earthwards, inherent instability enhances manouverability. The last thing I would want whilst enjoying Glenmorangie on the Rocks is the pilot attempting Pugachev's Cobra. Boeing..Wake Up. Its a civilian airliner, not a Russian Knight.

I believe you are right Nathan.Its not the first time I have heard company approved contractors, have a shortage of programmers, so they out source the job to over seas companies . An insider source said that while they had some brilliant programmers, there were some that just did not have enough experience of what the program entailed. A lot of companies have now gone back to using their in- house staff. There is definitely an urgent market opened up for Cobalt programmers to come to the U.S. Asap. Name your price so I hear .

We used to have indian engineers oversea to do our codings for our products at cheap costs; however, it was very often to discover their software with alot of bugs and needed to communicate back and forth many times to get them fixed. Sometimes phone calls over internet with their broken English and accents are not understandable. Therefore, we decided to get rid of them and got everything back and do software ourselves in-house here. Until this day, we still fix some of their horrible bugs that they created in the first place. These indian software programmers from India that I would classify them as farmers trying to do codings as programmers. These people often have only several weeks or months of short classes or trainings before taking their jobs as programmers. They do NOT have enough Engineering backgrounds and skill-sets like those engineers graduated in the US. Of course they can do codings just like those who can read and write in English; however, the quality level is not as the same as those engineers graduated in US have. They clearly have lack of deep understandings on many levels, from engineering knowledge to reasonably logic thinking. The fact that Boeing outsources software development to them is a very stupid mistake in my opinion. From our experience here at our company with Indian software programmers, I will NOT put my life at risk for flying with Boeing airplanes with software outsourced to India. That is my opinion and you take it or leave it. It is to you to decide to put your trust in their hands.

@Frederik -- "And all Western airline models have previously been designed for the correct size of engines so they wouldn’t be so unstable that they rely on software to avoid stalls upon take off." Once again -- we should *not* conflate a concept with an implementation! There is *nothing* inherently wrong with the concept of using software in the control loop to effect aircraft stability and/or enhance performance parameters. All fly-by-wire aircraft also use software this way, and modern high performance military combat aircraft can actually be designed to intentionally *not* be stable, except for flight management software that controls the aircraft's flight laws to coerce stability -- this is to make the aircraft much more agile in maneuvering during air combat situations. It is *not* a valid argument to claim that fighter pilots have an ejection seat and so his fighter can be considered "expendable" (unlike an airliner), because the F-35 costs nearly $100 Million apiece! Using *properly* designed/implemented software in the aircraft's stability control loop is *not* as "out there" as many perceive! Besides ... how do we know whether other fly-by-wire airliner manufacturers are *not* also using similar software methods, but we just don't know about it because they did a more credible job of flight control implementation than Boeing did, with their inadequate MCAS? This all said ... I've also read that one of the primary reasons for Boeing to create MCAS was to make the MAX handle like their NG models, so as to eliminate the needs to re-qualify pilots to fly the MAX vs. the NG. As has been portrayed in some technical journals, the trade offs Boeing took in choosing to employ MCAS, in concept, was *not* inherently flawed, even if their implementation came up wanting! The MAX *can* fly *without* MCAS being engaged, but it requires a different flying profile than the NG and pilots would then need to be re-trained to manage those differences (including being mindful of different "safe" operating corners in order to keep the aircraft functioning properly) ... turning off MCAS meant that the pilot needed to handle the aircraft as if it had a runaway horizontal stabilizer situation and did *not* necessarily mean that the aircraft had to, therefore, "fall out of the sky!" Other pilots were able to successfully recover from prior MCAS anomalies (including the ones who piloted the same Lion Air aircraft on its immediately prior flight) because they were properly trained on how to respond to such a runaway horizontal stabilizer situation and were able to subsequently land their MAX safely! Not to unfairly denigrate the pilots of Lion Air and Ethiopian Air crashes, but notice that there have been *no* crashes of the MAX with the world biggest operators of this model -- USA and China! However, it is totally fair to complain about Boeing *not* providing adequate training for pilots on how to handle emergency situations when MCAS is disabled! That contingency should have been covered in training under any/all circumstances!