A former senior Boeing test pilot told a co-worker that he unknowingly misled safety regulators about problems with a flight-control system

“The senior pilot also lobbied FAA to remove mention of MCAS from the operating manual and pilot training for the MAX, saying the system would only operate in rare circumstances. FAA allowed Boeing to do so, and most pilots did not know about MCAS until after the first crash, which occurred in October 2018 in Indonesia. The plane was grounded worldwide in March after the second crash, in Ethiopia.”

The non-pc elephant in the room has always been the fact that thousands of flights over several years were performed without pertinent incidents until those crashes occurred - with pilots at the controls from countries with a history of sub-par pilot qualification and maintenance requirements, in the case of Indonesia even leading to banishment of operation some its airlines in many countries. Also noteworthy the arbitrary release of flight recorder and other data and possible manipulation of same. A fascinating moving puzzle of money and politics.