4 ms·

Yeah, I guess as someone who's had minimal instruction it seemed obvious. But reading the article it's clear that the junior FO was trained basically exclusive

Yeah, I guess as someone who's had minimal instruction it seemed obvious. But reading the article it's clear that the junior FO was trained basically exclusively on the fly-by-wire Airbuses and probably didn't have that intuitive understanding when that protection was stripped away.

mrguyorama 3y ago
The plane in this case doesn't matter. No training for stalls ever tells you to pull up. It's directly opposed to how stalls ARE trained. This pilot was a chaos monkey, and the other pilots were unable or unwilling to get the chaos monkey out of the situation. He had completely reverted to human instinct, which is terrible for flying, and also was letting himself override his copilot, who was handling the situation much better. People act like this situation wouldn't have happened had they had boeing style connected controls, but it's pretty likely that in this state, Bonin would have actively been wrestling with the controls to point the nose up in that state too. The only way to keep Bonin from killing everyone would have been to restrain him. There is no reliable way to "knock" someone out of that kind of panic state.
- afterburner 3y ago
  Perhaps the physical effort of struggling against his co-pilot would have made him realize he was doing something wrong. It's too easy to pull back full on a fully non-mechanical control, and just lock up there.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    No, this situation is the same as when lifeguards are warned about saving panicking and drowning people, in that if you don't handle them in specific ways they will happily drown you in their panic. You cannot rely on "shaking someone out of it" in these circumstances because there is no reliable way to force the brain to reject it's panic instincts and return to rational thought. The only solution would have been physical restraint. Bonin was an active threat
    - afterburner 3y ago
      Locking him out of the controls would have been enough (if the technology allowed it). Even just relieving him of his duty would have been enough. If Captain Dubois had been there early enough and decided to relieve him, Bonin would have almost certainly obeyed. If he doesn't, then I guess then you can resort to force.
- t0mas88 3y ago
  Indeed. Other controls would have caused a wrestling match over the controls with probably the same outcome. I believe the best solution is what Airbus implemented after this incident. An alert if there is dual input, and a button for the captain's side to override the other side. No need to wrestle, press the priority button and take over control.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    Those existed before this accident. Bonin pressed the priority button to steal control from the other pilot, who was fixing things, at least once, and "dual input" alarms sounded pretty much the entire time the plane was falling out of the sky. The ONLY way to have prevented Bonin from crashing the plane would have been to remove him from the controls. He was doing the same thing that lifeguards are warned about; when the human brain is in that kind of panic state, it will happily do things that it should know will inevitably lead to it's own death, like scrambling in such a way that you drown the lifeguard trying to rescue you.
- Mawr 3y ago
  With linked controls the captain would have instantly been able to tell what inputs the copilot was making and could have taken appropriate actions. Aircraft UX should be made in such a way that there's never the slightest of doubts about something as fundamental to its function as where the inputs that its using are coming from.

mrguyorama 3y ago

The plane in this case doesn't matter. No training for stalls ever tells you to pull up. It's directly opposed to how stalls ARE trained. This pilot was a chaos monkey, and the other pilots were unable or unwilling to get the chaos monkey out of the situation. He had completely reverted to human instinct, which is terrible for flying, and also was letting himself override his copilot, who was handling the situation much better. People act like this situation wouldn't have happened had they had boeing style connected controls, but it's pretty likely that in this state, Bonin would have actively been wrestling with the controls to point the nose up in that state too. The only way to keep Bonin from killing everyone would have been to restrain him. There is no reliable way to "knock" someone out of that kind of panic state.

afterburner 3y ago
Perhaps the physical effort of struggling against his co-pilot would have made him realize he was doing something wrong. It's too easy to pull back full on a fully non-mechanical control, and just lock up there.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  No, this situation is the same as when lifeguards are warned about saving panicking and drowning people, in that if you don't handle them in specific ways they will happily drown you in their panic. You cannot rely on "shaking someone out of it" in these circumstances because there is no reliable way to force the brain to reject it's panic instincts and return to rational thought. The only solution would have been physical restraint. Bonin was an active threat
  - afterburner 3y ago
    Locking him out of the controls would have been enough (if the technology allowed it). Even just relieving him of his duty would have been enough. If Captain Dubois had been there early enough and decided to relieve him, Bonin would have almost certainly obeyed. If he doesn't, then I guess then you can resort to force.
t0mas88 3y ago
Indeed. Other controls would have caused a wrestling match over the controls with probably the same outcome. I believe the best solution is what Airbus implemented after this incident. An alert if there is dual input, and a button for the captain's side to override the other side. No need to wrestle, press the priority button and take over control.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  Those existed before this accident. Bonin pressed the priority button to steal control from the other pilot, who was fixing things, at least once, and "dual input" alarms sounded pretty much the entire time the plane was falling out of the sky. The ONLY way to have prevented Bonin from crashing the plane would have been to remove him from the controls. He was doing the same thing that lifeguards are warned about; when the human brain is in that kind of panic state, it will happily do things that it should know will inevitably lead to it's own death, like scrambling in such a way that you drown the lifeguard trying to rescue you.
Mawr 3y ago
With linked controls the captain would have instantly been able to tell what inputs the copilot was making and could have taken appropriate actions. Aircraft UX should be made in such a way that there's never the slightest of doubts about something as fundamental to its function as where the inputs that its using are coming from.