[Zancarius]

In that video, I think he's primarily talking about handling runaway stabilizer trim. It just so happens that solving runaway stabilizer trim works with MCAS failures which may have been the case with the Lion Air flight the day before the fatal accident. Unfortunately, therein lies the problem: From what I've read, an MCAS failure is different enough from runaway stabilizer trim that it might not be immediately obvious what went wrong before it's too late. Juan Browne[1] discusses this in his latest video on the MAX 8[2]--namely that pilots get so conditioned to hearing the trim wheels operating that they may not notice periodic adjustments by the flight computer when MCAS fails and starts adjusting full nose-down.

(I'm posting this as ancillary information, not to be contrarian! I might be entirely wrong; that was just my interpretation of Mentour Pilot's video. His resources are absolutely fantastic[3], and I think anyone interested in aviation should certainly take a look!)

[1] Juan Browne is a former USAF pilot who's currently an FO on the 777 and has 40 years flying experience. I don't think he has experience with the 737, but I think his coverage is valuable too.

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ora-yZCTtpg

[3] You're absolutely right! Mentour is a training captain on the 737 (737-800, I believe) and oversees certifying new pilots/captains. One of the things I like about him most is that regardless of seniority, he's incredibly humble and has said in earlier videos that he occasionally flies right seat to maintain that skill for training others. Great guy! I really wish more people were like him.

[Declanomous]

I assumed the failure in the simulator was an MCAS failure, but I'm not sure. I think that the MCAS system pauses for 5 seconds every time you hit the trim button, so it kinda seems like it might be MCAS but I have no idea.

The checklist to fix MCAS and runaway trim is supposed to be the same, so I guess the question is whether the trim wheels move in a substantially less noticeable way with an MCAS failure. I certainly can't say.

I could totally see someone hearing the trim wheels running when they are trying to trim out the MCAS adjustments and assuming that the wheel is moving in the opposite direction that it actually is. In a high-stress situation a mistake like that seems incredibly plausible.

[SAI_Peregrinus]

AFAIK in a runaway trim situation the trim wheels move continuously, while in an MCAS activation or in normal operation of the auto-trim systems they move in bursts. The fix is the same, but the recognition is very different.