Comments on: AF447 raises important questions about airline and pilot attitudes in computer centric cockpits

By: Mitchell Ward

Mitchell Ward — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:43:22 +0000

I stumbled across this great blog from an Airbus A321 pilot in the US.

http://flightlevel390.blogspot.com/

Gives a graphic account of various flights and includes a post on Fly-By-Wire flight management systems etc.

The current post is a fantastic account of a flight around thundestorms that makes mention of AF447.

Take a look.

By: caf

caf — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:21:29 +0000

spacedog, all that may indicate is that the automated diagnostic system kept functioning while the aircraft broke apart, and was one of the last things to fail.

By: spacedog

spacedog — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 04:05:47 +0000

Fortunately, all modern jet aircraft contain multiple redundancies and Airbus to their credit incorporate significant redundancy – for example, 3 primary and 2 secondary, independent, flight control computers, any one of which can act as the master computer when others fail. Unfortunately, the automated diagnostic messages that were transmitted before all contact was lost indicated that not only had every computer failed, but even the independent standby instrument system had failed too (on top of the failure of the primary instrument system). Following that, all three Inertial Reference Systems failed leaving the pilots effectively ‘blind’. So tragically in this instance, all this amazing redundancy meant nothing in the end.

By: blasto

blasto — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 23:46:41 +0000

Whether or not reliance upon instrument FBW technology is excessive is a non sequitur.

One only needs to reflect on the Aeroperu accident, in which the craft was flown into the sea without any automation systems controlling it.

The important issue IMHO, is to introduce more redundancy in flight systems to avoid both human and computer error.

By: spacedog

spacedog — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:05:30 +0000

I don’t know how any blame can be assigned to ATC or their procedures regarding AF447 (first comment above). As successful as the Airbus family of aircraft has been over the past 35 years, there are still doubts in my mind about their FBW system and the heavy reliance on automation, electronic sensors, and computers. I know a few RPT pilots – one in Europe currently commands an Airbus A320. He says that …”there is enormous dishonesty about these (Airbus) aircraft….” and the pro-Airbus people won’t hear of a single word being spoken against any aspect of their design. For example, dual inputs (ie, by both pilots simultaneously) to the control sticks are “hidden” in Airbus aircraft and very dangerous, whereas at least the Boeing B777 has retained the control column with a FBW system so both pilots can see existing inputs from the other. Not saying this was an issue with AF447 but it keeps cropping up overseas with incidents or accidents involving Airbus aircraft.

By: LongTimeObserver

LongTimeObserver — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:07:49 +0000

It’s more than this, Ben, it’s certification of Transport Category aircraft to standards that do not anticipate or require tests of cascades of failures that may render SAS-dependent aircraft unflyable.

By: Glengarryboy

Glengarryboy — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:55:35 +0000

Ben – ‘fly the plane first’ – as I said in my comment last week, I heard my RAAF pilot colleagues say this so often and this was mostly in pre high tech aircraft as we have now. The most interesting story I heard in the 1980s was about a US C-130 Hercules on a SAR mission. Everyone, including both pilots, were so busy looking out the windows for something in the water that the Herc just rolled over and crashed into the sea.
Re FBW, surely a current concern would be the training of pilots directly onto popular RPT airliners as FOs without gaining experience on smaller aircraft first. To me, this is just crazy but it seems to be foreign airlines recruiting these ‘graduates’, not QF or Virginblue. Training this way on FBW would remove any feel that these pilots would have for real flying. One of the reasons Australia has such a good RPT flying record is that many pilots in the past flew smaller aircraft in ‘tiger country’ in PNG before returning to Australia to fly RPT.
Maybe as a result of AF447, manufacturers might revisit the issue of the amount of control pilots have in commercial FBW aircraft.

Alex

By: Keith is not my real name

Keith is not my real name — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:47:44 +0000

” but the questions merit discussion”

Indeed, they do

By: Ellis Taylor

Ellis Taylor — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:32:52 +0000

To be fair Ben, the quote you’ve posted there doesn’t really implicate airline management and their drives for efficiency – more like ATC and its apparent inflexibilities.

On your main point though, regarding the interactions of pilots and computer systems, this is something which needs to be looked at every time there is a form of system upset which results in an incident. I think more and more it will lead to pilots getting more training in systems management/troubleshooting, while also being given greater lattitude to just ‘fly the plane.’ In many ways, this has long been Boeing’s design philosophy which is one of the reasons they were relatively late with FBW, and even then (I am told) it has different flight control parameters to Airbus’s systems which many pilots (rightly or wrongly – I’m not a pilot so I don’t know) seem to feel gives them less control. All up, I think it will lead to pilots getting greater education in human/machine factors, as much as they have on CRM, threat & error management and the like.