SavannahMann
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- Nov 16, 2016
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We all remember the airplane crash in San Francisco where Asiana Airlines crashed into the Sea Wall short of the runway. Asiana Airlines Flight 214 - Wikipedia
Airplane automation was a major contributing factor to the accident, not just on the day of the accident, but years previously. Asiana required it’s pilots to let the computer fly the plane. The airline discouraged the “visual” approach for the pilots. It wasn’t quite outlawed by the company, but nearly so. The pilots had not flown a visual approach in years. Worse, they had been trained that the safety systems of the plane would not allow it to apply too little power, and while the plane was dropping dangerously low, and slow, the pilots sat calmly certain that the computer would apply the power needed to maintain the glide path.
This is one of a growing number of incidents where the pilots relied on automation, and when it failed, they were at a loss as to how to actually manage the emergency. They were behind the power curve from the beginning of the crisis, and did not have time to assess the situation and get the computer to do it’s job. The Pilots were more systems controller, managing the computer, than actually flying the plane.
There are other examples, Air France flight 447 which crashed into the Atlantic. Air France Flight 447 - Wikipedia
The Pilots were unprepared to fly the plane once the automation failed.
We also remember the story of Sully who managed a water landing in the Hudson, which is one of the very few successful emergency water landings in an aircraft in history. So why was Sully able to land the plane in a worst case scenario, when others could not in essentially routine situations?
Sully was an old school pilot. He had spent most of his life flying the planes he was in. He had years of experience with his hands on the controls, and had landed many thousands of times in less than ideal circumstances. He was flying long before the computers took over.
I said that the computers took over. That is literally the truth. Before the pilots could disengage the autopilot and fly it by hand. The controls they manipulated were directly connected to the control surfaces and engines. It was hydrolics, or cables, instead of computers. If the computers failed, the aircraft could and would fly based entirely upon the inputs of the pilot.
Now, even if the computers fail, all activity is through them. You move the stick to the left, and the computer decides if it wants the plane to do that. You pull the stick back, and the computers are thinking about letting the plane do it. And if the computer is wrong, there is no way for the pilot to override the damned thing.
Qantas Flight 72 - Wikipedia
Advocates of the automation will argue and point to statistics where the rate of accidents has decreased thanks to automation. I am not a big believer in it. Here’s why. When the computer is wrong, when the automation fails, you want a trained and experienced human in control. That trained and experienced pilot is something that takes time, and training to achieve. It takes years to get to the competence level that you want up front of that plane.
The more automation takes over, the longer this goes on, the less likely we are to find a Sully in front of the plane able to safely land it. The more likely we are to get pilots who are confused by the situation, and their last actions will be to try and get the computer doing the job again. We are losing pilots up front, and getting poorly trained computer systems technicians.
We may never again have a Chuck Yeager, or a Scott Carpenter who is able to identify the problem, and manually manage it for a landing. We may never again find ourselves with a Neil Armstrong who in Gemini 8 was able to save the capsule, and the mission, after a failure of one of the thrusters. Today’s pilots would probably die trying to get the computer to reboot and fly the damned capsule.
Automation is one of those things. It’s cool when it works, but it needs to have an override button that allows someone we’ve spent a lot of money training to take over and tell the computer to shut up and do what I say. We need those pilots to make visual approaches, and get the hours of hands on flying. We need those pilots to be trained, and have the experience we desperately need in those moments where disaster lurks near at hand.
Airplane automation was a major contributing factor to the accident, not just on the day of the accident, but years previously. Asiana required it’s pilots to let the computer fly the plane. The airline discouraged the “visual” approach for the pilots. It wasn’t quite outlawed by the company, but nearly so. The pilots had not flown a visual approach in years. Worse, they had been trained that the safety systems of the plane would not allow it to apply too little power, and while the plane was dropping dangerously low, and slow, the pilots sat calmly certain that the computer would apply the power needed to maintain the glide path.
This is one of a growing number of incidents where the pilots relied on automation, and when it failed, they were at a loss as to how to actually manage the emergency. They were behind the power curve from the beginning of the crisis, and did not have time to assess the situation and get the computer to do it’s job. The Pilots were more systems controller, managing the computer, than actually flying the plane.
There are other examples, Air France flight 447 which crashed into the Atlantic. Air France Flight 447 - Wikipedia
The Pilots were unprepared to fly the plane once the automation failed.
We also remember the story of Sully who managed a water landing in the Hudson, which is one of the very few successful emergency water landings in an aircraft in history. So why was Sully able to land the plane in a worst case scenario, when others could not in essentially routine situations?
Sully was an old school pilot. He had spent most of his life flying the planes he was in. He had years of experience with his hands on the controls, and had landed many thousands of times in less than ideal circumstances. He was flying long before the computers took over.
I said that the computers took over. That is literally the truth. Before the pilots could disengage the autopilot and fly it by hand. The controls they manipulated were directly connected to the control surfaces and engines. It was hydrolics, or cables, instead of computers. If the computers failed, the aircraft could and would fly based entirely upon the inputs of the pilot.
Now, even if the computers fail, all activity is through them. You move the stick to the left, and the computer decides if it wants the plane to do that. You pull the stick back, and the computers are thinking about letting the plane do it. And if the computer is wrong, there is no way for the pilot to override the damned thing.
Qantas Flight 72 - Wikipedia
Advocates of the automation will argue and point to statistics where the rate of accidents has decreased thanks to automation. I am not a big believer in it. Here’s why. When the computer is wrong, when the automation fails, you want a trained and experienced human in control. That trained and experienced pilot is something that takes time, and training to achieve. It takes years to get to the competence level that you want up front of that plane.
The more automation takes over, the longer this goes on, the less likely we are to find a Sully in front of the plane able to safely land it. The more likely we are to get pilots who are confused by the situation, and their last actions will be to try and get the computer doing the job again. We are losing pilots up front, and getting poorly trained computer systems technicians.
We may never again have a Chuck Yeager, or a Scott Carpenter who is able to identify the problem, and manually manage it for a landing. We may never again find ourselves with a Neil Armstrong who in Gemini 8 was able to save the capsule, and the mission, after a failure of one of the thrusters. Today’s pilots would probably die trying to get the computer to reboot and fly the damned capsule.
Automation is one of those things. It’s cool when it works, but it needs to have an override button that allows someone we’ve spent a lot of money training to take over and tell the computer to shut up and do what I say. We need those pilots to make visual approaches, and get the hours of hands on flying. We need those pilots to be trained, and have the experience we desperately need in those moments where disaster lurks near at hand.