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Bear in mind that the AF447 crash was primarily due to a junior officer not knowing basic flight principles. Visibility of the side stick to the other two crew

Bear in mind that the AF447 crash was primarily due to a junior officer not knowing basic flight principles. Visibility of the side stick to the other two crew (the captain had come back into the cockpit and was positioned between the first and second officer) is an issue, but I am not sure that central style yokes like Boeings have would have been a huge help to a crew already overloaded with an insurmountable amount of data to resolve. There have been many cases of pilots turning the yoke the wrong way [1], or shutting down the wrong engine [2] which are levers in full view of both pilots and not getting immediately picked up. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nCvO_QlEm8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nCvO_QlEm8 [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransAsia_Airways_Flight_235 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransAsia_Airways_Flight_235

dorfsmay 10y ago
In the case of AF447, the first officer (Robert) has to constantly ask the second officer (Bonin) what he is doing and why he is climbing, he's clearly worried about air speed (starting at 2:10:16 in [1]. Had the FO had direct control over the input, he could have felt that the SO was pulling back, and push back the column in neutral himself. In the case of Crossair 498 (your first link), the copilot knew the captain was turning the wrong. Having linked controls, it is surprising he didn't take over. One of the conclusion was that there was a communication problem between the two pilots due to language barrier [2]. The copilot never gave any input to the controls, so the direct link controls were not an issue. I'm not sure what how TransAsia 235 is linked to the issue discussed here, OP (tropo) didn't say that Boeing's approach prevents all pilot errors, but that mechanically linked controls have the advantage of letting one pilot know exactly what the other is doing, and give him a chance to intervene. There is no question that computers doing most of the flying have improved reliability tremendously, but misinterpretation between computers and pilot of what the other is doing has been recognised has an issue and is something the aviation industry is focusing on right now. [1] http://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/a3115/what-really-happened-aboard-air-france-447-6611877/ http://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/a3115/what-really-hap... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIAujniUuq0&t=42m20s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIAujniUuq0&t=42m20s
- cyberferret 10y ago
  I cited TransAir because it was a case where the throttle levers were in sight and easy access for both pilots, yet the co-pilot didn't pick that the captain was retarding the wrong throttle. Not a criticism - I am a former commercial pilot, and I know just how hard identifying the bad engine in an asymmetric situation is - but it is an illustrative case that in a high workload situation, having visible controls that both pilots can see/access is not always as helpful as one would imagine.
- msandford 10y ago
  > In the case of AF447, the first officer (Robert) has to constantly ask the second officer (Bonin) what he is doing and why he is climbing The fact that this happens at all makes me think that there could have been a hardware malfunction or that something got wedged forcing the stick back ever so slightly. So FO says "why are you pulling back?" and SO doesn't even respond since his hand isn't on the control. In this case the Boeing system wouldn't have stepped in, granted. But in this case the Boeing system also wouldn't have let things get so far so fast. It's much, much harder to accidentally jam a big control yoke so far forwards. It would also take more than the weight of a camera to do so. The title should read "Airbus' automated flight control conflict resolution system saves plane from problem that Airbus' poor cockpit design allowed to happen in the first place" but that's not catchy.
  - marcosdumay 10y ago
    I didn't look at the details, but keep in mind that AF447 lost the airspeed measurement. I'd guess the pilot is probably looking at the instruments, with wrong speed values, instead of the lever that never moves anyway.

dorfsmay 10y ago

In the case of AF447, the first officer (Robert) has to constantly ask the second officer (Bonin) what he is doing and why he is climbing, he's clearly worried about air speed (starting at 2:10:16 in [1]. Had the FO had direct control over the input, he could have felt that the SO was pulling back, and push back the column in neutral himself. In the case of Crossair 498 (your first link), the copilot knew the captain was turning the wrong. Having linked controls, it is surprising he didn't take over. One of the conclusion was that there was a communication problem between the two pilots due to language barrier [2]. The copilot never gave any input to the controls, so the direct link controls were not an issue. I'm not sure what how TransAsia 235 is linked to the issue discussed here, OP (tropo) didn't say that Boeing's approach prevents all pilot errors, but that mechanically linked controls have the advantage of letting one pilot know exactly what the other is doing, and give him a chance to intervene. There is no question that computers doing most of the flying have improved reliability tremendously, but misinterpretation between computers and pilot of what the other is doing has been recognised has an issue and is something the aviation industry is focusing on right now. [1] http://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/a3115/what-really-happened-aboard-air-france-447-6611877/ http://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/a3115/what-really-hap... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIAujniUuq0&t=42m20s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIAujniUuq0&t=42m20s

cyberferret 10y ago
I cited TransAir because it was a case where the throttle levers were in sight and easy access for both pilots, yet the co-pilot didn't pick that the captain was retarding the wrong throttle. Not a criticism - I am a former commercial pilot, and I know just how hard identifying the bad engine in an asymmetric situation is - but it is an illustrative case that in a high workload situation, having visible controls that both pilots can see/access is not always as helpful as one would imagine.
msandford 10y ago
> In the case of AF447, the first officer (Robert) has to constantly ask the second officer (Bonin) what he is doing and why he is climbing The fact that this happens at all makes me think that there could have been a hardware malfunction or that something got wedged forcing the stick back ever so slightly. So FO says "why are you pulling back?" and SO doesn't even respond since his hand isn't on the control. In this case the Boeing system wouldn't have stepped in, granted. But in this case the Boeing system also wouldn't have let things get so far so fast. It's much, much harder to accidentally jam a big control yoke so far forwards. It would also take more than the weight of a camera to do so. The title should read "Airbus' automated flight control conflict resolution system saves plane from problem that Airbus' poor cockpit design allowed to happen in the first place" but that's not catchy.
- marcosdumay 10y ago
  I didn't look at the details, but keep in mind that AF447 lost the airspeed measurement. I'd guess the pilot is probably looking at the instruments, with wrong speed values, instead of the lever that never moves anyway.