need to go to the scrap yard.

moving the engines and changing the Center of Gravity I do not believe that they can be made airworthy.

that had the Max were able to fly them without crashing them. When you sell a plane under the guise that "it flies itself" (without actually using those words) some of the world's most mediocre airlines will take that seriously, and put lightly trained pilots in the cockpit.

Hundreds, maybe thousands of takeoffs and landings per day throughout the world, and not just First World airlines tell you that the aircraft was not the death trap that Indonesia and Ethiopia make them out to be.

US pilots as well. The aircraft is a very old design with a significant change to the center of gravity (CG) for fuel efficiency. To compensate for that the autopilot system was "re-engineered" to adjust for the CG changes.

As to it being a death trap or not will be decided by others than us, however I suspect the families of those who were lost onboard those two aircraft might believe that it is just that.

The 737-8 Max needs to be scrapped and my opinion will not change on this subject.

I could be wrong.

The even larger problem is that Boeing managed to put a plane into service with the MCAS being the smelly piece of garbage it is. What are the chances that MCAS is the only thing that stinks on the MAX 8?

The MCAS is an effort to fix a flawed design characteristic. An airliner should first and foremost be inherently stable and without a tendency to pitch up or down.

...in a normal, uncomplicated flight situation.

then Homer Simpson could run a nuclear power plant.

Where a pilot's experience comes into play is in the unusual circumstances. When you've been in an aircraft a number of times when making the wrong decision could easily result in your own death, and you've made the correct decisions, a computer malfunction should be a problem that you can handle without panic.

That doesn't happen with only 200 flight hours.

"The exceptional pilot uses his exceptional judgement to avoid situations that will require his exceptional skills." I'd like to imagine airlines put exceptional pilots into their aircraft, but select aircraft that only very rarely need exceptional skills to operate safely.

And, it is clear that even very experienced pilots have encountered situations with this aircraft that have called upon their considerable skill sets. Clearly, a fix is needed, but just junking billions of dollars worth of aircraft is probably not the answer.

Hopefully, the FAA and other worldwide flight regulation authorities will look at this situation, and call for recertification of aircraft that have changes of the magnitude done with the Max. Perhaps better oversight of training is a part of the solution for the future, as well.

I wrote the DBQ airport manager to find out if American or other airlines had designs on using 737s at DBQ. He told me Sun Country already has 737s flying in and out of Dubuque for charters, and the airport's new terminal was designed around the 737.

American mainly uses the Embrarer ERJ-145 here. It doesn't look like American would have 737s flying here. Wouldn't make much sense to just fly the180 miles to Chicago in them with the passenger counts we've got. The manager did say American might go up to the 175 for the local airport in the near future.