These are all pilot qualifications. The first officer was new and had ~200 flight hours. The pilot/captain had over 8000 flight hours. [0]
Look at Ethiopian Airlines own job postings![1]
>Qualifications:
Must hold a current and valid JAA/FAA or ICAO ATPL/CPL
A current 777 type rating
Minimum Flight time
*3500 hours* jet time
*2500 hours* Pilot in command on jet aircraft
Command time in excess of 500 hours on 777
These are the minimum FAA requirements. Major airlines have higher requirements, while regionals have lower requirements.
The US is unique because flying is far more affordable and common, especially when compared to the alternative of going to a university, even a reasonable state school.
They only introduced that rule in 2013 as your link states, and it doesn't seem like most other places bother with such high requirements.[0]
"On Ethiopian flight 302, the first officer may have had just 200 hours, but the captain, a 29-year old career Ethiopian Airlines pilot, had a very respectable 8,000 hours under his belt. There’s no indication, at this point in the investigation, that crew experience may have been a factor in the accident."
I still don't see why you are harping on the experience angle when there seems to be much more evidence that the weird Boeing "secret" anti-stall system(MCAS) seems to be in play, since Boeing is trying to come up with an update for it...Also the general maintenance issues that seems to have occurred before at least one of the flights where the same issue was noted and/or the faulty sensors were ignored by groundcrew.
"French air accident investigation agency BEA said on Tuesday the flight data recorder in the Ethiopian crash that killed 157 people showed “clear similarities” to the Lion Air disaster. Since the Lion Air crash, Boeing has been pursuing a software upgrade to change how much authority is given to the Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, a new anti-stall system developed for the 737 MAX.
Some U.S. pilots have complained they were unaware of the new system, which is mentioned in the index of the aircraft’s full manual but not the text, according to a version seen by Reuters. Airlines have some discretion to customize the manuals.
The cause of the Lion Air crash has not been determined, but the preliminary report mentioned the Boeing system, a faulty, recently replaced sensor and the airline’s maintenance and training."
> They only introduced that rule in 2013 as your link states
The major carriers were always stricter. The 2013 rule changed to address a problem at the regional carriers.
> and it doesn't seem like most other places bother with such high requirements.[0]
Which I explicitly stated in my original post:
>>> The European carriers, on the other hand, do not have such strict requirements.
> I still don't see why you are harping on the experience angle
I weren't. I pointed out a specific misunderstanding in the comment I've responded to.
>>>> How would it even be possible for US pilots to sustainably have „much higher levels of experience“? Do non-US pilots fly only two days a week? Do they all die before age 40?
"When it was rolled out, MCAS took readings from only one sensor on any given flight, leaving the system vulnerable to a single point of failure. One theory in the Lion Air crash is that MCAS was receiving faulty data from one of the sensors, prompting an unrecoverable nose dive.
In the software update that Boeing says is coming soon, MCAS will be modified to take readings from both sensors. If there is a meaningful disagreement between the readings, MCAS will be disabled."
Look at Ethiopian Airlines own job postings![1]
[0]https://www.ethiopianairlines.com/corporate/media/media-rela...[1]https://www.ethiopianairlines.com/corporate/careers/vacancy