4 ms·

Modern jets are actually pretty easy to fly, as long as nothing goes wrong. To the point that when Mythbusters tested that “guiding a passenger through landing

Modern jets are actually pretty easy to fly, as long as nothing goes wrong. To the point that when Mythbusters tested that “guiding a passenger through landing the plane when the pilots die” myth, they interviewed ATC who said something along the lines of “that would never happen, but if it did it’s like 2 buttons to engage the landing autopilot and we could easily do it over the radio.” Apparently some subset of flight attendants are trained on basic flight ops for this kind of situation. When things do go wrong, you still need a pilot experienced in the way that aircraft works or non-problems can turn into a catastrophe. AF447 was the latest reminder of that... so you are right that the amount of skill required is greater.

Zak 9y ago
There have been several experiments done for youtube videos where an untrained person is talked through a landing, sometimes without the benefit of ILS autoland. The latter is... not always successful. I wonder if someone used to simpler aircraft might have done better at identifying the problem in AF447. Any pilot should know that given full power, an unknown airspeed, a nose-up attitude and a high descent rate that the airplane is probably in a stall.
- exelius 8y ago
  That was part of the conclusion of the definitive piece of journalism about the crash: Air France had a habit of training pilots fresh up on a jumbo jet, accumulating the required flight hours in a certified simulator (the “company babies” referred to in the article). Part of the confusion was that under “normal law” (typical flight computer rules), that jet literally cannot stall due to pilot input. Thus they dismissed the stall warnings as erroneous because they assumed the flight data was unreliable in some way. Indeed, once the more senior pilot (who flew light aircraft) was on the bridge, it didn’t take him long to figure out what was going on... and once he did his ability to think coherently broke down because he knew they were in a high speed stall and probably going to die any moment.

Zak 9y ago

There have been several experiments done for youtube videos where an untrained person is talked through a landing, sometimes without the benefit of ILS autoland. The latter is... not always successful. I wonder if someone used to simpler aircraft might have done better at identifying the problem in AF447. Any pilot should know that given full power, an unknown airspeed, a nose-up attitude and a high descent rate that the airplane is probably in a stall.

exelius 8y ago
That was part of the conclusion of the definitive piece of journalism about the crash: Air France had a habit of training pilots fresh up on a jumbo jet, accumulating the required flight hours in a certified simulator (the “company babies” referred to in the article). Part of the confusion was that under “normal law” (typical flight computer rules), that jet literally cannot stall due to pilot input. Thus they dismissed the stall warnings as erroneous because they assumed the flight data was unreliable in some way. Indeed, once the more senior pilot (who flew light aircraft) was on the bridge, it didn’t take him long to figure out what was going on... and once he did his ability to think coherently broke down because he knew they were in a high speed stall and probably going to die any moment.