12 ms·

Why aren't black box flight recorders better?

149 points by gus_leonel 3y ago

bell-cot 3y ago
How many self-serving bureaucrats, corporate executives, politicians, and union leaders, from how many different countries, would likely get in the way of actual improvements? How tiny a percent of airline flight outcomes would be substantially improved by any sounds-good change to the Black Boxes? Sticking with the status quo sounds pretty optimal to me. (After several cool-sounding stories of crashes, the article comes to a similar conclusion.)
- detrites 3y ago
  There's no impediment to any aircraft manufacturer or any airline to develop their own superior system, and augment what's required. Surely, the case could be made that it's helpful mitigating even just future revenue catastrophes?
  - stevehawk 3y ago
    Yes there is. It's called the FAA, and they /hate/ change.
    - TylerE 3y ago
      With, to be fair, is a mostly sane attitude in this space. When they DON'T move at glacial pace you get the 737 MAX.
      - jodrellblank 3y ago
        Don’t give Boeing any leeway to excuse this, it wasn’t then innovating and the FAA moving fast: > “Boeing has agreed to pay $2.5bn (£1.8bn) to settle US criminal charges that it hid information from safety officials about the design of its 737 Max planes. The US Justice Department said the firm chose "profit over candour"” https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55582496 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55582496
      - mastercheif 3y ago
        > When they DON'T move at glacial pace you get the 737 MAX. I’d argue the existence of the 737 MAX was a response to the FAA moving at a glacial pace, if you want to look at root causes. The 737 MAX exists because Boeing was getting their butts handed to them in the market by the Airbus A320 Neo due to its superior fuel efficiency. Boeing engineers wanted to create a new clean sheet single aisle aircraft to replace the 50 year old 737 (+737 NG) design. However, Boeing management decided that it would take too long to design + get it past the FAA , so they pivoted to another 737 upgrade. Another factor in this decision was that upgrading the 737 would allow the airlines to transfer their pilots over with minimal training. However, to keep the same "type" as a 737, Boeing had to keep the planes dynamics exactly the same as the previous model. Simultaneously, Boeing went on a full on lobbying blitz to get the FAA to allow them to “self certify” aspects of the design. Boeing had a legitimate argument here, the ESEA had streamlined the type variant process years ago allowing Airbus to quickly iterate on their existing designs. So congress/FAA finally relents and allows Boeing to bring stuff in house. However, in retrospect, this was done without the collaboration and checks that the ESEA and Airbus have implemented, ensuring that the process generates the correct results. If the FAA I’ve been quicker to read the tea leaves and implement a collaborative model, I’d like to think that flies in the 737 MAX would’ve been caught.
        TylerE 3y ago
        A big part of why Airbus can get away with it because of their control model. It's total fly by wire, so a given input will result in the exact same roll/pitch rate, vs on a Boeing where the inputs map to control deflections. So Airbus gets "flies the same" for free.
        Maken 3y ago
        Do you have more info about this? Sounds like a interesting design decision (I'm not a aeronautical engineer).
        TylerE 3y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_control_modes#Flight_mode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_control_modes#Flight_mo... If you read all the way down to "Direct Law", which is the most degraded of all the FBW modes, that's how a Boeing normally works. The Airbus system really makes life quite easy in a lot of ways... the aircraft will fly the exact same at maximum and minimum weights, etc.
      - Scoundreller 3y ago
        My hypothesis about the 737 MAX is because the FAA advanced its safety standards so much that it made sense to keep building older designs at a lower cost, which are for some reason grandfathered. Carmakers can’t mass produce older designs meeting older standards without airbags using “the design was approved in the past” excuse, but that’s totally cool in aviation.
  - bell-cot 3y ago
    Even if you're dodging ~all the regulations which specify the current Black Boxes by adding a separate, independent system (and you'll still face a lot of regulations)...there still are three obvious impediments - (1) development costs, (2) unit costs, and (3) legal liability. Vs. the incredibly-long-odds theory that something might happen, eventually, where your new & better system would be a substantial benefit. (BTW, my experience is that "the case could be made for X" is a polite way of saying "a valid technical argument could be made in favor of X...but in the bigger picture X is clearly the wrong theory / engineering choice / business decision".)
    - ghaff 3y ago
      And, given the rarity of aircraft crashes, the benefit to some small subset of the industry adopting an incrementally better system is probably pretty much nil.
  - ilyt 3y ago
    The vast majority of incidents are brought to conclusion on why it happened. Even the one article uses as an example. I was watching a bunch of post-mortems of various accidents and just about the only thing that came up when it comes to problems with black boxes is: * That some of them recorded voice cabin sound for too short (which was fixed in later ones but there are still some old planes flying * That the cockpit voice recorder recorded in a loop and someone forgot to pull the fuse after accident and it got overwritten. And overall even those would add very little to investigation. It has simply become good enough and still are incrementally improved. - [1] https://www.youtube.com/@MentourPilot/videos https://www.youtube.com/@MentourPilot/videos
  - dghlsakjg 3y ago
    Pilot unions actively lobby against cameras in the cockpit. Some airlines would be in violation of their contracts if they bought more cockpit monitoring systems. It isn’t an entirely unfair gripe. The AF 447 debacle was down to “pilot error” officially. The cause of the crash was that one pilot was commanding the aircraft incorrectly and the other pilots weren’t aware because the dual controls in an Airbus dont mirror each other like in all other aircraft. The real question for me is how do you design critical control systems so poorly that one person can be flying the plane in a configuration they aren’t aware of (the stick on an Airbus will react differently to the same input differently based on conditions) , and the other two people in the cockpit aren’t able to even see this. This is a design issue.
    - FabHK 3y ago
      > and the other two people in the cockpit aren’t able to even see this. Presumably they would have seen it if they had looked. But they didn't feel it.
      - dghlsakjg 3y ago
        They would have had to have seen it over by the pilots knee, known that that stick was active, and known that the aircraft had switched automatically to ALT2 in the middle of trying to figure out the equipment problem that caused the initial instrument problem. Normally a full back stick command wouldn’t have stalled the aircraft, but because the airplane entered ALT2 mode automatically the stick allowed the pilot to do something that normally wouldn’t happen. If the pilot had done exactly what he did 5 minutes earlier, the exact same command would have not led to a crash. In other words, the main control device for the aircraft can do something different depending on circumstance. This would be like a car steering wheel becoming twice as sensitive when the speedometer malfunctions. The idea is that, yes, the pilots were trained on this, so it’s their fault no matter how complex the system is.
- jemmyw 3y ago
  Continually sending the position of the plane would be an improvement so that black box can be more easily located after an accident.
  - wongarsu 3y ago
    We are now doing that. Planes with ADS-B send out their position, altitude, direction and speed every eight seconds. That's how flightradar24 tracks most airplanes. ADS-B has been introduced sometime in the mid-2000s, and became mandatory in many countries in 2020. It originally depended on ground receivers or other aircraft picking up the transmission though, which is an issue if a plane goes missing in the middle of an ocean. This seems to be mostly solved now by satellites equiped with receivers.
    - stevehawk 3y ago
      Just FYI that not all countries require equipment for space based ADSB ( like the USA ). Many of our commercial airliners have it but mostly in the name of travel abroad.
      - crote 3y ago
        What kind of equipment does an airplane need for "space-based" ADS-B? Isn't it just satellites capturing the regular air-to-ground ADS-B signals?
        jffry 3y ago
        Wikipedia [1] says that there are two challenges: - ADS-B can be broadcast on two frequencies (978 MHz and 1090 MHz). FAA requires aircraft operating above 18000 feet to use 1090, while either may be used by craft flying lower. (It seems like the equipment is less expensive). This means 1090 is used more heavily by large commercial craft and so 1090 is the only band the satellites currently listen to. - Smaller private craft sometimes use belly-mounted antennas and so their hull can block signal propagation upwards [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Dependent_Surveillance%E2%80%93Broadcast#Satellite_(space_based)_ADS-B_Collection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Dependent_Surveillan...
- benreesman 3y ago
  This is the sort of comment I come to HN for and hate that I come to HN for: rational, pragmatic, realistic, savvy, read the article, and Fuck the world doesn’t have to be like this. This Byzantine maze puzzle of inherited wealth and hopeless inequality and every part of it does feel inevitable and it feels naive to the point of stupid that anything could be reformed. But I try to remember that it’s all pretty made up north of the actual physics. We put up with this because we’re collectively agreeing to.
  - bell-cot 3y ago
    Rather than spending more time on-line, stewing in negative emotions over the cardinality of { Imperfection in world | solving Imperfection appears ~impossible or unrealistic } ...perhaps it would feel better if you did some regular volunteering in meatspace? There's probably a soup kitchen / food bank / public park / animal shelter / school / whatever near you, where your help would have immediate and obvious benefits.
jmclnx 3y ago
You know why :) Stockholders, Corp Execs want their dividends and bonuses. Saving lives comes last. There was a proposal to also send this info real time, but that has been shotdown many times.
- some_random 3y ago
  Ah yes, FAA's famous corporate execs and stocks with their famously good dividends.
  - nathants 3y ago
    i believe it’s called the revolving door.
nikanj 3y ago
I’d like to understand how we keep losing planes. Satellite internet+GPS could enable semi-realtime location tracking for all planes. Instead we get cases like MH370, where we are completely clueless where a plane went.
- dale_glass 3y ago
  The ocean is enormous, featureless, opaque and deep. It also has currents that can easily move something like an airplane. Compared to something like the Titanic, an airplane weighs almost nothing parts can easily end up far away from where it fell.
  - hgomersall 3y ago
    That's not primarily why MH570 was lost. Nobody had any idea where to begin looking. A GPS fix at the point of crash would have changed the search hugely.
- crote 3y ago
  A big issue with MH370 is that they turned off the equipment transmitting their location, so the only way to track it was by traditional radar. GPS and satellite internet isn't going to help with that.
  - jmkni 3y ago
    Is the general consensus that the equipment was intentionally turned off, or just that something happened that turned it off?
    - phire 3y ago
      Immediately after the equipment stopped operating, MH-370 made a series of course changes. It did a ~160 degree turn (at a very high angle of bank) and flew along the border between Malaysia/Thailand border (probably assuming that military RADAR operators in both countries would assume the flight belonged to the other country). Once passed Malaysia, it then turned north to avoid Indonesia and flew along the Strait of Malacca. [1] It doesn't show up on RADAR again, but we know it later turned almost directly south after passing the northern tip of Indonesia. This route comes across as so calculated with the explicit intent of going missing, that it's really hard to justify any scenario that doesn't start with the equipment being turned off intentionally and maliciously. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370#/media/File:MH370_flight_path_with_English_labels.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370#/...
some_random 3y ago
For the same reason why GA aircraft still fill up on leaded fuel, the FAA doesn't really give a shit and there's no incentive from private companies to make them care.
- xyzzyz 3y ago
  We are on leaded fuel precisely because FAA makes it too hard to certify new GA engines. Private companies have every incentive to use better, cheaper and more reliable tech, and consumers want them too. Without FAA, we’d long be flying on automotive diesel engines.
  - some_random 3y ago
    Engines absolutely, but the fuel companies who would be developing alternatives to 100LL definitely do not have an incentive to do so
    - Gordonjcp 3y ago
      They don't need to develop an alternative to 100LL. Oil companies make it in such small quantities it's a total pain in the arse to cope with. If you adapt a car engine (like a VW Beetle or Subaru engine, both flat-fours and common lightweight GA power plants) then it just runs on ordinary 95 octane unleaded, the exact same stuff you put in your car.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      I believe two companies have made a 100LL substitute fuel; neither has been approved.
    - ZekeSulastin 3y ago
      It does exist, it has been approved by the FAA, and you can go buy the STC right now if you want[0]. The incentive is that 100LL has been banned by at least one county[1] with states[2] trying to follow (although the AOPA successfully neutered that one[3]). [0] https://www.g100ul.com/ https://www.g100ul.com/ [1] https://www.globalair.com/articles/california-county-that-banned-100ll-to-be-first-in-faa-lead-free-transition?id=5552 https://www.globalair.com/articles/california-county-that-ba... [2] https://www.flyingmag.com/washington-bill-seeks-statewide-ban-of-100ll/hh https://www.flyingmag.com/washington-bill-seeks-statewide-ba... [3] https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2023/march/16/aopa-fights-back-on-washington-state-bill-banning-100ll-sales https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2023/march/16/a...
bnycum 3y ago
I work on flight data recorders, mainly in rotorcraft but some small fixed wing aircraft. The current generation does use a satellite connection for real time tracking, as well as sending high level caution information, and a few data parameters. Really the cost of sending data over the satellite is the real issue. However this is coming down. Outside of that, the ADS-B requirement is a huge help in knowing where aircraft are and where they are going.
- xen2xen1 3y ago
  Yeah, my first thought in reading the article: maybe SpaceX and all the other constellations with make it cheaper to constantly stream data, and just use the expensive satellites for low speed backup. It looks like big planes will all end up with fat internet pipes for the passengers, let's hope that soon extends to avionics info.
- ajsnigrutin 3y ago
  Is there some good explanation, show a sinking titanic was heard both in london and new york, but a modern(...ish) MH-370 can just dissapear? I'm sure that there are a bunch of factors in play, but tracking a plane seems like a relatively simple and a high priority thing to do, and relatively cheap compared to a total cost of a plane. GPS, satellite connectivity, battery backup and even in a case of a total explosion, at least you know the last location, speed and direction to try to find the wreckage.
  - ipython 3y ago
    The difference is that the mh370 pilot deliberately took actions to avoid tracking. At some point if you can’t trust the captain of your vessel, that person can disrupt or disable most any system put in place. If the captain of the titanic intended on sinking the ship without a trace, he most certainly would have succeeded as well. A more apt comparison would be AF447, which took a few days before the wreckage was found. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447
    - 3y ago
yair99dd 3y ago
The following is related, also one of the best magazine articles i came across, thanks HN The Human Factor – the 2009 crash of Air France Flight 447 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8452080 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8452080
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
WalterBright 3y ago
> It was a wake-up call to the airline industry of the dangers of over-reliance on automation. Ironically, if the pilots had simply let go of the controls, the airplane would have righted itself.
- rocket_surgeron 3y ago
  My gut tells me that the number of fatal incidents that would be prevented by complete "takeoff to landing" automation vastly exceeds the number of incidents prevented by a human correcting a computer or recovering from a failed instrument or system. I'm willing to bet that for every "miracle on the Hudson" there are ten or more "the pilots should have just let go of the controls and let the computer handle things, or trusted their artificial horizon after getting disoriented". The number of FAA accident investigations that mention spatial disorientation is too great to be otherwise.
  - cmurf 3y ago
    Autopilots disconnect all the time. They can have a pretty low threshold for the conditions they’ll tolerate. Autoland can handle moderate surface winds, but pilots can handle much more. Turbulence and autopilot function is more variable. Some autopilots disconnect prematurely, others need intervention. Pilots train for these idiosyncrasies. The computer needs reliable data. When the data is faulty, the logic fails. This happened with AF 447. One annoying aspect of that event for me is the obtuse ways the system communicated what alternate law was in effect. Two of three pilots became confused by the computers’ confusion. The computer itself had given up. The plane stalled all the way into the ocean, one of the more simple conditions to recognize and recover from. The captain quicky recognized the condition and solution, but he had arrived in the cockpit too late to compel corrective action.
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    Then you have the MAX crash, where the automation was causing the problem, and the solution was to remember to hit the stab trim cutoff switch.
WalterBright 3y ago
> it continued recording for a split second after the power had been cut off, Sigh, I'd include a capacitor in the design so the box will record a few seconds after the power is cut off.
- ComputerGuru 3y ago
  Or a battery so it can keep recording for hours? I'm sure that telemetry is rare and valuable.
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    It doesn't need to keep recording after a crash, and really, just a few seconds after the event that precipitated the crash is all that's necessary (I've watched every episode of Aviation Disasters).
    - ComputerGuru 3y ago
      > just a few seconds after the event that precipitated the crash is all that's necessary Necessary for what? I was thinking more along the lines of giving us more raw data to be able to better deduce where planes might end up post-crash.
      - WalterBright 3y ago
        Necessary for determining the cause of the accident.
      - jonathankoren 3y ago
        It’s not necessary after the crash. It’s necessary for after power failure. These are not the same thing.
  - Prickle 3y ago
    Batteries are excluded for good reason. The device and battery can be a fire hazard. It needs to be capable of surviving high temperatures and pressures. The risk of any kind of electrical fault inside the recorder also needs to be exactly 0. That's not all though. The boxes cannot actually get any data. The data needs to be sent to the black boxes from other sensors throughout the aircraft. So if the power to the blackbox is cut, it's likely that there is no power to the aircraft in general. That means there is no point in continuing to record. If we do include batteries, those batteries need to be able to power all relevant systems on the aircraft itself. Also, technically flight recorders already have batteries. But those batteries are usually reserved for the locator beacons. Not recording. They are also located outside the black box itself. (although they are attached together and installed as one device.
WalterBright 3y ago
Should also have a video camera in the cockpit. Many crashes would have been resolved much sooner if they'd known what the crew was doing instead of doing a lot of guesswork.
- deepsun 3y ago
  No, FDR has 99% of useful data (signals from sensors and input controls). It's much more important than voice. Video would probably just show what toggles they touch, and FDR already has that. Voice is used just for figuring out pilots' thought process and commands received.
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    I've watched all the Aviation Disasters episodes, each one analyzes a crash. A cockpit video would have cleared up a couple of them, and would have resolved many more much quicker. For example, a video would show who was in which seat, who touched the controls, where the pilots were looking, what the pilots could see, etc.
    - deepsun 3y ago
      Interesting, thank you.
  - Nikbul 3y ago
    It has that, but not showing who did it. Also if pilot needs to pull out a book or other manual, material, etc, FDR can't record that. Distractions of information given from attendants to the pilots is not given. Simple example: captain goes to restroom and second pilot passes out.. good luck figuring out why plane suddenly nose dived to the ground
  - cmcaleer 3y ago
    Voice is incredibly useful for the reasons you outlined. I cannot believe that in an era of 1TB microSD that serious incidents like the Air Canada near miss can happen and the flight crew can escape accountability by allowing the CVR to overwrite itself.
nikau 3y ago
What a stupid article. MH370 pilot disabled telemetry.

149 points by gus_leonel 3y ago

How many self-serving bureaucrats, corporate executives, politicians, and union leaders, from how many different countries, would likely get in the way of actual improvements? How tiny a percent of airline flight outcomes would be substantially improved by any sounds-good change to the Black Boxes? Sticking with the status quo sounds pretty optimal to me. (After several cool-sounding stories of crashes, the article comes to a similar conclusion.)

detrites 3y ago
There's no impediment to any aircraft manufacturer or any airline to develop their own superior system, and augment what's required. Surely, the case could be made that it's helpful mitigating even just future revenue catastrophes?
- stevehawk 3y ago
  Yes there is. It's called the FAA, and they /hate/ change.
  - TylerE 3y ago
    With, to be fair, is a mostly sane attitude in this space. When they DON'T move at glacial pace you get the 737 MAX.
    - jodrellblank 3y ago
      Don’t give Boeing any leeway to excuse this, it wasn’t then innovating and the FAA moving fast: > “Boeing has agreed to pay $2.5bn (£1.8bn) to settle US criminal charges that it hid information from safety officials about the design of its 737 Max planes. The US Justice Department said the firm chose "profit over candour"” https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55582496 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55582496
    - mastercheif 3y ago
      > When they DON'T move at glacial pace you get the 737 MAX. I’d argue the existence of the 737 MAX was a response to the FAA moving at a glacial pace, if you want to look at root causes. The 737 MAX exists because Boeing was getting their butts handed to them in the market by the Airbus A320 Neo due to its superior fuel efficiency. Boeing engineers wanted to create a new clean sheet single aisle aircraft to replace the 50 year old 737 (+737 NG) design. However, Boeing management decided that it would take too long to design + get it past the FAA , so they pivoted to another 737 upgrade. Another factor in this decision was that upgrading the 737 would allow the airlines to transfer their pilots over with minimal training. However, to keep the same "type" as a 737, Boeing had to keep the planes dynamics exactly the same as the previous model. Simultaneously, Boeing went on a full on lobbying blitz to get the FAA to allow them to “self certify” aspects of the design. Boeing had a legitimate argument here, the ESEA had streamlined the type variant process years ago allowing Airbus to quickly iterate on their existing designs. So congress/FAA finally relents and allows Boeing to bring stuff in house. However, in retrospect, this was done without the collaboration and checks that the ESEA and Airbus have implemented, ensuring that the process generates the correct results. If the FAA I’ve been quicker to read the tea leaves and implement a collaborative model, I’d like to think that flies in the 737 MAX would’ve been caught.
      - TylerE 3y ago
        A big part of why Airbus can get away with it because of their control model. It's total fly by wire, so a given input will result in the exact same roll/pitch rate, vs on a Boeing where the inputs map to control deflections. So Airbus gets "flies the same" for free.
        Maken 3y ago
        Do you have more info about this? Sounds like a interesting design decision (I'm not a aeronautical engineer).
        TylerE 3y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_control_modes#Flight_mode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_control_modes#Flight_mo... If you read all the way down to "Direct Law", which is the most degraded of all the FBW modes, that's how a Boeing normally works. The Airbus system really makes life quite easy in a lot of ways... the aircraft will fly the exact same at maximum and minimum weights, etc.
    - Scoundreller 3y ago
      My hypothesis about the 737 MAX is because the FAA advanced its safety standards so much that it made sense to keep building older designs at a lower cost, which are for some reason grandfathered. Carmakers can’t mass produce older designs meeting older standards without airbags using “the design was approved in the past” excuse, but that’s totally cool in aviation.
- bell-cot 3y ago
  Even if you're dodging ~all the regulations which specify the current Black Boxes by adding a separate, independent system (and you'll still face a lot of regulations)...there still are three obvious impediments - (1) development costs, (2) unit costs, and (3) legal liability. Vs. the incredibly-long-odds theory that something might happen, eventually, where your new & better system would be a substantial benefit. (BTW, my experience is that "the case could be made for X" is a polite way of saying "a valid technical argument could be made in favor of X...but in the bigger picture X is clearly the wrong theory / engineering choice / business decision".)
  - ghaff 3y ago
    And, given the rarity of aircraft crashes, the benefit to some small subset of the industry adopting an incrementally better system is probably pretty much nil.
- ilyt 3y ago
  The vast majority of incidents are brought to conclusion on why it happened. Even the one article uses as an example. I was watching a bunch of post-mortems of various accidents and just about the only thing that came up when it comes to problems with black boxes is: * That some of them recorded voice cabin sound for too short (which was fixed in later ones but there are still some old planes flying * That the cockpit voice recorder recorded in a loop and someone forgot to pull the fuse after accident and it got overwritten. And overall even those would add very little to investigation. It has simply become good enough and still are incrementally improved. - [1] https://www.youtube.com/@MentourPilot/videos https://www.youtube.com/@MentourPilot/videos
- dghlsakjg 3y ago
  Pilot unions actively lobby against cameras in the cockpit. Some airlines would be in violation of their contracts if they bought more cockpit monitoring systems. It isn’t an entirely unfair gripe. The AF 447 debacle was down to “pilot error” officially. The cause of the crash was that one pilot was commanding the aircraft incorrectly and the other pilots weren’t aware because the dual controls in an Airbus dont mirror each other like in all other aircraft. The real question for me is how do you design critical control systems so poorly that one person can be flying the plane in a configuration they aren’t aware of (the stick on an Airbus will react differently to the same input differently based on conditions) , and the other two people in the cockpit aren’t able to even see this. This is a design issue.
  - FabHK 3y ago
    > and the other two people in the cockpit aren’t able to even see this. Presumably they would have seen it if they had looked. But they didn't feel it.
    - dghlsakjg 3y ago
      They would have had to have seen it over by the pilots knee, known that that stick was active, and known that the aircraft had switched automatically to ALT2 in the middle of trying to figure out the equipment problem that caused the initial instrument problem. Normally a full back stick command wouldn’t have stalled the aircraft, but because the airplane entered ALT2 mode automatically the stick allowed the pilot to do something that normally wouldn’t happen. If the pilot had done exactly what he did 5 minutes earlier, the exact same command would have not led to a crash. In other words, the main control device for the aircraft can do something different depending on circumstance. This would be like a car steering wheel becoming twice as sensitive when the speedometer malfunctions. The idea is that, yes, the pilots were trained on this, so it’s their fault no matter how complex the system is.
jemmyw 3y ago
Continually sending the position of the plane would be an improvement so that black box can be more easily located after an accident.
- wongarsu 3y ago
  We are now doing that. Planes with ADS-B send out their position, altitude, direction and speed every eight seconds. That's how flightradar24 tracks most airplanes. ADS-B has been introduced sometime in the mid-2000s, and became mandatory in many countries in 2020. It originally depended on ground receivers or other aircraft picking up the transmission though, which is an issue if a plane goes missing in the middle of an ocean. This seems to be mostly solved now by satellites equiped with receivers.
  - stevehawk 3y ago
    Just FYI that not all countries require equipment for space based ADSB ( like the USA ). Many of our commercial airliners have it but mostly in the name of travel abroad.
    - crote 3y ago
      What kind of equipment does an airplane need for "space-based" ADS-B? Isn't it just satellites capturing the regular air-to-ground ADS-B signals?
      - jffry 3y ago
        Wikipedia [1] says that there are two challenges: - ADS-B can be broadcast on two frequencies (978 MHz and 1090 MHz). FAA requires aircraft operating above 18000 feet to use 1090, while either may be used by craft flying lower. (It seems like the equipment is less expensive). This means 1090 is used more heavily by large commercial craft and so 1090 is the only band the satellites currently listen to. - Smaller private craft sometimes use belly-mounted antennas and so their hull can block signal propagation upwards [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Dependent_Surveillance%E2%80%93Broadcast#Satellite_(space_based)_ADS-B_Collection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Dependent_Surveillan...
benreesman 3y ago
This is the sort of comment I come to HN for and hate that I come to HN for: rational, pragmatic, realistic, savvy, read the article, and Fuck the world doesn’t have to be like this. This Byzantine maze puzzle of inherited wealth and hopeless inequality and every part of it does feel inevitable and it feels naive to the point of stupid that anything could be reformed. But I try to remember that it’s all pretty made up north of the actual physics. We put up with this because we’re collectively agreeing to.
- bell-cot 3y ago
  Rather than spending more time on-line, stewing in negative emotions over the cardinality of { Imperfection in world | solving Imperfection appears ~impossible or unrealistic } ...perhaps it would feel better if you did some regular volunteering in meatspace? There's probably a soup kitchen / food bank / public park / animal shelter / school / whatever near you, where your help would have immediate and obvious benefits.

jmclnx 3y ago

You know why :) Stockholders, Corp Execs want their dividends and bonuses. Saving lives comes last. There was a proposal to also send this info real time, but that has been shotdown many times.

some_random 3y ago
Ah yes, FAA's famous corporate execs and stocks with their famously good dividends.
- nathants 3y ago
  i believe it’s called the revolving door.

nikanj 3y ago

I’d like to understand how we keep losing planes. Satellite internet+GPS could enable semi-realtime location tracking for all planes. Instead we get cases like MH370, where we are completely clueless where a plane went.

dale_glass 3y ago
The ocean is enormous, featureless, opaque and deep. It also has currents that can easily move something like an airplane. Compared to something like the Titanic, an airplane weighs almost nothing parts can easily end up far away from where it fell.
- hgomersall 3y ago
  That's not primarily why MH570 was lost. Nobody had any idea where to begin looking. A GPS fix at the point of crash would have changed the search hugely.
crote 3y ago
A big issue with MH370 is that they turned off the equipment transmitting their location, so the only way to track it was by traditional radar. GPS and satellite internet isn't going to help with that.
- jmkni 3y ago
  Is the general consensus that the equipment was intentionally turned off, or just that something happened that turned it off?
  - phire 3y ago
    Immediately after the equipment stopped operating, MH-370 made a series of course changes. It did a ~160 degree turn (at a very high angle of bank) and flew along the border between Malaysia/Thailand border (probably assuming that military RADAR operators in both countries would assume the flight belonged to the other country). Once passed Malaysia, it then turned north to avoid Indonesia and flew along the Strait of Malacca. [1] It doesn't show up on RADAR again, but we know it later turned almost directly south after passing the northern tip of Indonesia. This route comes across as so calculated with the explicit intent of going missing, that it's really hard to justify any scenario that doesn't start with the equipment being turned off intentionally and maliciously. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370#/media/File:MH370_flight_path_with_English_labels.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370#/...

some_random 3y ago

For the same reason why GA aircraft still fill up on leaded fuel, the FAA doesn't really give a shit and there's no incentive from private companies to make them care.

xyzzyz 3y ago
We are on leaded fuel precisely because FAA makes it too hard to certify new GA engines. Private companies have every incentive to use better, cheaper and more reliable tech, and consumers want them too. Without FAA, we’d long be flying on automotive diesel engines.
- some_random 3y ago
  Engines absolutely, but the fuel companies who would be developing alternatives to 100LL definitely do not have an incentive to do so
  - Gordonjcp 3y ago
    They don't need to develop an alternative to 100LL. Oil companies make it in such small quantities it's a total pain in the arse to cope with. If you adapt a car engine (like a VW Beetle or Subaru engine, both flat-fours and common lightweight GA power plants) then it just runs on ordinary 95 octane unleaded, the exact same stuff you put in your car.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    I believe two companies have made a 100LL substitute fuel; neither has been approved.
  - ZekeSulastin 3y ago
    It does exist, it has been approved by the FAA, and you can go buy the STC right now if you want[0]. The incentive is that 100LL has been banned by at least one county[1] with states[2] trying to follow (although the AOPA successfully neutered that one[3]). [0] https://www.g100ul.com/ https://www.g100ul.com/ [1] https://www.globalair.com/articles/california-county-that-banned-100ll-to-be-first-in-faa-lead-free-transition?id=5552 https://www.globalair.com/articles/california-county-that-ba... [2] https://www.flyingmag.com/washington-bill-seeks-statewide-ban-of-100ll/hh https://www.flyingmag.com/washington-bill-seeks-statewide-ba... [3] https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2023/march/16/aopa-fights-back-on-washington-state-bill-banning-100ll-sales https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2023/march/16/a...

bnycum 3y ago

I work on flight data recorders, mainly in rotorcraft but some small fixed wing aircraft. The current generation does use a satellite connection for real time tracking, as well as sending high level caution information, and a few data parameters. Really the cost of sending data over the satellite is the real issue. However this is coming down. Outside of that, the ADS-B requirement is a huge help in knowing where aircraft are and where they are going.

xen2xen1 3y ago
Yeah, my first thought in reading the article: maybe SpaceX and all the other constellations with make it cheaper to constantly stream data, and just use the expensive satellites for low speed backup. It looks like big planes will all end up with fat internet pipes for the passengers, let's hope that soon extends to avionics info.
ajsnigrutin 3y ago
Is there some good explanation, show a sinking titanic was heard both in london and new york, but a modern(...ish) MH-370 can just dissapear? I'm sure that there are a bunch of factors in play, but tracking a plane seems like a relatively simple and a high priority thing to do, and relatively cheap compared to a total cost of a plane. GPS, satellite connectivity, battery backup and even in a case of a total explosion, at least you know the last location, speed and direction to try to find the wreckage.
- ipython 3y ago
  The difference is that the mh370 pilot deliberately took actions to avoid tracking. At some point if you can’t trust the captain of your vessel, that person can disrupt or disable most any system put in place. If the captain of the titanic intended on sinking the ship without a trace, he most certainly would have succeeded as well. A more apt comparison would be AF447, which took a few days before the wreckage was found. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447
  - 3y ago

yair99dd 3y ago

The following is related, also one of the best magazine articles i came across, thanks HN The Human Factor – the 2009 crash of Air France Flight 447 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8452080 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8452080

deleted 3y ago

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WalterBright 3y ago

> It was a wake-up call to the airline industry of the dangers of over-reliance on automation. Ironically, if the pilots had simply let go of the controls, the airplane would have righted itself.

rocket_surgeron 3y ago
My gut tells me that the number of fatal incidents that would be prevented by complete "takeoff to landing" automation vastly exceeds the number of incidents prevented by a human correcting a computer or recovering from a failed instrument or system. I'm willing to bet that for every "miracle on the Hudson" there are ten or more "the pilots should have just let go of the controls and let the computer handle things, or trusted their artificial horizon after getting disoriented". The number of FAA accident investigations that mention spatial disorientation is too great to be otherwise.
- cmurf 3y ago
  Autopilots disconnect all the time. They can have a pretty low threshold for the conditions they’ll tolerate. Autoland can handle moderate surface winds, but pilots can handle much more. Turbulence and autopilot function is more variable. Some autopilots disconnect prematurely, others need intervention. Pilots train for these idiosyncrasies. The computer needs reliable data. When the data is faulty, the logic fails. This happened with AF 447. One annoying aspect of that event for me is the obtuse ways the system communicated what alternate law was in effect. Two of three pilots became confused by the computers’ confusion. The computer itself had given up. The plane stalled all the way into the ocean, one of the more simple conditions to recognize and recover from. The captain quicky recognized the condition and solution, but he had arrived in the cockpit too late to compel corrective action.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  Then you have the MAX crash, where the automation was causing the problem, and the solution was to remember to hit the stab trim cutoff switch.

WalterBright 3y ago

> it continued recording for a split second after the power had been cut off, Sigh, I'd include a capacitor in the design so the box will record a few seconds after the power is cut off.

ComputerGuru 3y ago
Or a battery so it can keep recording for hours? I'm sure that telemetry is rare and valuable.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  It doesn't need to keep recording after a crash, and really, just a few seconds after the event that precipitated the crash is all that's necessary (I've watched every episode of Aviation Disasters).
  - ComputerGuru 3y ago
    > just a few seconds after the event that precipitated the crash is all that's necessary Necessary for what? I was thinking more along the lines of giving us more raw data to be able to better deduce where planes might end up post-crash.
    - WalterBright 3y ago
      Necessary for determining the cause of the accident.
    - jonathankoren 3y ago
      It’s not necessary after the crash. It’s necessary for after power failure. These are not the same thing.
- Prickle 3y ago
  Batteries are excluded for good reason. The device and battery can be a fire hazard. It needs to be capable of surviving high temperatures and pressures. The risk of any kind of electrical fault inside the recorder also needs to be exactly 0. That's not all though. The boxes cannot actually get any data. The data needs to be sent to the black boxes from other sensors throughout the aircraft. So if the power to the blackbox is cut, it's likely that there is no power to the aircraft in general. That means there is no point in continuing to record. If we do include batteries, those batteries need to be able to power all relevant systems on the aircraft itself. Also, technically flight recorders already have batteries. But those batteries are usually reserved for the locator beacons. Not recording. They are also located outside the black box itself. (although they are attached together and installed as one device.

WalterBright 3y ago

Should also have a video camera in the cockpit. Many crashes would have been resolved much sooner if they'd known what the crew was doing instead of doing a lot of guesswork.

deepsun 3y ago
No, FDR has 99% of useful data (signals from sensors and input controls). It's much more important than voice. Video would probably just show what toggles they touch, and FDR already has that. Voice is used just for figuring out pilots' thought process and commands received.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  I've watched all the Aviation Disasters episodes, each one analyzes a crash. A cockpit video would have cleared up a couple of them, and would have resolved many more much quicker. For example, a video would show who was in which seat, who touched the controls, where the pilots were looking, what the pilots could see, etc.
  - deepsun 3y ago
    Interesting, thank you.
- Nikbul 3y ago
  It has that, but not showing who did it. Also if pilot needs to pull out a book or other manual, material, etc, FDR can't record that. Distractions of information given from attendants to the pilots is not given. Simple example: captain goes to restroom and second pilot passes out.. good luck figuring out why plane suddenly nose dived to the ground
- cmcaleer 3y ago
  Voice is incredibly useful for the reasons you outlined. I cannot believe that in an era of 1TB microSD that serious incidents like the Air Canada near miss can happen and the flight crew can escape accountability by allowing the CVR to overwrite itself.

nikau 3y ago

What a stupid article. MH370 pilot disabled telemetry.