The MCAS did work as designed.
Think about this; If the Lion Air JT610 crew had correctly analyzed the situation and turned off the Stab Trim Cutout switches as the crew did on the same aircraft the day before, there would have been no Lion Air 737 Max crash.
If the Ethiopian ET302 crew had correctly analyzed the AOA miscompare and used appropriate pitch and power to achieve normal performance, there would have been no Ethiopian 737 Max crash.
Beyond that, the 350+ 737 Max fleet had logged tens of thousands of hours of safe flight prior to those accidents. It wouldn't surprise me if the total was WAY beyond a 100,000 hours world wide. Example: Assume in the month before the crash, 350 MAX aircraft flew at least 2 legs a day of about 2 hours. (I suspect the usage is far greater than that. Aircraft don't make money sitting on the ground.) Anyway, 2 x 2 x 350 = 1400 hours per day x 30 days in a month = 42,000 hours a month.
I think the aircraft has proven it's reliability. The Lion Air crash is directly attributable to launching an aircraft that was not airworthy coupled with a crew that did not understand how to apply the Runaway Stabilizer Trim NNC. The Ethiopian crash was most like attributable to an AOA bird strike (Act of God) and a crew that did not know how to handle an AOA miscompare and deliberately violated the Runaway Stabilizer Trim NNC. Neither of those situations reflect on the aircraft; rather they reflect on the crews.
The implication that Boeing somehow cut corners to increase profits is a statement I would expect from someone approaching 12 years of age.
Boeing ADDED MCAS to the Max to INCREASE the level of safety. This undoubtedly cost them MORE money. I think every aircraft manufacturer intuitively understands their future depends entirely upon building aircraft to the highest level of safety.
