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While the confusion over normal mode and alternate mode did play a role in the crash, the BEA report investigating the crash found the following six proximate c

While the confusion over normal mode and alternate mode did play a role in the crash, the BEA report investigating the crash found the following six proximate causes [1]: - temporary inconsistency between the measured speeds, likely as a result of the obstruction of the pitot tubes by ice crystals, causing autopilot disconnection and reconfiguration to alternate law; - the crew made inappropriate control inputs that destabilized the flight path; - the crew failed to follow appropriate procedure for loss of displayed airspeed information; - the crew were late in identifying and correcting the deviation from the flight path; - the crew lacked understanding of the approach to stall; - the crew failed to recognize that the aircraft had stalled and consequently did not make inputs that would have made it possible to recover from the stall. Of those six, three can be attributed to skills atrophy: failure to follow procedure for loss of displayed airspeed information, lateness in identifying deviation from the flight path, and failure to recognize stall. These are all skills that pilots are taught when they're certified to fly a given aircraft. The fact that they didn't have them means that they forgot, or, in other words, they didn't have enough ongoing training to keep their skills fresh for emergencies. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447#Final_report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447#Final_re...

jfoutz 11y ago
Yeah, but there's some other interesting stuff on that page, like "... difficulty in identifying and understanding the implications of the switch to alternate law, which does not protect the angle of attack." 99.9% of the time it works one way, you can't be steep enough to stall, then you change the rules on the guys. Yes, the pilots fucked up. But there's pretty broad criticism of the HCI. The pilots are professionals and should know better, but when you swap the gas and the brake, it's a rare driver that can cope with that. Sure, set a high bar for professionals, but leave out the arbitrary complexity. Anywho, with regard to self driving cars, i think passive drivers will just give up and pull over when the autopilot can't handle the situation. Aggressive drivers will be driving manually all the time anyway. Of course there are exceptions, but i'd bet that's how it breaks out 95% of the time in practice. edit This is sorta like an anti-lock brake system that only works above 32 degrees fahrenheit. Just because there might be ice, we're going to make your brakes worse even when there is no ice. I think i get your point about de-skilling. They'll need to be very careful of stuff that works sometimes

jfoutz 11y ago

Yeah, but there's some other interesting stuff on that page, like "... difficulty in identifying and understanding the implications of the switch to alternate law, which does not protect the angle of attack." 99.9% of the time it works one way, you can't be steep enough to stall, then you change the rules on the guys. Yes, the pilots fucked up. But there's pretty broad criticism of the HCI. The pilots are professionals and should know better, but when you swap the gas and the brake, it's a rare driver that can cope with that. Sure, set a high bar for professionals, but leave out the arbitrary complexity. Anywho, with regard to self driving cars, i think passive drivers will just give up and pull over when the autopilot can't handle the situation. Aggressive drivers will be driving manually all the time anyway. Of course there are exceptions, but i'd bet that's how it breaks out 95% of the time in practice. edit This is sorta like an anti-lock brake system that only works above 32 degrees fahrenheit. Just because there might be ice, we're going to make your brakes worse even when there is no ice. I think i get your point about de-skilling. They'll need to be very careful of stuff that works sometimes