| I understand that people are different and process things differently. There's nothing wrong with them. But some people aren't suited to be pilots, and flight school is supposed to wash them out. I also don't believe that misinterpreting "continuous" was a factor in the crashes. One failure scenario that can cause runaway trim is mechanical damage that causes an intermittent short circuit which can cause uncommanded trim. "Continuous" or intermittent, you're going to want to cut off the stab trim, as you would any dangerous piece of machinery that is randomly turning itself on and off. I have a difficult time conceiving of concluding that "the trim is coming on randomly and pointing me at the ground, but since it's not continuous I'll just let it keep doing that rather than turning it off." I'm not a pilot, but I bet my response would be more like "Holeee phuck, wtf is wrong with the trim, it's going to kill us all! Turn it off! Turn it off!" As I mentioned, I spent 3 years working on the 757 stab trim system for the 757. Although I didn't come up with the idea, the engineers who did said that's exactly why the cutoff switches are clearly labeled and within easy reach. They're for "the stab trim is possessed by demons trying to crash the plane, shut it off NOW!" Interestingly, the emergency checklist says to turn off the autopilot first, and if that doesn't stop the trim, then shut off the trim. My tendency would be to stop the trim, then turn off the autopilot, and fly manually the rest of the trip. For example, there was a crash some years ago where the pilots got an air pressure warning. They dug out the checklist, and started following the procedure. They passed out from hypoxia before getting very far through it. The checklist was then changed so that the #1 item was "put on your oxygen mask". These things are all so obvious in hindsight, but sadly too much gets learned the hard way. |