Early testing revealed a fateful problem with the MAX. In a wind tunnel with a scale model of the plane about the size of an eagle, engineers noticed that it had a tendency to pitch up during tight, high-speed turns—a result of the bigger engines that were to be mounted to the front of the wings rather than beneath them. Ray Craig, then the chief 737 pilot, took a closer look in a simulator. The pitch-up took place in a part of the flight envelope where few commercial jetliners ever ventured. It was theoretically possible, though, that pilots might make such a turn when they were responding to
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