The thumb switches would have pulled the nose up. But the pilots didn't read the instructions, and turned off the stab trim system with the airplane nose down. They also had the engines at full throttle, and the increased speed made it impossible to hand crank the stabilizer.
This is an insane take. The plane was fitted with an undocumented automatic system that would erroneously change the pitch about ten times faster than what the pilot switches allowed, and that would automatically re-engage repeteadly as soon as the pilot released their switch, negating all progress made by the pilot. It would continue this adjustment blindly despite copious information available to the flight computers that a crash with terrain is imminent and that the pilot is having trouble leveling the plane.
So the electronic control route was fried, any normal person in that situation and physical and mental overload would conclude that trim controls are not functional.
The manual route, which they tried, involved at that speed an undocumented "roller coaster maneuver", pitching forward (!!) to release pressure on the trim mechanism and allow manual adjustment. It goes without question it's impossible the pilots could have come up with that solution in the mere seconds they had at their disposal, let alone the high risk it entailed.
Reducing the throttle early would have saved the plane, but it would have also resulted in immediate pitch down due to the torque the engines create against the body of the plane, as they are mounted off axis. The autothrottle was left to near 95% for the entire ~250s duration of the flight (the setting necessary for take off at the particular altitude of the airport) and once the cascading failures consumed all their situational awareness it stands to reason why they failed to adjust it and then hesitated to perform an action that would have (in the short run) worsened the problem in a near crash situation.
The MCAS as designed was a ticking timebomb that killed two plane loads of people in mere months, and Boeing accepted full responsibility for that, even if they are still denying criminal charges.
The 737 has had the issue of runaway trim forever. The giant "wagon wheels" used for trimming early models were very loud when activated, and part of that was to give the pilots a heads up that something unexpected was happening.
> about ten times faster than what the pilot switches allowed
This is utterly false. The trim rate has two speeds - on and off.
> would automatically re-engage repeteadly
This is called "runaway trim". The procedure to counter it is to turn it off. The same procedure for every airplane.
> any normal person
Pilots are required to read and understand and remember Emergency Airworthiness Directives.
Don't forget the first MCAS incident, where normal trim was restored with the column trim switches and then the trim was turned off and the airplane landed safely.
Or the second where normal trim was restored 25 times, but never turned off.
I would expect a MAX pilot to have paid attention to that crash, and the followup EAD which instructs them to restore normal trim with the column switches and then turn it off.
> This is utterly false. The trim rate has two speeds - on and off.
This is wrong and easy to disprove. The trim rate for a pilot issued trim command starts at 0.4 degrees/second at low air speeds and tappers off to zero as the speed increased towards Mach 0.68. The MCAS had a fixed rate of 0.27 degree/second that did not depend on airspeed. Here is the relevant quote from the FAA report on the 737MAX:
> “If activated by a high AOA, MCAS moves the horizontal stabilizer at a rate of 0.27 degrees per second, which is the same trim rate as Speed Trim with flaps down. The magnitude of the MCAS command is a function of Mach and angle of attack. At higher airspeeds, flight‐control surfaces are more effective than at lower airspeeds. Therefore, a smaller MCAS command at higher airspeeds has the same effect as a larger MCAS command at lower speeds."
So the trim rate is fixed but the magnitude (duration) of the original MCAS is variable to account for airspeed. Because the MCAS reengaged repeatedly due to erroneous AOA sensor data and faulty design logic, the duration became irrelevant. However, as the plane speed exceeded 0.6 Mach, the rate of pilot trim substantially decreased, meaning that a full 10s second activation of the MCAS could no longer be negated by a 10s trim command from the pilot. The flight recorder shows trim commands of up to 4 seconds, which in fact allowed the MCAS to re-engage and issue a fresh 10s opposite command, at a higher rate. This is a disastrous succession of events that can't be blamed on the pilot.
I won't go down the rabbit hole with the rest of your comment, enough to say you need to better vet your sources and reevaluate your claims. The Ethiopian Airlines pilots fought for their lives for a few desperate minutes and lost, quite possibly made some mistakes but overall many other qualified pilots would have failed too in the same scenario.
If you look at a wiring diagram of the switches, the column trim switches turn the trim on/off. The pilot can leave it on for a long or a short duration, but the trim rate remains the same.
The trim motor that drives the jackscrew is not a variable speed motor. It is only on or off.
The trim duration is not the same as the trim rate. Analogously, velocity and time are not the same thing.
You have misunderstood the FAA report.
> you need to better vet your sources and reevaluate your claims
Again, the MCAS trim rate is fixed to a relatively high value, that's what the FAA report talks about. The rate of a pilot issued command is variable, affected by the flaps setting and airspeed. This is very easy to confirm. You can see an experienced 737 pilot explain this at the link above, around the 40 minutes mark.
Actually watching the linked video (or barring that, actually reading the final report) would dispense with this widely spread inaccuracy in fairly short order and make it quite obvious why they turned ON the stab trim system, which is what ultimately killed them.
But of course, "the pilots were simply stupid" is a psychologically easier conclusion to walk away with.
One of the airlines that suffered an MCAS crash had asked Boeing for specific training on MAX and was denied, as it would have set a bad precedent for sales.
Temporarily, right? Using the pitch trim switches on the yoke suppresses MCAS, but in order to remain at even net zero stabilizer position change, the duration of trim input would have to be of equivalent duration to the reciprocal MCAS-driven change. This is part of what made the problem so insidious - running trim for that long is rarely needed and rarely done. I haven’t flown the MAX but I can’t think of any type I have flown in which continual pitch trim input of 5+ seconds at a time would be required in flight.
Surely you know this, but MCAS was a badly designed system that failed in a fatal manner in the event of malfunctioning non-redundant sensor (10s of failure events per year). Boeing knew this, but allowed it kill everyone aboard two flights. Documentation in the instructions or not it had no business being on a commercial aircraft, ever.
I know this. I also know that there were 3 MCAS incidents. On the first one, the crew restored normal trim with the thumb switches, then turned off the stab trim system. They had no idea that MCAS existed, they simply followed standard procedure for runaway trim.
After the first crash, Boeing sent around an Emergency Airworthiness Directive to all MAX pilots with the two steps I showed.
There's no excuse for MAX pilots not reading, understanding, and remembering Emergency Airworthiness Directives.
It's not just me. I've talked to two 737 pilots who said the same thing.
I see in a sibling comment that you do not think the MCAS system on the MAX was well designed, and the reliance on a single AoA sensor was not a good decision. I agree.
The aircraft should have never been declared airworthy. There should have been no need for an EAD in the first place. There is no excuse for putting a control system that flies the craft into the ground when there is a failure in a nonredundant sensor on a commercial aircraft.
The high standards required for pilots, like Amelia Earhart, do not obviate the even higher standards for quality and safety from manufacturers.
I suspect that Boeing didn't think it would be a problem because the runaway stab trim procedure is enough to stop it and recover. Who would have thought that trained pilots would not remember this procedure? It's supposed to be a "memory item", meaning consulting the checklist was not required.
The stab trim cutoff switch is in a prominent position on the central console (not overhead or behind the crew).
In the first Lion Air crash, the airplane dipped and recovered (via the thumb switches) 25 times over a period of 11 minutes. They never thought to turn off the stab trim system. It boggles the mind. Would you want to fly with a crew that didn't know what the switches on the console were for? Not me.
Both Boeing and the crew are at fault. Some percentage also for whoever made the faulty sensor and the failure to see that it worked correctly after it was installed.
Do we also blame the drivers of the Toyotas that got stuck accelerators, because any driver should know to take the car out of gear or turn the key to the off position. Right? While the car is accelerating at or near WOT?
I've been in a car when the throttle got stuck open, we crashed, I hit the windshield. It happened in about 5 seconds, and the driver spent most of those giving steering inputs to avoid hitting people and furiously working the break and kicking the gas pedal. It happened because enough engine mounts were broken or broke because of a hard throttle push.
Also my dad died in a single seat plane crash because the engine died several times in flight, according to a witness interviewed by a local paper; there was no investigation at all so I'll never know what really happened. At least the company that made the plane changed their name!
I do not work in aero or auto, but I have a much higher expectation of training and retention of a commercial airline pilot than I do of a random Toyota driver.
I had a stuck accelerator on an old Ford F-150. The throttle inside the carb got stuck. I was lucky to have the Toyota case in my memory, so I just shifted into neutral.
It was an automatic, which I think is another factor -- the more direct control you remove from the driver, the less intuitive it becomes to compensate for a single system failure. Obviously a standard transmission driver would just hit the clutch.
(And I've had a similar failure on an unfamiliar motorcycle that just came out of storage. Pulling the clutch bail was the instinctive response, after manually untwisting the throttle did not work. I learned my lesson about old vehicles eventually. Trust nothing, verify everything.)
I had the throttle stick on my car once. I immediately turned the ignition off. I was a teenager at the time (and my car was a POS).
The brakes are much stronger than the engine (proof: you can brake in a much shorter distance than you can accelerate).
On my current car, I have inadvertently hit the edge of the gas pedal while I stepped on the brake a couple times, as those pedals are too close together and I have wide feet. My reaction was to instantly move my foot.
A number of those "surging" incidents are suspected of being the driver had their foot on the gas rather than the brake.
Glad to hear you're all right after the crash. I nearly died in a car crash.
Sorry to hear about your dad. It must be very frustrating to not know the cause. I thought all GA accidents were officially investigated.
My car has a pushbutton "ignition switch" and i have not tried pushing it while travelling; however, my lexus also has floormat retention to stop the floormat from going onto the gas pedal. It wasn't "accidental" - there was a recall. The toyotas and lexus affected don't have a floating accelerator pedal, where it hangs from above and there's space underneath. The gas pedal is hinged on the floor, and swings free at the top. So you could shove something forward and it will push the gas pedal down.
If memory serves there was an instance in southern california where the driver called 911 or some other recorded line (they died); but it may have just been a witness statement i remember.
1. The Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System
(MCAS) system existed because the plane was unstable at high angles of attack.
2. The 737 MAX was unstable because Boeing wanted to milk the 737 airframe further than it should have been for financial reasons and oversized engines were mounted forward on the wings.
3. Since the plane was unstable in this way, it would pitch up when climbing. MCAS would detect this through the angle of attack (AoA sensors) and automatically engage, forcing the nose down.
4. When the single, nonredundant AoA sensor failed, MCAS would misinterpret this and try to continuously force the nose down in normal operations. Or more plainly, it would fly the plane into the ground for no reason.
5. This happened at least 3 times. In two cases, it caused crashes, killing everyone - almost 350 men, women, and children - aboard.
6. Boeing strenuously blamed the crew in the first crash, and did not ground the planes.
7. Boeing did not ground the 737 MAXes after the second crash, either. The FAA only grounded the aircraft after much of the rest of the world already had.
As you noted previously, MCAS existed to make the 737 MAX fly like prior versions of the plane. Boeing, in fact, lobbied for this outcome so it would not affect certification or require separate pilot training, which would have cost time and money. So while MCAS was documented, pilots were not required to be trained on the system, because of Boeings efforts.
One cannot put a "don't crash the plane button" on a plane, even if it is well documented. It is particularly disgraceful if the "don't crash the plane" button only exists because the plane's manufacturer added the button to increase their own profits.
I have to admit, you have made me lose my composure here a bit. I thought anyone this knowledgable about flying would not blame pilot error in the 737 MAX crashes. The plane was grounded for almost 2 years, this was arguably the greatest scandal in the production and regulation of commercial aircraft in history. Boeing paid $20 billion in fines and restitution, and pled guilty to criminal charges.
For the benefit of anyone else curious about this, good starting points are
"hours after the approval for MCAS's redesign was granted, Boeing sought, and the FAA approved, the removal of references to MCAS from Boeing's flight crew operations manual (FCOM)"
"Boeing wanted the FAA to certify the airplane as another version of the long-established 737; this would limit the need for additional training of pilots, a major cost saving for airline customers. During flight tests, however, Boeing discovered that the position and larger size of the engines tended to push up the airplane nose during certain maneuvers. To counter that tendency and ensure fleet commonality with the 737 family, Boeing added MCAS so the MAX would handle similar to earlier 737 versions."
"The MAX was exempted from certain newer safety requirements, saving Boeing billions of dollars in development costs."
All the media reports about the MAX cannot be trusted. All the ones I've seen contained false information.
The first error was the claim that the MAX was "unstable". It just behaved differently due to the engine placement. I see this error all the time. And so on.
The errors in the MCAS design were not to save money. They were just sloppy engineering. There was nothing wrong with the MCAS concept. The proof is MCAS is still there, it just had its flaws corrected.
As for knowledgeable, I've talked with two 737 pilots. One told me it was pilot error and never would have happened to him. The other told me that his pilot buddies agreed with me but were afraid to speak up against the tidal wave of bad press. I also spent 3 years working on the 757 stab trim system, at one point I knew more about it than about anyone else. The 737 system is more primitive, but is easily understandable. (The 757 uses dual hydraulic motors driving a differential gearbox, the 737 has a single electric motor with manual drive for the backup. Both have a console mounted cutoff switch. Both have column thumb switches.)
> Boeing added MCAS so the MAX would handle similar to earlier 737 versions.
Which improves safety. This is never mentioned. (The 757 and 767, very different airplanes, were designed to fly similarly and have the same cockpits. It did save money on training because of that, saved money on production, and improved safety.)
With respect to "unstable", I will quote the findings
"Observation O3.4-B: Extension of MCAS to the low-speed and 1g environment
during the flight program was due to unacceptable stall characteristics with STS
only. The possibility of a pitch-up tendency during approach to stall was
identified for the flaps-up configuration prior to the implementation of MCAS"
Regarding flight crew expectations, this is dry, but I will quote it in its entirety, anyway,
"Recommendation R6.1: The FAA should ensure applicants improve adherence to failsafe design concept principles when designing or modifying systems. The FAA should encourage applicants not to design only for compliance, but also to follow basic principles to design for safety when developing or changing system functions. This should include elimination of hazards and use of design features, warnings, and procedures.
- Observation O6.1-A: Proper flight crew action was considered an adequate
mitigation to risks such as erroneous activation of MCAS.
- Finding F6.1-A: The JATR team identified that the design process was not
sufficient to identify all the potential MCAS hazards. As part of the single-channel speed trim system, the MCAS function did not include fault tolerant features, such as sensors voting or limits of authority, to limit failure effects
consistent with the hazard classification.
- Finding F6.1-B: The use of pilot action as a primary mitigation means for MCAS
hazards, before considering eliminating such hazards or providing design features
or warnings to mitigate them, is not in accordance with Boeing’s process
instructions for safe design in the conception of MCAS for the B737 MAX.
- Finding F6.1-C: The JATR team found that there was a missed opportunity to
further improve the system design through the use of available fail-safe design
principles and techniques presented in AC 25.1309-1A and in EASA AMC
25.1309 in the MCAS design"
and further, on flight crew expectations
"Finding F6.4-A: When all flight deck effects are considered, the introduction of
the MCAS function invalidated aircraft-level assumptions for flight crew
responses related to erroneous AOA failures under certain conditions. A complete
workload assessment was not performed for validation of the erroneous AOA
effects with the added MCAS functionality. The same assumptions for flight crew
responses to erroneous AOA were carried over from previous programs without
formal validation."
The discussion around AOA DISAGREE conditions is educational regarding MCAS for others who might not be familar with the technical root cause. But I would specifically encourage you to read the Flight Controls and Flight Deck Interface Assessment and Training Evaluations. They don't avoid the issue of flight crew training and trim system awareness, but I they illustrate how workload created by the erroneous MCAS activation was contributing.
As for your pilot conversations, I will make two short points. First, pilots don't always suffer for a lack of self-confidence. Maybe it would have never happened to them, maybe not, and thankfully we will not get to find out. Second, passengers are owed a safe aircraft based on the full range of quality flight crews, with a wide margin for error. I do care if a highly skilled qualified crew would have avoided the accident, I care if the least-skilled qualified crew would have. And 610's captain had 5,176 hours on the 737 and 302's captain had 4,120 hours.
A tendency to nose up is not "instability". Recall that additional pilot training to anticipate and correct for it was the original solution to the characteristic. A pilot unaware of it may react incorrectly.
I have no disagreement with the shortcomings of the MCAS design, but the concept of it was sound.
As for pilot skill, recall there were 3 MCAS incidents. The first one porpoised a couple times, with the pilots recovering each time, and then another crew member in the jump seat turned off the stab trim.
In the second incident, the crew restored trim 25 times and never thought to turn off the trim system, over a period of 11 minutes. This is plenty of time to remember what the runaway trim cutoff switch is for. There's no excuse here.
In the third incident, the crew apparently did not read, understand and remember the Boeing Emergency Airworthiness directive sent to all MAX pilots after the first crash, with a simple 2 step procedure to save the airplane. There's no excuse for that. I just find it baffling that a pilot would not be keenly interested in the only crash of the airplane type he is flying, to ensure he wouldn't crash.
The stab trim switch is a memory item, meaning it is supposed to be memorized by the crew. It's their job to remember it.
As for the two pilots I talked to, one contacted me as a result of these HN discussions. The other I buttonholed at the airport during layover. The latter was quite confident in his flying skills, the former related that he and his colleagues all agreed on the pilot error aspect.
There are pilots in my family, I have friends who are pilots, I worked at Boeing where my colleagues were pilots. None of them had any patience for pilots who could not follow emergency procedures properly. I don't either. A careless pilot has no business in a cockpit.
> In the second incident, the crew restored trim 25 times and never thought to turn off the trim system, over a period of 11 minutes. This is plenty of time to remember what the runaway trim cutoff switch is for. There's no excuse here.
> ...
> The stab trim switch is a memory item, meaning it is supposed to be memorized by the crew. It's their job to remember it.
The runaway trim memory item was written in a way that was inconsistent with how MCAS runaway behaved.
The steps were:
> Firmly hold control column. Disengage autopilot if engaged. Disengage autothrottle if engaged. Use the control column and thrust levers to control airplane pitch attitude and airspeed. Use main electric stabilizer trim to
reduce control column forces.
> If the runaway stops after autopilot is disengaged, do not re-engage autopilot
or autothrottle; end of procedure.
> If the runaway continues after autopilot is disengaged, place both STAB
TRIM cutout switches to CUTOUT.
> If the runaway continues, grasp and hold stabilizer trim wheel.
Historic runaway stab was generally consistant running, not a cycle like MCAS, so following the check list, you turn off the auto pilot, trim stops, you consider you completed the checklist. When it fires off again, it's not completely unreasonable to believe that it's not a runaway trim, as you completed the checklist as instructed.
As for the third incident, the Boeing Emergency Airworthiness directive specifically said that this issue only happened under manual control. The crew kept engaging the autopilot and when it continued to happen on the autopilot, it's not unreasonable for them to believe it wasn't the same issue per the Boeing Emergency Airworthiness directive.
Could they have done better? sure. Could they have saved the aircraft if they followed a different train of thought? yes. Was their train of thought unreasonable? According to the investigation, no, it was not. To many many other people who study this stuff, no one that I'm aware of places any blame on the crew and it feels wrong to continue to shit on their skills when from all indications, they did follow procedures as written and it wasn't enough.
Design and implementation are not completely distinct things, though. If e.g. a software company's backups were implemented solely as daily dumps to the same SSD the database was running on, and then they implemented a more sane backup solution after the practically-inevitable data loss, would we just go "well the implementation was badly done" or would people not call it out as bad systems design?
Some designs are so poorly thought through (and/or conceived for the wrong reasons to begin with, like MCAS was) that they cannot help but yield poor implementations.
(Also, input from one or two sensors was far from the only problem with MCAS' implementation. The fact that it could activate multiple times and that it could trim far harder and faster than human pilots could manually trim were equally contributors to making the saga a tragedy).
The reasons were correct. Making the MAX behave, as far as the pilots were concerned, like other models of the 737 makes the airplane safer. Many crashes have resulted from pilots getting confused about which airplane they are flying.
The design particulars, however, were incorrect. That is Boeing's fault.
> trim far harder and faster
The 737 has only one electric trim rate - on and off. It does not trim harder or faster than the autopilot trim or the thumb switch trim. The signal all boils down to a wire that has signals "trim on / trim off". The thumb switches sit on the path of that wire, so when they activate they override the autopilot and MCAS. The cutoff switch is downstream of that.
Part of the reason the manual trim wheel could not be moved is the airplane was overspeeding due to being (incorrectly) at full throttle. Overspeeding greatly increases the force on the stabilizer, making it much harder to move. In the EA flight, the overspeed warning horn could be heard on the voice recorder.
The only reason why "making it behave like other 737s" was even a goal to begin with was so that it wouldn't need to undergo more rigorous certification and pilots wouldn't have to undergo comprehensive training to get rated for the 737 MAX. This was very explicitly because pilots _didn't_ need to do that to get rated for the competing A320neo family, not because Airbus did absurd shenanigans to make it handle the same as the A320ceos, but because they weren't desperately holding on to a 1960s design that was amongst other things so low to the ground that the new engines being fitted to it couldn't actually fit. That has nothing to do with actual safety and everything to do with profit.
> The 737 has only one electric trim rate - on and off. It does not trim harder or faster than the autopilot trim or the thumb switch trim
Is there a reason you cut off the sentence you're quoting before the part that says "than human pilots could MANUALLY trim" and started talking about the electric trim rate instead?
Because that part of the sentence was written for a reason - the overwhelmingly more relevant reason why the manual trim wheel would not have saved them is that they would have had to crank it 15 times to trim just one degree (and they were much more than one degree out of trim, due to MCAS activating for five full seconds each time). Even if they weren't already overspeeding, it is highly doubtful that they would have won the battle to keep the aircraft in the air given their proximity to the ground + struggle to keep the nose above the horizon with two pilots versus one.
Also mind you by the time they entered the overspeed condition, they had already had the stick shaker going (due to the faulty AoA sensor, with no IAS disagree alert) and had had 2 MCAS activations to deal with, with the autothrottle failing to reduce the thrust to the climb detent because the very same faulty AoA sensor.
Isn't the fact that it was redesigned (to not rely on a single AoA sensor, to only activate once per AoA-event, to limit the magnitude of intervention) a strong indication that it was badly designed?
This is not true. In the condition of a failed AoA vane like on the two accident flights, there is no way to enable the trim thumb switches and disable MCAS. You either get no electric trim and no MCAS or you get both. If you happened to have known that MCAS pushes the trim down for 9.3 seconds and then pauses for 5 seconds, you might have been able to time it and turn on the electric stab trim at just the right time when MCAS wasn’t trying to kill you, but unfortunately the very existence of MCAS was hidden from pilots.
If you flip the stab trim cutout switches, you can turn the wheel manually, but if there have already been a couple of cycles of MCAS, the plane may be so out of trim that you need too much force to move the trim wheel manually.
In that case there is one thing that could save you which would be to do the so called rollercoaster procedure, where you push the yoke forward to unload the trim and then crank the trim up while you hurtle towards the ground. This was a documented procedure in the 737-300 manual, but was later deleted.
The real crime was that Boeing deliberately removed all mention of MCAS from the flight manual. The problem was that if there were procedures that pilots needed to know in order to recover from an MCAS failure, they would have been required to practice these procedures in a simulator, and Boeing’s contract with Southwest had financial incentives if the MAX didn’t require any additional sim time for pilots to transition from the NG to the MAX.
We know that the information about MCAS was deleted from the manual because the only occurrence of the term MCAS in the MAX flight manual is in the glossary where it is a defined term. The tech writers obviously put it in there because it was described in an earlier version of the manual, but later deleted, but the glossary entry wasn’t deleted when the description was.
The electric trim switches override MCAS (and indeed the crew of ET302 almost saved the aircraft by turning it back on and commanding aircraft-nose-down (AND) with the electric trim).
What is inexplicable is that they stopped doing that while leaving the trim system enabled after correctly disabling it via the memory item checklist.
Boeing’s not blameless here, nor should the crew of ET302 bear the primary fault, but they seem to have understood the issue (and it’s not possible they didn’t know about MCAS) and were frustratingly close to saving the flight.
> there is no way to enable the trim thumb switches and disable MCAS
This is simply wrong.
The electric trim switches override MCAS regardless of whether MCAS is trying to drive the trim or not. Timing it for when the MCAS was not engaged is completely unnecessary.
The problem is they don't know MCAS exists so it looks like the trim system has failed and is running away so the normal and natural solution is to disable electronic trim.
Had they known about MCAS they could have potentially known they could override it then disbale the trim system but that information was hidden by Boeing so they didn't do it..
Yes, it would exhibit as runaway trim, and the runaway trim procedure would have stopped it.
There was also the Emergency Airworthiness Directive sent to all MAX pilots, which added the step of using the column switches to restore normal trim. Which the Lion Air crew did, but never turned off the trim system.
This isn't your friend's car you're borrowing to pick your kid up from school. A tad more care should be involved before loading it with human beings and flying over cities.
Tell that to the airline. It's not up to the pilot. The airline has to agree to pay for it. The 737 Max was offered because it was a lot cheaper for airlines to add marginal additional hours of training, instead of the minimum 25000 hrs of recertification that would be necessary for a brand new platform. In short, the 737 Max is exactly what the airlines were clamoring for and why it sold so well.
This was discussed extensively on HN when the incident occurred (and subsequent articles). You may want to go read those comments and enlighten yourself.
The instructions were:
1. restore normal trim with the thumb switches
2. turn off the trim system